What I did on my summer vacation

Hmmm...where to begin?! We got so much accomplished over this three-day weekend, that it feels like we spent a week or more doing it! On Friday morning, BF decided somewhat out of the blue that he was going to dig up the culvert under the driveway and see if he could clean it out. As I've said before, the yard has some drainage issues, and as much as I don't like looking at the low, wet parts of the lawn, it didn't drive me crazy, like it did BF. So he went to Lowes, bought a pick-ax, and started at it. Some gratuitous shirtless digging pics follow. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself...yeah, he rolls his eyes at me too...lol.)

So while he was digging away, I mowed the lawn, and then started digging a new garden for my hostas, alongside the shed. Trust me, BF did NOT want me in the way of flying gravel, so I only went over there when beckoned. I did have to help him heave the humungous HEAVY mud-packed pipes out of the ditch one by one as he loosened them, though. Ugh. That was scary. The man may be small, but he is a mighty powerhouse in a small package. I couldn't believe the weight he could lift. Look at this one, roots growing through it and everything! What a mess...no wonder no drainage was happening!
So I dug up my patch of land, filled it with a topsoil/compost mixture, and planted some of my shade-loving plants. I love the way it turned out. After all the pipes were out of the ditch, BF went across the river to True Value and found this corrugated culvert pipe. All I could do when he got back was giggle at the size of those things. I thought they looked hilarious on the truck. He was all "what's so funny?" and then Kathleen comes outside and looks at the truck and starts laughing too. I don't know what it was...they just looked so HUGE on that truck...and his truck is BIG. The pipes went in, he locked 'em together, and we covered them up again. So of course, in the digging of the ditch, BF had unearthed a dilapidated old stone wall that had been holding back the side of the driveway. I asked him if he could bring the stone wall out so that I could plant a garden between it and the driveway, underneath the pretty tree. Heck, he said he was going to rebuild it anyway, so why not start from scratch, right?! So that's what he did for the rest of the day Saturday (after getting the pipe in) and most of the day Sunday. As he worked, I filled my garden area with fresh topsoil/compost and planted my garden. I couldn't be more pleased with that stone wall. I mean, seriously, is this place awesome, or what?! *sigh* I don't even want to think what it would have cost to actually pay someone to do the hard work BF did this weekend. It's priceless, IMO.

Finally, yesterday afternoon, Kathleen and I went shopping for a screened tent. We needed a place from which to enjoy the new stone wall garden, after all! We got the last of the domed pretties off the floor at Home Depot, and they disassembled it for us, so we could bring it home without instructions and put it up again. Heh. We did OK. But by the time we were done, my nerves were a little frazzled. Kathleen retreated to her room, while BF and I relaxed a bit in the late evening without getting one mosquito bite! Yay! That's an old iron candleabra I bought years ago and never used. I need to dangle baby-food jars from wire with tealights in them from the branches of it.

Maybe next weekend we can relax? Or not. I have more plants to get in the ground. I guess this is the tale of home-ownership. The work is never done. But heck, if the end result is this great every time, then I don't mind it a bit. :)