Wonderful Wednesday - April 26, 2006

Today I not only did some more work in my yard, but also took some time to enjoy relaxing out there. It's been a long time since I just spent time out in my yard without doing something like looking after animals or shoveling snow. This was really nice for a change and I look forward to spending more enjoyment time out there in the future as the yard continues to improve.

I think it was 1993, or close to it, that the tire retaining wall was built. The wall there when I bought this place in 1990 was about 3' high, made of wood 4x4's. It looked okay at the time I bought, but it soon began to fall down as it was rooting away. There also was a very steep hill from the retaining wall up to the bit of flat land by the home itself, and I found this very hard to keep weeded and impossible to mow, often slipping and falling down on the steep grade. In '93 I was going out with Rob (as he went by here, Bob as he was known to family and long time friends), and he came up with the idea of the tire wall as it would never rot and was free, all you had to do was collect old tires from local tire shops... which we did. I must admit, I could never have built this wall without help, and Rob did a lot of work for me. We built it in the same exact spot as the original wall, and made the ends the same height as that wall had been. The middle, however, we built to just over 6' high, coming back into the hill at each end of the 6' area. We even made a stairwell, but unfortunately stairs have never been put there. Then, we hauled wheelbarrows full of dirt from the back hill into this area to back fill behind the huge wall as we built it. The tires are laid like bricks and each tire is stuffed with dirt. A lot of work went into this wall, you should have seen my muscles!

Over the years since then, the Spreading Junipers have grown and... spread! I've told you about cutting back part of them, and today I did even more. The stairwell is now open and Dan has said he'll help me make some steps for in there. The stairway will go from by the carport down to the orchard.