Our back yard project has been progressing slowly but surely over the past month or two. Here’s where we’re at:

In late March/early April Adam busted out the entire sidewalk with a sledgehammer. Though Adam hauled away all the big pieces, the kids got busy hauling smaller pieces with their dump trucks.

Adam piled the concrete in the back alley. With faint hopes of avoiding dumpster fees, we posted an ad on Craigslist — free concrete to any taker.  Low and behold, the entire pile was gone a week!  Then Adam busted out the 2nd half of the sidewalk, made an equally big pile, and that went too.  All of this concrete will see a second life as part of numerous DIY projects — we had quite a few different people stop by and each took at least 5 or 6 pieces. Cool.

The latest step in the project is filling in the trench with topsoil.  Then comes sheet mulching, then finally, planting.  I’m afraid we are not going to be far enough along to buy all our plants at this weekend’s Friends Plant Sale, but… there are a fair number of nurseries near the Twin Cities that specialize in native plants so we still ought to be able to find everything we need.  Hoping for Memorial Day weekend or so, at this point.

Stay tuned!