Backyard Adventures

According to Merriam Webster an adventure is defined as:

“1. a: An undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks; b: the encountering of risks; 2: an exciting or remarkable experience; 3: an enterprise involving financial risk.”

I must say that I normally think of an adventure as definition number two. After all, life should be lived as a series of remarkable experiences!

My husband was so good to regularly tell our little boys, “We’re going on an adventure today!”

They might have been taking a local walk to a playground or hike through the Cascade Mountains, but it always was an adventure.  So, the boys knew PCSing brought many changes as well as adventures.

On our most recent PCS, we moved into our new house a few weeks before our belongings arrived. We did updates and painted. Then our earthly treasures arrived and we unpacked in a few days. The boys were gleeful. The projects were finished!

Or so they thought!

Convincing the Landscape Crew

When Tim and I married we agreed that he would take charge of the outside chores. But, as all military wives know, all predetermined agreements are off when you have a TDY or deployment.  Seasoned Army wives also know pre-deployment preparation often leads to a rotation at NTC. So, while Dad’s away the boys and I will… sweat?

One boy asked, “What are we doing this weekend?”

“Moving rocks,” I said.

“What do you mean?” they asked.

The home owners before us kept a lovely yard, but it wasn’t our style and didn’t suit our needs. We didn’t want a $100 sprinkler bill each month. We wanted a vegetable garden, fruit trees and (eventually) chickens. The yard as we found it had decorative plants in a rock garden across the back of the yard and mulch that was starting to slide out from under the deck and front flower beds.

The definition of mulch – decorative dirt and sticks that you pay for and have to replace when it starts to look like just dirt. Cross reference with “back pain.”

I wasn’t excited to re-mulch.

The dirt and mulch under the deck was just growing weeds and sliding into the grass, making mud-puddles.   The decorative rocks would not be ideal for growing trees and vegetables.  Plus my husband wanted to expand the garden area to the whole south end of our .25-acre backyard. He’s ambitious.

Thus I proposed an adventure to the boys, one that required the dangers of moving rocks, digging holes, and spreading compost, all while racing against the clock. Could it all be completed before the dreaded deployment rotation?

“Let’s start this project for Dad,” I said.

“Why?” asked one of the boys.

“Dad only has a week’s leave at home once he returns.  Then he has to be at work continually until Thanksgiving. He leaves the day after,” I said, praying that the schedule would continue to be this way.

“Oh,” one of the boys said.

“Don’t you think that would be a thoughtful gift to give your dad? He would be able to start planting the trees once he’s home and won’t have to move rocks first!”

“Yes, ok,” said the reticent boy.

“Mom...” said the second boy thinking.

“Yes?”

“We need a wheelbarrow.”

Oh, that. We would need some supplies.

“Yep,” I said, agreeing that we would need to make a trip to the boys’ favorite hardware store.

The Adventure Begins

Fortunately, I have some handy boys. So, we went to the regional chain hardware store and bought a wheelbarrow. We then put it together. Well, mostly the boys put it together. (Sorry, mom fail. No pictures.)

It took about an hour. It held!

“On to work!” I said zealously.

“How long will we do this?” wondered the less enthusiastic boy.

“Until we have to stop,” I said.

We had to have a hard stop for scheduling purposes. Later I was appreciative of the fact that the calendar had an evening activity on it.

We started at one end of the backyard rock garden. The boys and I used shovels to lift the rocks into the wheelbarrow. They were heavy. We each lifted about four spades-full of rocks into the wheelbarrow. Now THAT was heavy.

The boys argued over who would move the rocks, how best to move the rocks and how best to dump the rocks. Once they came to an agreement (I think rock-paper-scissors was involved), we were good for about 90 minutes. Then they managed to find a reason to argue some more. Life with tweens and teens is, I guess, an adventure in itself.

Eventually we streamlined our process. The boys filled the wheelbarrow and the older boy would wheel it over to me under the deck. I would spread it once he dumped the rocks.

At some point while digging the rocks, we discovered that there was gardening plastic underneath that we could use to pull out more rocks at a time. We made a hammock of sorts to cradle the rocks as we took them a couple feet over to the wheelbarrow. Then boys started to move even more quickly! This was a good lesson in learn and adapt: a good Army-family lesson!

After about four hours we were D-O-N-E, done. Done as in we all hurt and I knew the next day I would be stiff. Indeed, I felt my age. Thank goodness my calendar insisted I cease after four hours!

We still had half of the back rock pile to go! A large bush in the middle of the rock garden marked our stopping point. We pondered how best to handle scraping rocks out from under it. We looked around at our progress. We filled in most of the area under the deck, but there was still half of the rock garden to clear and the side and front beds to fill in. There’s always tomorrow.

Day Two Trials and Triumphs

The boys weren’t excited.

“Do we have to?” came a complaint.

“We won’t be as long. Just two hours tomorrow,” I said.

“We won’t finish, mom,” said my planner boy.

“That’s ok, your dad gets home in two weeks. We can finish with him, but we should get as far as we can so he can get started on creating a space for the vegetable garden as soon as possible.”

After some arm turning, we got back to work. As expected, we were all tired from the day before and patience wore thin quite a bit earlier than the first day. It was good that we only had two hours to work. Back pain set in earlier this day as did whinny attitudes about manual labor.

It was amazing, though. We cleared the rocks almost the whole way to the far end of the rock garden. The truth be told, we needed Tim’s help to pull out some railroad ties that formed a would-be garden and finish clearing that area. As strong as the boys and I are, we needed an Army engineer to show us how to excavate properly.

But by the end of the day, the rocks had been distributed thoroughly under the deck.  We even started to spread them around to the side of the house. However, we would need to clear more rocks to finish the job.  We were SO CLOSE!

It’s an adventure that we started, but would have to finish once Dad got home.

Finish Line in Sight

A couple weeks later Tim returned and he was excited by the gift and impressed by our work. He was so pleased that there was just a little more rock hauling left to do.

The following weekend our family all worked together to get the rest of the rocks moved to cover the remainder of the front garden beds. It was amazing how quickly the process went with four people, one of which was as strong as the other three of us combined.

For the last raking of the backyard of the season, Jon and I raked all the leaves to the designated southern corner of the yard. This would be the ground cover to “kill the grass!” (Tim got excited about this part).

Tim had two weeks of leave, some of which was to be spent preparing for his time away.  But he put packing off so he could start the vegetable garden and plant fruit trees.

One day he borrowed a friend’s truck and bought compost from the city to create our garden bed over the leaves Jon and I spread out.  The next day he finished that job and bought mulch from the city to cover the compost so that it would be a soft, fertile blanket.

Tim decided he wanted to get fruit trees planted before he left so that we could enjoy the produce for at least a year or two before we would have to move again. Two days before he left, he borrowed another friend’s auger, bought and planted the trees.

It was hard work. It was also cold. I watched from the house. But Tim got it done.

Project Completed

Each of our family members had a hand in the transformation of our yard.

The boys learned more about ingenuity, working together without a foreman, and not shirking from hard work.

I was reminded that I can trust my boys to do hard things and to enjoy yard work (because it’s different when it’s your own yard).  I also was reminded I have a pretty great husband and kiddos.

Tim realized he could rest easy knowing his boys could handle the daily work of the family while he was away, that his family thinks of his needs even when he isn’t home, and that he still loves the dirt.

Tim was outside until 1800 on that cold November night digging holes and planting trees. He wasn’t going to let the clock win. It was an adventurous race: when would he pack for a deployment flight that moved up seven days?  No packing had taken place and no patches were sewn onto uniforms.

BUT we had a pretty yard and we had a backyard adventure story!

(Oh, and in case you feel like this story needs an epilogue: Tim stayed up late to pack the night before he left for Europe with sewed patches compliments of our “church - grandma.”)

Costs:

Our initial expenses were very low.
Wheelbarrow (from Menards) $75

Labor (my children) $0

Mulch (from transfer station) about $50 for two truckloads

Compost (from transfer station) about $50 for two truckloads

Auger (borrowed from a friend) $0 (you can rent these at some farm and tractor stores)

Fruit trees and berries – as expected this was the most money. We purchased from a couple local nurseries with good reputations.

Trees were about $75 - $125 a piece

Berry bushes were about $25 a piece