Fixin’ on the Fixer

A while back we hired a landscape consultant to help us plan our yard. It needs so much help we though it wise to seek the advise of a professional. This past weekend be began the implementation. Despite a busted sod cutter, locking my keys in the truck, misreading the plans and slicing my hand open, it was a pretty good weekend.

We needed to remove all the grass, so we rented a sod cutter – a 300 Lb, gas-powered behemoth that cuts below the lawn with a 12” steel blade that oscillates at 3600 rpm. It’s burly. We totally underestimated the time the job would take – thought we could knock it out on Friday night – but I tipped the thing over and slipped the drive belt off the pullies. I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to reset it, and the rental place was closed, so we parked it in the garage and opened up a bottle of wine instead of working.

Saturday morning I got some tech support and was off and running. After cutting 2000 square feet of lawn we ran to Sky Nursery for a load of gravel. I cut someone off getting into the parking lot; it must have been a patrol car for the Karma Police, because I immediately locked my keys & cell phone in the car. Mrs. fishpimp was more than happy to browse her favorite store for an hour while we waited for my dad to pick us up. I’d have called friends who live closer than my old man, but with modern technology I’ve never gotten around to memorizing their phone numbers. Too by my technology was in the truck. I walked down to the gas station for a Rock Star.

Upon our return we moved the sod to the back yard where I built a sod castle. We also used some to cover up the previous owners’ burn pit dead center in the yard – the idiots must have been burning pallets because we found about 5 Lbs worth of nails & screws in the ashes. Unbelievable – they had kids running around in that place!

Sunday morning we got to installing the stairs. There’s a radio ad by the Washington Society of Engineers (or some group like that) that suggests before one builds or remodels one should call an engineer. So we called up my main man JJ. JJ designs high-pressure water jets for metal cutting, but he knows how to read a schematic. Too bad we don’t. We mis-measured and set the whole project up at the wrong angle. But now that they’re all in the ground we’re going to have to adjust because we’re sure as hell not going to un-dig and re-dig all those posts!

It’s a good start on an ambitious project. It’s definitely pushing our skill level, but it will be a huge improvement over what was there before.