Wake up call!

At 7am almost every morning for the last 2 months I've had a wakeup call of hammering, sawing, drilling and various other construction sounds. The owner and developer of our neighborhood have collectively decided that now is the time to finish developing our neighborhood. When they started there were about 20 lots remaining, including one to either side of our home and directly across the street. The home across the street was completed a scant 5.5 weeks from when they first broke ground and the new owners moved in last week.

This morning I woke to sounds extremely close to our home and after looking out our side window I saw this excavator and several men and their other vehicles. We knew the day was coming. . . in fact figured it would be soon. So it's begun.

They were at other locations until right when Rocky and I got home today. Rocky went over to talk to the operator and discovered it was the owner. Rocky and I had previously discussed renting some equipment to do some excavation work in our back yard. The project had not gotten started other than Rocky doing the shoveling and rock wall building by hand on the right side of the back yard where he built a gorgeous raised bed, retaining wall.

Rocky talked to the machine owner/operator and asked if he could do the work that we wanted done. Though before he started, we had agreed upon a price (that being for the estimated several hours of work that it would take) after Rocky and I demolished the fence and moved the plants and rocks (landscaping) he came over to our yard and did what we needed in 20 minutes! And to top it all off, when we asked his price, he said no charge! He did it for free. Hallelujah, Praise God!

So now this summer Rocky and I have our work literally cut out for us in our back yard! This picture shows both lots, the property line is slightly to the left of center of the pipe.

Later this week, probably tomorrow this pipe will be extended 16' and more dirt will be brought in to back fill the lot to the left of our home. Once that is done Rocky can extend this section of fence to enclose our back yard again. Some of the original fencing is laying against the back of our house, and at the corner of the house you can see a dark mark on the siding that is where the fence originally was positioned.

The below picture really shows the terracing well. In the other pictures it looks graded into a gradual slope, but in this one you can see the enlarged "steps" that we had cut into the yard. Now we need a million rocks to hold up that dirt, and we have tons to start with already in the excavated area.

I was so happy that even in all of the fence removing and excavation our Weeping Willow trees did not have to be moved, and were saved!


Charmie and Mardie had so much fun. When Rocky and Aaron, the guy in the excavator started talking he let Charmie and Mardie sit in the cab of this big machine and for a long time they just crawled around and pressed buttons and gears pretending to drive. Later, after we temporarily lost Mardie (who won't answer when you are calling for him) we partitioned the boys onto the deck due to the fact that both Rocky and I needed to work in the yard to prepare it for this job yet know that the boys were safe. They had a blast, playing in my dirt filled flower pots. Mardie not only bathed in the dirt, but actually ate some. Then they rearranged all of our furniture so that they could climb onto and off of it, and drive their little ride on cars onto and off of it. They tried to remove the baby gate, but it was too sturdy. Just as I was calling it quits Mardie decided to use a chair to climb over the deck railing and was dangling about 6' in the air holding on with just his arms. Rocky realized before I did and sent me to rescue him. Praise God for his protection of babies! That was when I decided to take the boys in for a bath and some indoor play while we waited for Rocky to finish up outside.