Today's post is a special treat guest post by the hubby. Please note that he started writing this about a year ago so when he says "recent backyard renovation" he means our backyard renovation from June 2011. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed his blog post when I first got a chance to read it. I hope you do too. Enjoy.
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For months, Steph has
been asking me write a post about our recent backyard renovation. You have to
understand, I write this story with some trepidation as I’m not sure I’ve
witnessed the full fallout from that weekend but, at the risk of the
disintegration my marriage, here you go.
This is the story of
three tons of power equipment and four 3-year-old boys.
After three years of
living in Nashville, I finally undertook our backyard renovation. Why so
long to get started? Glad you asked. Because it looked like this:
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| Yes, this is a full sized person in this picture. |
When faced with this
scene, the response I usually got from people were stunned silence or “you’re
having a stroke, aren’t you." Really, those are your options. It's a
football-field-sized, 35-foot canopied, bambooed, brambled bag of hurt. We had
a landscaper come out at one point to look at our yard and asked him how he
would tackle this.
“Well, I probably
wouldn’t have bought the house.”
Awesome.
Let me go back a bit. The
back yard didn't look like this when we bought the house. Now, it wasn't
exactly green pastures either, but when we put an offer down, it at least
looked more like an overgrown junkyard and less like a Vietnamese jungle. By
time we closed on the house and moved in a month later it was a different story
and, well, we were pretty much done for.
For the last three years,
most people who have visited us have witnessed back deck barbeques ending
with me staring out over the green abyss, muttering things like "twelve
guys, one weekend… how much beer do you think I would need?" or
"hypothetically speaking, do you think you could control an acre brushfire
with a garden hose and a sprinkler?" An incredible number of people seemed
to have to leave early because of things like "work," "washing
my hair," or "because I'm scared."
So last year, I placed
the call to my dad.
Me: "I think I'm
going to clear the back yard."
Dad: (long pause)
Me: "I mean, we're
going to be here for another four years and it would be really nice to have a
yard for Lucas to play in."
Dad: (really long
pause)
Me: "Plus, it would
really help the resale value to have a yard back there and not a scene from Lost."
Dad: (pretty sure he's
hung up the phone by now)
Me: "I figure I'm
going to need to rent a Bobcat and-"
Dad: "I'm in."
That was it. Later that
day I get an email from him. Not “so how are you planning to do this?" not
"are you sure sleep deprivation isn't getting to you?" No.
"Mr. Z is in
too."
God bless them both. I'm
not sure either of them have forgiven me yet.
I'd like to say that we
rented a bobcat the next weekend, clear cut the rainforest growing in my
backyard killing multiple endemic species of tiny colorful frogs that live
nowhere else except behind my deck, had a beer and called it a nice Wrangler
Jeans commercial but sadly things took much, much longer.
Accordingly, the next
several months were spent scheming and planning and cursing in preparation of
the Holy Day of Bobcat.
Now, we are not
professional landscapers. Technically, we’re not even amateur landscapers.
Really, we simply have a knowledge and thirst for mass destruction that only a
Y chromosome can bring. Shocking, I know. However, if the landscaping industry
collapses in the near future and you are at home using this as a DIY guide to How to build the perfect garden after
constructing your house in the middle of the Amazon, I would suggest you
avoid the three following mistakes:
Mistake #1: Now, if I
asked you what equipment you would want to start with when attempting to cut
down Ferngully, what would you choose?
What? Did you say
hand-tools and a machete? No? See, that’s why we needed you there.
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| Who would have thought this would be faster than hand clippers? |
For the record, despite
what you father told you growing up, hard work does not build “character.” No,
it builds heat stroke, renal-failure levels of dehydration, full-body poison
oak, and a larger vocabulary of previously undiscovered curse words. And a
massive pile of 100-pound lumbar and mountains of underbrush.
Mistake #2: Do you know
what to do with two 18-wheelers worth of underbrush? Neither did we. However,
hauling it 100 yards uphill to the curb to be taken away by Nashville Metro is
apparently not the correct answer.
Me: “Yes, is this
Nashville Metro City Works? I’d like to schedule a brush pick-up.
Extremely helpful
municipal worker: (muffled laughter)
Me: “Yes, I know you only
pick up brush three times a year because clearly everyone loves giant piles of
rotting wood in their front yards for upwards of four months but I thought I’d
call to help you out because you’re going to need a much bigger truck... Hello?”
To be fair, in some
respect, it’s unfair to call this a mistake. Not because it wasn’t a completely
idiotic waste of time and energy (which it was) but because it led to
Incredibly Brilliant Idea #1: renting a woodchipper. Don’t judge me. I will
swear on my life, feeding 6-inch thick branches into a tonka-truck yellow
machine and watching it be effortlessly shredded and flung 60 feet is
absolutely the most fun you’ll ever have with your pants on.
Mistake #3: Now, I am a
true believer in honesty in a marriage. 100%. But sometimes there are
conversations that may be better left unsaid. This would clearly be one of
those times.
Me: "I rented the yard
equipment for the today."
Steph: "Oh
yeah?"
Me: "We should be
set to have everything delivered next weekend."
Steph: "And what
exactly does 'everything' entail?"
Me: "I got a bobcat
and a harley rake."
Steph: "Do you
really need all that?"
Me: "...And another
bobcat."
Steph: "We're
getting a divorce."
That last part didn't
happen. But it could have. Especially had she known then what a Harley rake
was. Or a Bobcat.
Which finally brings us
to the infamous Bobcat Weekend. To this day I am still convinced the only
reason Steph and I are still married is her taking call and leaving the house
Saturday though, unfortunately, not before the wreckage began.
See, in order to get back
to our backyard with heavy machinery, we first needed to build two ramps to get
past the twin 3-foot drops. If there are
any male readers of this blog who, for whatever reason, are looking to start a
fight with their significant other, I highly recommend dropping four metric
tons of unsifted dirt in a giant pile in your front yard. For the record, when
the guy in the dump truck asks, "so where do you want me to drop this
enormous, filthy load of your future-trial-separation?" the correct answer
is not, "anywhere you want" which roughly translates into trucker for
"the look I'm trying to recreate is 'my yard has been taken over by giant
radioactive ants’."
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| Maybe she won't notice... |
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| No, no, I got this. |
For the record, I am
convinced this will forever go down in Lucas' memory as one of the top two or
three days in his entire life, depending on where he ranks his wedding
day. When they dropped off the dirt, Lucas, who, god bless him, had
already decided when he grows up he doesn't want to be a doctor (thank
goodness) or a lawyer (again, thank goodness) but instead wants to become a
"workerman", instantly got that look in his eye that says "I
will eat your arm off if you even think about trying to stand in between me and
my future closed head injury.”
Then the bobcats came.
Not one, but two heavenly beasts sent from above by the twin gods of
Over-Exuberant Yard Projects and Future Trips to the ER, so beautiful you could
kiss them except for the fair scent of tetanus. Like Saint Nick, giant truck
guy #2 (the first giant truck guy who delivered the dirt had already received a
permanent injunction from ever visiting our house again) dropped them off at
our front yard with a twinkle in his eye and a simple "you boys are going
to have a GOOD time" and left.
Indeed, we were going to
have a good time.
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| Behold Bubba, the Greek God of Plumbers Crack |
Now, if you're a heavy
equipment rental company, the first words you hear from a customer who just
took delivery of three tons of equipment that can quite literally crush granite
are not, "so how do you turn this thing on?" Experienced drivers we
were not. I signed a longer waiver to ride Space Mountain than I did to drive
this diesel-driven steel death trap with an empty beer can stuffed under the
seat.
Instantly, there was a
new glint in Lucas’ eyes. Gone was the giant dirt pile. In its place were the
“trucks” and the “tractors.” Except in two-year old vernacular, “tr-“ sounds a
lot like “f-“, and, well, our backyard was starting to sound a lot like a
shipyard.
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| Ah, young love |
Quick question. Do you
know what a Harley rake is? No? You need one. You know that metal-tine rake you
have in the back of your garage? Got it? Good, now this is nothing like that. A
Harley rake is a five-hundred pound, hydraulic powered, four-foot long metal
drum with three inch teeth that spins at 100 rpm and is a vital and necessary
tool for all backyard projects. You want this. You NEED this. Plus, it’s way
easier to ask for from your spouse than a bobcat.
“Honey, I need to rent a bobcat.”
“Why on earth do you need to rent a bobcat? You’re
planting pansies.”
“Sorry. I need to rent a Harley rake.”
“A rake? That sounds reasonable. Of course you can get
a rake!”
See? You can thank me
later.
So what do you do with
two Bobcats and a Harley rake? Anything you damn well please, except in this
case I had a yard to clear so we did that.
Here’s the problem with a
Bobcat. You know the four full weekends we spent pulling, chopping, hauling,
and chipping? Yeah, that was a complete waste of time. You know how long it
took two Bobcats to excavate the yard of all carbon-based life? We were done by
10am Saturday morning.
Great, you say. Now you
can spend the rest of the weekend doting on your wife and making up for the
colossal mess you made in the yard. Except, you see, we still had the Bobcats
rented for the entire weekend, which is what led to the following exchange:
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| Never trust two men in this pose |
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| Yes, MUCH flatter... |
[lots of hands in pockets
and shuffling of feet]
So what do we do now
with the remaining 10 hours with the Bobcats?”
“You want to see how much
we can flatten out the yard and…”
[Sound of ignition keys
being turned in Bobcats]
I hear what you’re
saying. On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with this exchange. Why wouldn’t
you want to make your yard as table-top flat as possible? Except my back yard
has approximately 20 feet of elevation drop from top to bottom.
But for ten straight
hours that’s what we did. And I can proudly tell you, we raised the back of my
yard a whole two and a half inches. And it was worth it. Not for the change in
pitch – it’s still a sledder’s paradise – but because, well, the Bobcats
weren’t going to drive themselves.
Now, I would be remiss if
I didn’t mention my friend David who came out and helped out. Why? I’ll never
know. I have far better friends than I deserve. There was no beer. No pizza.
And he still speaks to me to this day.
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| The boy is like Houdini with pants |
You know who else still
loves me? Lucas, because I’m pretty sure this is the greatest thing that has
ever happened to a 2 year old in the history of all 2 year olds. Massive pile
of dirt? Check. Giant flatbed trucks parked in the front yard? Check. Tractors
digging and tearing up trees in the back yard? Double check. Partial nakedness? Check. (Naked is always a plus in the toddler demographic. Write that down.)
So after 5 weekends and
not an insignificant shedding of blood, sweat, and tears, what am I left with?
The world’s best backyard
sledding hill, an enlarged vocabulary, and a little boy who still wants to grow
up to be a workerman.
Best backyard project ever.
