The yard

Fran and Robert, this one is for you!

So... when we looked at this house to buy, we thought it was good for our family and we made an offer. As part of the closing, we had a survey done. We knew we wanted to fence in the back yard, and it would have to be done eventually, so we went ahead and got it done.
Imagine our surprise when it came time for the walkthrough before closing, and we found out that our backyard did not end where we thought it did!
We thought it ended right behind the shed, where some briars were growing up. But it didn't. Our realtor Jo was practically jumping up and down when we realized that the surveyor's flags were waaaaaaay back there. Beyond the briars. Meaning that our back yard was HUGE.

So we had a job to do.

This is what the back yard behind the shed looked like when we moved in.


The briars were huge. Thick and healthy, and they didn't want to go anywhere.
John's parents came for a weekend to help, and we quickly figured out that loppers were NOT going to do the job if we wanted it done before spring really hit and the briars grew even more.
So the next weekend

We rented a bobcat!
How fun, and how satisfying to see those briars come down.
We also pulled out A LOT of metal that weekend. An entire pickup truck load. I regret that I didn't get a picture of it. There were bikes, at least 6 tires, a bedframe, the backseat of a car... BUNCHES of stuff hidden in all those briars.
I joked with the neighbors that if they came home and saw crime scene tape up
they'd know we found Hoffa.

So after that, it was time for fence kinds of things. Our friend Robert came up from Charleston to help John out. They planted stakes and measured and did all those manly things.

And rented a post hole drill auger type thingy to make the job easier.

After that, John began to set the posts.

He decided to go ahead and set them, and worry about topping them after they were done. This ended up being a pretty good plan. I actually got to help there, measuring the posts and marking them, since pg me couldn't do any of the heavy lifting for the rest of it.

After that, he put up the sections, and finally, we had a yard!

This is the section that is pictured with the string above.


This is the other part of the front of the back yard, or all the yard we thought we had when we made the offer on the house. The shed is not pictured, but the wagon is right in front of it.


This is the same spot that I took a picture of before,
the picture with the briars and the bag caught in them... WHAT A DIFFERENCE!


And this is the one side of our bonus back yard.

And the other side.

Yay!

Future plans include moving the shed to the back of the yard, near where the little plastic table is sitting now. I'm also planning on a compost pile behind the shed. The swingset will be moved so it's under the big shade trees, and since there's no grass there right now I want to put in landscaping timbers in a large rectangle and fill it with mulch for the swingset to be on. This will give the kids a shady place to play (the slide gets HOT in the sun) and a soft place to land, and will give us less yard to seed with grass and eventually mow.

So that's the yard! We'd like to thank Tommy and Fran for financing the Bobcat weekend, and Robert for his help and knowledge in fence building. We couldn't have done it without you!