July 3rd. Now it's just Mom, Dad, Dolly, David and me. I'm awakened at 7:30 by a noise. It's a Bobcat from MacKay's being unloaded.
Landscaping day
There are two large piles of earth behind the house, leftover from the foundation work. They needed to be spread out around the house to build up the yards and provide positive drainage for the site. One of the piles is mostly topsoil while the other is sand. The soil is very sandy here. The good thing is that it drains very quickly, even in a rain storm.
Earth is being built up around the kitchen porch.
The Bobcat moved several loads of sandstone to the north-west corner of the house so we could build a retaining wall out of it to raise the west yard, while the backhoe works on removing the stumps behind the house.
The big stump was pretty stubborn
That was a big stump
The yard behind the house has cleaned up pretty well
When the Bobcat would bring a load of earth to the west yard, we would scramble through it to find and pull out the rocks to add to the retaining wall. The soils is very rocky.
Dad raking the topsoil by the trail
We also added 2 loads of topsoil
Last winter the front yard flooded a lot, because while the place was under construction, the west end of the culvert was inadvertently covered by debris and earth when the construction vehicles were driving in and out of the yard there. The water couldn't run through, and therefore ran over the bank and to the front door. Dad and I dug with shovels while the Bobcat scooped away until we found the culvert.
This pile of debris is from when Grammy had the foundation repaired in 1988. So we had MacKay's take this away too.
This truck was filled twice with debris
Finishing off the front yard
Rocks everywhere
SEE!! No pile of concrete behind the outhouse. Only took 24 years to get rid of that.
Then we had them build up and level out the driveway. The driveway still needs some earth and gravel before winter but it's much better than it was. MacKay's worked on the place for 8 straight hours but got all of the earth spread around, and now the yards are at the level they should be. This is the major accomplishment of the trip.
David and Dolly went on a road trip that afternoon, and when they got back, David gave me my birthday present. Two apple trees! I always wanted apple trees. I am very excited about these. One is hybrid of four types of apples. Hmmm, where to put them.
It was a dirty and dusty day. That's not a tan on my legs, that's PEI dirt!
Dolly and David also went to the beach and dug clams for dinner. Dad steamed them on the barbeque and they had a feast, while I had hotdogs.
Yum I guess
Better you than me
What a great day. We got so much done, and now we can plant some plants bushes and trees, and work on seeding the yard.
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