We just kept going back and forth and tossing around different ideas. Having someone else do it was nearly impossible because the neighboring backyard was filled with trees, so there was no room to get the equipment through. We got a lot of good information from all of the contractors that had bid the job. None of them really wanted to do it because of the hassle of the yard.
Finally, I had the idea to do it with bricks, instead of solid concrete. We came to the conclusion that we would have to just put in a ton of manual labor. Clarence came over and scoped it out with us. With his help and expertise, we figured we could do it. Clarence came up with the plan to stack the bricks, glued together with liquid nails. Then put in rebar and fill the whole thing with concrete. Good thing we didn't know then how hard it would really be:)
We started the very beginning of April with pulling out the fence and railroad ties. Some of the fence was easy to do, some much harder. We put an ad on KSL that said, chain link fence free- you remove. Of course we did tons of work with getting it ready. There was a family that came and removed it and took it away. Whew! We got rid of our railroad ties the same way. A few really bad ones we took to the dump, but most of them were taken away, some even pulled out by people who saw the KSL ad.
We discovered that a bunch of ties had been put down against the fence, and then dirt filled in, to make the yard more level. So there was lots of dirt we had to dig out just to get to the railroad ties. Then under that was the fence and the ties supporting the fence. It was interesting.
The fence on the south side was a lot harder. We had all sorts of grape vines, big roots from the neighbors trees, and weed trees growing through the fence. We had to cut quite a big of the fence to get them out.
Once we got the fence and the railroad ties out, we still had two pretty big trees to get out of the way. Brother Jurgens helped us with the really big one. We were so grateful for his expertise and service. Then we had to pay a stump grinder to come because the retaining wall had to be level, and the stump and roots were in the way. Dave was making calls frantically trying to find a grinder to rent or someone to do it and a guy just so happened to have a job cancel and was able to come just in time.
Dave took off about a week of work, broken up, to work on the trees and wall.
The blocks were delivered on May 20. The kids helped us move a stack of blocks back along the path so they would be easy to grab when it was time to put them on. Dave had the brilliant idea to buy a garden cart, which helped a TON!
We had a lot of fun working together as a family. Dave and Clarence were always joking around and trying to lighten the load with humor. Clarence's family came a few times and the girls had a ball talking, swimming, and just hanging out together.
The concrete was poured on Friday, June 14. About a week later the fence panels were put in. So the whole project took 3 months. It seemed like forever, but once it was done it was absolutely wonderful to have a fenced in yard and a little privacy. Our back yard looked so much better with that tan vinyl behind all the plants instead of looking through chain link to a jungle of weeds.
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