Fun with Heavy Equipment

What a weekend we had! On Friday a mini-backhoe was delivered. My husband could clearly not resist trying it out as there he is in the above picture still in his work clothes pushing dirt around! The plan was to level an area where we will be able to put in a slate patio and also to move the shed picture to the right. We managed to accomplish both but it took a lot of time and effort. We worked for 7-8 hours a day. It was tiring, but strangely fun and very rewarding when we achieved our goals. Below you can see the transformed area. There is a relatively flat area were we will lay our patio and the shed was moved to its new home. We also moved some very large rocks to the rear of the patio to act as a natural retaining wall. I love re-purposing the natural stone and saving money as we will not have to purchase materials to build a wall. As you look at the before and after pictures. You may be asking yourself, "Why did they move that old, beat up shed?". Well, the shed has a history with the home long before we purchased it three years ago. The shed belonged to the former owner who lived in the home for over 50 years. She was an avid gardener and had this shed/gardening hut brought over from Sweden. The land behind us was hers, but is now being developed by the person we bought our house from and he planned to knock it down so we decided to try to save it. Next the plan is to refurbish the shed and prepare the land for the patio to be laid. We also need to determine the amount of material we will need for the retaining wall just behind the pond area. I am anticipating this project will take a few more weekends before we will be able to see and enjoy the patio, but it will be just in time for us to enjoy it over the Summer months! Tune back in for more updates!

The Glacier Experience

For our first anniversary my husband and I traveled to Glacier National Park in Montana. Many may assume that we are the outdoors type, but we are actually not at all! Glacier caters to campers and hotel lovers alike!

It was a great trip and we will never forget it for many reasons. First and foremost is that we got to hike to see a glacier, Grinnell Glacier. You also cannot beat the picturesque views as you travel through the park on Going to the Sun Road. Second is that an unexpected outcome of the hike was that we both had the worst sunburn of our lives and spent the rest of the vacation in loose fitting, total body covering clothing. We also had the joy of cooling down the burn in extremely cold water. The unexpected benefit of the sunburns was that we traveled to the Canadian side of the park, which was beautiful. I am attaching a video of the glacier as well as pictures from the Canadian side and Going to the Sun Road.

For more on travel to Glacier National Park check out this link.

http://www.nps.gov/glac/index.htm

Happy Spring! Bring on the projects!

I have to say that I am so happy the Winter is behind us although some mornings I still wonder! In Worcester, we are definitely getting lots of rain and cooler weather. The picture is of a pond feature my husband and I added to our yard right after we bought it three years ago. It was one of our first design projects and we love watching it come to life every Spring. This year the plan is to put in a patio behind the pond. We have done a great deal of work to clear the land and are renting heavy equipment this weekend to create and level the area. Then we will be constructing the patio with slate. Look for more on the patio!

If you are interested in building a patio and want some info, check out this site for help! http://www.hgtv.com/landscaping/build-a-patio-with-pavers/index.html

Thanks,

Coreen