How We Celebrated New Year's Eve

Warning, you may all realize the wild and crazy Mom I have become!

Neal and I decided to...dig up the backyard for New Years! Are we party animals, or what?!?

We had a terrible drainage problem in the backyard. Rather than live with the fertile crescent again this spring (you know, the low point in the yard that is ALWAYS wet but also has the greenest grass), we would work on the water flow issue.

Funny, because this whole conversation started about expanding the paver patio where the trashcans live. Somehow, that turned into french drains in the backyard. So, 104 feet of drains later, our yard is in better shape. We hope.

This is the before shot. You can see the waterline on the fence next door. Did I mention that the swing set is located in the fertile crescent? In late summer, the fertile crescent becomes fertile because the mosquitoes reproduce after feasting on my calves.

After a trip to Lowes and 2 trips to Home Depot, we were ready to start. I said I would help dig. So did C&G. As you can see, they reneged on their part of the deal in favor of a picnic lunch and swinging. I reneged on my part of the deal for other reasons that we will soon discuss.

Ok, so back to the digging. Let me tell you people, digging trenches stinks! There is a reason that you often see prisoners doing that kind of work. It is hard! These beautiful hands were not meant to maneuver a shovel and these beautiful clothes were not meant for mud. Those of you who know me well KNOW that I have to be in the right clothes to be happy. I don't mind sweating and getting dirty if I am in "sweat and get dirty" clothes. If I am not in the proper clothes, you can't expect me to perform. Just ain't happenin'

The truth of the matter is that once I got into digging clothes, complete with my husband's size 13 rubber mud boots ( I only wear a 7.5, so I was walking around in Bozo shoes), and tried to dig a little, I had enough. That is when we rented this:

The ditch witch! It made digging SO much faster. Best $150 I have spent all year! Until it became the ditch b*tch. Oh yes, we got it stuck not once, not twice, but THREE times in the mud. Yep, buried over the tires. In the end, it still made all of this take only about 3 hours:

Neal used a special $26 ditch shovel that we bought. I should patent the use of my 2x4. Poor Neal had to dig out a lot of extra dirt from the ditch. I helped, by working the gradient with my board. It was ingenious!

This is what the other members of the Simpson family did:

Yes, that is part of my fence. We had to take a whole panel down to take our pipes out into the culvert behind our house. Oh what fun that was! The fence became C&G's "bridge".

Oh yeah...did I mention the dump truck full of rocks we had delivered as well?!? After we dug 104feet of ditch, we filled it with rocks and fabric and then pipe. Oh joy! If I never see a shovel again in my life, it will be too soon! But, as I sit here while the rain trickles down, I look out the window and see NO standing water. Hallelujah!