Taming the Yard

 Picking up where I left off in January 2021, there was a break with the construction so I could finish the clean up and the many little things that comes along with such a huge project.  There were some rough patches with plans along the way in 2022 as my GC Jason had emergency surgery and then suffered many complications from the surgery so he couldn't come back.  That led to searching for a landscaper in the middle of summer when most every good one was booked to the gills and while coordinating all the other contractors at the same time. So here are more detailed pictures of the outside as we go along...

Remember the flood?

The neighbor's house and the street.

This next pic was taken 7/2022 after some rough grading had been done but still needs more work to push the water back some more.

So on to the before pictures in 11/2019:

View from the backside of the house:

The start of the fence and bridge over creek:

All trees cleared, stump grinding complete and the spots are too acidic to grow much, for now.  I wanted to address why I had most of the trees cut down.  With the exception of 2 pine and 2 dogwoods, the rest were sweet gum trees that produce what we call gum balls. 

The line of trees at the front have been hacked repeatedly by the power company over the years and were showing signs of disease like mushrooms growing on the roots.  The sweet gum that was about 6 feet from the house was huge and while I miss the shade, it was too close to the house.  The pine and dogwood trees where invaded by carpenter ants to varying degrees as they are attracted to trees that are not in good health.  

A little further down you will see pictures of a large oak tree that started to lean and then fell because it was a tall top heavy tree and the root ball was pulled from the ground.  I didn't want to put all this work into the house just to have a tree fall onto it.

All tree work was done by Integrity Tree Service and those guys just rock! 

And then the septic work began:

The shop foreman, Rocky, taking a break in the sand pile.

New water main installed.

Back yard spigot for the raised garden beds... eventually. 

Conduit for Trey's lamp that I've been waiting for 14 years to put up.

And then the rain came in again with some more flooding the first of the grading seem to hold off the worst of it.  It lasted almost a week and ultimately weakened the root of a super tall white oak in the back yard.  The tree was leaning heavily toward the newly constructed fence and would have cost a fortune to take down.  The tree company advised me to let it fall and replace the 2 sections of the fence because it was cheaper and safer because the location of the tree was hard to reach.  

Now as an aside, I need to mention the guy with the pallet yard behind my property is difficult to deal with in the best of times.  He tries to take over properties adjacent to his, even with proof of survey's and repeated request to remove all debris to flat out demands that he do so.  He has no respect for any of the neighbors, property lines, noise ordnances and even went so far as to remove the survey stakes done in 2009 causing me to repay for a fresh survey.  He argued with the fence people, the survey people and of course me.  He has had the county called on him several times by several different people over the last 3 years, cleans up some and when the coast is clear, restarts piling the trash up.  With all the grading he has done to what was a natural flood plane, it has caused us on this side of the creek to spend thousands of dollars to mitigate the damages of the floods.  When I discovered the tree about to fall, I sent him a text reporting the fact and advising him to move a non running truck that was stored on a property that he does not own and was ordered by the county to remove earlier.  

Now here is the interesting part, for me at least.  I feel like I used all my luck up for a long while with this tree.  I saw the root lifting on a Tuesday, I was able to get the fence people out to remove the sections where it was going to fall on Friday, the tree fell on Sunday right through the post and the tree company was already scheduled to come on Wednesday to remove one last tree damaged by the septic company when digging for the drain lines so they were able to cut it up while here.  Whew!

 

So now the rest of the work begins where the landscapers Carla and Josh bring in 4 truck loads of dirt, 3 truck loads of gravel, 4 trailers of red mulch, 2 trailers of pine needles and 1 trailer of straw.  They also purchased almost all the trees and shrubs and cut up the fallen tree into firewood.

Walkway to rear.

Butterfly and blackberry bushes.

Cleaned up porch.

Newly done 1.

Newly done 2. (Carport in progress.)

Newly done 3.

Newly done 4.

Spring time.

Fall 2023.

The biggest rain to come brought more flooding of course but all extra dirt, grading and other work over the years seemed to pay off because it was not near as close to the house as before.