Green Grass!

It is so nice to see something other than dirt in the back yard! We had the patio poured this past spring, but it took until August before Val had the lawn area ready to seed. He had it plowed, then he worked for days digging out rocks and hauling them off. He tilled and raked it out several times, and each time there were more rocks unearthed that he had to get rid of. Some low spots had to be leveled out, so he had a bunch of dirt hauled in - over $200 worth, which he spread out (one shovel-full at a time) and raked as evenly as he could. He was planning to do the sprinkling system himself, but when he got to that point he was ready to hire it done. That went along fine until he and the guy he'd hired both punched holes in our sewer pipe while digging up the water line to connect to. After the sprinkling system was in, he had to rake and smooth the lawn area all over again before the hydro-seeding guy could come in and spray the seed mixture on it. It is 20% perennial rye grass and 80% Kentucky blue grass. The rye grass started showing about six days after it was seeded, and the blue grass came up about a week later. Right now it looks like about 50% cheese weeds, but we had the same thing with the front lawn, and after several mowings the weeds died out.

Hopefully, next spring we will get some shrubs and flowers planted to make the yard look more attractive. I know Val feels the burden of having to do everything by himself. Wish I could help. I used to love planting things in Bloomington, but it was hard to keep anything green and growing with the salty irrigation water that sprayed everything and the high alkali content in the soil. We don't have those problems here, but we do have pesky deer that nibble plants down to stubble every winter if you don't fence everything in.