Laying Sod

Saturday Morning dawned partly cloudy, but no rain, it had sprinkled some during the night, I heard the rain dripping down the rain gutter at 4 am and couldn’t go back to sleep.
I arose early and had my quiet time, fed everyone and went to the backyard to start getting things ready to put down the sod. There were some rocks to be moved and tidied up.

I had good workers lined up for inside with the kids and outside help with me. Our friend Brandon, 17, had a brain injury a few years ago and doesn’t have the use of his left hand, and walks with a brace and a limp with his left leg. But he is a hard worker and is willing, a commendable trait in a teenager. He picked rocks and dumped several bucketfuls and got them squared away. He was especially good with the sod knife, trimming around all the rocks in the wall and the stepping-stones.
Fordman and I laid the sod, while AZ-Wheeln, Miss Busy, AZ’s daughter, Kay and a few neighbor kids brought the sod to the backyard in a wagon.

The ground was so sloppy and mucky in the center of the yard we couldn’t walk on it. I tried my best to straighten out the pieces after we got them down. I really just wanted a nap. Ha!

We worked our way from the garden boxes around to the wide side of the yard, cutting around stones and trees.

We broke for lunch about the time we got to the dinosaur/horse/wagon/spaceship rock near the maple tree. This rock came out of our neighbor’s fence posthole last year. They didn’t want it and I thought the kids would love to play on it.
The rocks in our rock wall also came right out of our yard; Bear and I built it last year after we excavated the yard down about 3 feet so it would be flat. Maybe that’s why he now has a hernia, hmm?

I should never have stopped for lunch; boy was I sore. I didn’t want to get started again, but we didn’t have to drag the sod as far now and it went pretty fast. We got to the gate about 2 pm and had to smooth out the pile the landscaper left us, it was very sloppy near the pile and we were just spreading mud, which doesn’t work well. The sun had been shining for a while, so we let it sit for about an hour while we did some trimming around stones and piecing up near my kitchen window.

As long as we stayed on top of a piece of plywood, we did ok, we couldn’t stand on the mud side, we would slip and make big holes, so we would work our way across the yard on the plywood and then carefully shift it over the next area.

Matching the old grass to the new grass was a bit tricky especially since there were no clear edges anymore because of all the equipment that had driven across it in the last year. We stopped just short of the edge and planted a heavy crop of seed.

It’s been sprinkling off and on all day today, Sunday, and hopefully it will start to stand up straight and fill in the spaces. It wasn’t professionally done but I don’t think it looks too bad. At least it saved me about $1200 in installation costs.
I feel good about our accomplishments and couldn’t have done it without my dear friends and neighbors, AZ and Fordman; my son, Gadget-Boy, his friends Chrys and Brandon, Miss Busy, Kay, and several other neighbor kids.

I am sore today, really sore; I feel like I did a six-hour workout with my “Buns of Steel” workout DVD, and then threw on a two-day trail ride on a pack mule. Not to mention the bruising across my left arm, back and ego when I fell against Fordman’s trailer rails; lost my balance, pinned under a full sheet of plywood until I could regain what little composure I had so that I could stand up; not a pretty sight, good thing no one saw it happen.

Will post update pictures in a few weeks, I bought some perennials for the space above the rock wall; I have great vision, now all I need is the strength to do it. Maybe after my trip…