We then spent over a week digging out the huge hill left from where the skid steer was moved in and out of the yard. It was really compacted clay! Mr. Man had to get pick axes to use on it to break it up. The dirt was moved to areas where we needed to raise the grade a bit. Oh yeah, we had a day or two of rain in there also, which meant no working in the soupy, quick-sand Georgia Red Clay of the backyard.That put us a week or so behind schedule as we couldn't work outside for a day and a half. Plus the time it takes to move the dirt. Mr. Man breaks it up, the kids and I load the wagon, then it's dumped out in the yard where ever it needs to go.

Now that the hill is removed, the big wall was built. That puppy is approx. 20 feet long. We built it in pieces and put it up, just like all the other sections. While I put the ice barrier on the wall, Mr. Man worked on tilling the trenches for the drainage pipes. Then I took a turn with the tiller and killed it. Although the engine works, the tines no longer turn. It was a pain to find a replacement (see the blog post about that), but we found one, and Mr. Man continued tilling. It took through Monday to get the main pipe area tilled, pipe in, and covered. It wouldn't have been such a problem except we were supposed to get rain, so we wanted the pipe in. We made it, and the backyard is a little soupy in a few spots where the ground is low, but it looks okay so far.
    

The area behind the big wall is my herb garden and small upper garden. For the first year, we've planted tomatoes in it. The herbs here are chives, bay, sage, rosemary, thyme, and savory. We'll see what does well and what needs to be adjusted. Alyx worked really hard helping me put dirt behind the wall and adding the new soil so the plants get the nutrients they need.
    

Since then, Mr. Man has been using the tiller to dig the trenches to put in the drainage pipes so we don't have standing water in the playground area. It was really tough work, even with the tiller because of how far down we had to go (15 inches in some places). Then there was the whole fiasco where I broke the tiller. Yep, you read that correctly. It appears the part the turns the tines has busted. So we lost over a day, with rain looming in the forecast, trying to get a new one (whole other adventure, read about in the blog). Fortunately, the second new one we got worked, and Mr. Man was able to continue (that thing has a lot of power, and I can do it for short bursts). While I was working with it one Monday afternoon, I had to stop as I was putting a bend in the area we were going. Mr. Man took a closer look at it when he got home, and the reason I couldn't go straight there was because of a HUGE tree stump. He spent the next hour trying to bust it up- using the pick axe, reciprocating saw, and whatever else he could (and broke the little pick axe in the process). Regardelss, he was able to finish the long section of pipe, and the kids and I buried it, before the rains came. He then put the short side shoot in, which took a bit of time as he had to stop Monday because it was too dry (so we watered it), then the rains came, and he was only able to go a few inches down before it was so wet it gunked up the tiller. Another 24 hours later, he was able to finish.

So now we are back on wall building (Grandpa B. and I picked it up Friday), which means the end is almost in sight for this part of the project. Still much to go, but it's moving forward.
The last wall segments were built, and then we started grading. Unfortunately, we ran into weather delays (over multiple weeks) that slowed us down. We tried to make use of the time by starting pool destruction (see the backyard page for those photos).
    

We finished grading this area by the middle of May:
    

While Grandma and Grandpa B. were here Memorial Day to help with the pool base, the holes were marked and dug out (by hand and with the gas-powered, rented, post hole digger. Plus, a pole was put in:

    


We'll get the holes cleaned out and the posts put in over the next few days (hopefully before the rain comes!).
As the summer continued, we got posts in and used a lot of concrete. I think I made 4 or 5 trips to the orange home improvement store to get 8-10 bags each time, plus loaded it into my car, half the time without their "help". By the way, the male cashiers don't like it when one points that out to them and will come help load when their "staff" has disappeared. Once all but the tire swing post were in and secured, we moved down to the pool base and got that functioning.
    


After that, it was back up top to the playground. Supports were put in, and posts have been extended. By early August, the kids had a sand box (unexpected addition to the plan), swings, and tire swing. We also got the first layer of wood chips spread out. Progress in July had been slow due to rain, and rain, and oh yeah, there was that rain that came, which lead to upstairs being unworkable until the wood chips were added, even days after the rain stopped. Next up is to finish some posts to start to give it more structure before adding joists and bottom layers.



Check out the next steps here.