Finally, a decision!

Decisions are not my thing. I tend to like everything, so it’s hard to weed out the choices. There is an ugly bit in our backyard. It is basically the walkway from one side of the house to the patio. The patio is just a place you walk over to get to the pool deck, so it isn’t really a destination. There were some wood chips on the ugly bit when we moved in, but they dwindled away and we were left with dirt and weeds.

I can live with dirt and weeds. I am not really very fond of wet dirt, however. And the weeds were pretty sparse. If the weeds had picked up the pace a bit, I could have just mowed them as I transitioned from backyard to front yard, and all would have been well. But alas, too sparse. We talked about putting in some kind of pavers and making it all solid. That sounded very heavy. We talked about putting mulch or wood chips (is there a difference? In my mind there is. Wood chips are bigger and nicer. But are they nice to walk on? I do not think so. Especially not with bare feet. If you went from pool to pool equipment, you might have naked feet. That would be a drag). We talked about planting grass. It was never grass planting season when we talked about planting grass. We always missed the spring window, because spring in Minnesota (if there is spring in that given year) lasts between 4 and 9 hours. Then in the fall, we were always going somewhere on vacation and wouldn’t be home to water. (We even did our 2020 driving trip in the fall.) We briefly considered sod, but it is ridiculously expensive, so no.

Keith was on a mission this year. He was very tired of the dirt, and sometimes, mud. I looked at sod again, because it seemed the most doable (because we seem to be quite creaky these days). It was quite expensive. Filling the space with bricks or pavers or stone or something is expensive, too. I started wondering about a combination. I thought what about stepping stones, with grass planted around them? That seemed pretty good.

Keith liked the idea. He started helping. He found sod at 40% the cost I had found it (Okay. I looked only at Menards and Home Depot. It never occurred to me there are other places.) We asked Benjamin if he could come up to help, because there is another project for tomorrow (spoilers!). He said sure right away. He is awfully nice. He came at 10pm last night and we stayed up talking until 3am. He got up at 6:30 to help pick up the sod. Keith had to be there at 7am in order to pick up half of the sod, come home, unload, then get to River Falls for a rehearsal. Benjamin went back (having learned where the place was and how to do the picking up) and got the other half. Then he took an hour nap before moving sod to the backyard.

Benjamin went golfing and Keith laid the sod. I was support. I cooked lunch (ACTUAL food, made from ingredients!), got the utility knife, and said, “It looks really good,” half a dozen times.

Keith was doing grass angels just before he finished the last couple pieces.