When I was a little girl I can remember living in three different homes. All of my life I remember my father building and remodeling each of the three houses that we called home. Even the seemingly new and "perfect" home that my parents lived in before they died bore the stamp of my dad's having made it their own. My husband and I lived together in three different houses as well and in each we left the stamp of our own taste and needs.
Living here in Tennessee is no different. The house we live in is beautiful but is lacking a few basics so last weekend some of the major construction began. Jason dug a trench from the house to the clothesline pole and ran electricity out there. We now enjoy a motion sensor light and an outlet.
My sons are amazing men. When Jason gets on a tractor of any kind it immediately becomes an extension of him.
He and Matthew make a good team when it is time to attach the light to the pole. After all was said and done Matthew stabilized the pole so the weight of laundry won't make it fall. The ditch has been filled in and all that is left to do is to hook up the power inside the house.
Another bonus from working out there was the news, from the neighbor, that we own the rope and posts that stand on the line between our yard and theirs. What a boon! Five metal posts that we don't have to buy when it comes time to build the compost bin.
Of course no project is complete without this beast looking on. He even managed to protect us from this poor mole and later a woodchuck.
Later, after a rest and a hydration break Jason moved the excavator to the front yard and began the task of building a retaining wall. When it rains here it is never less than a downpour. Because our house sits on a slight hill the garden ends up in the driveway below after each downpour. Once the retaining wall is finished we can buy and add soil to the garden and be assured, short of an act of God, that it will stay where it is put.
Jason does the work of placing the blocks and leveling them while Gunkle packs the gravel in the trench. Teddy is there to supervise and make sure that the job is done up to his very high standards.
None of us know what he was saying but the look on his face was so serious and the hand gestures he made cracked me up.
Layer upon layer the wall began to take shape.
Until it extended all the way from the driveway up to the corner of the front porch. Next the blocks will get filled with cement and topped with cap blocks. Then we can backfill and that garden is going nowhere.
Once the retaining wall is done and the raised beds are finished and filled on either side of the pergola the front of our house will have a more welcoming feel to it. Later when the weather is a bit less brutal construction will begin on a roof over the front and side porches and a patio and eventual hottub in the back. The house is really beginning to look like home rather than a generic building sitting in the middle of an open lot.
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