The backyard makeover - Part 2

The cleanup in the spring/summer of 2009 got rid of the junk lying in our backyard, but we were still far away from being able to have a real backyard.

We still needed a few more truckloads of soil to bring us up to level and we decided to patiently wait for free soil postings on Craig's list to start. We managed to get a few loads. Sometime in the winter of 2009, I thought that we should spread the soil around and grade it and lay down weed fabric and mulch the corners so we aren't inundated with weeds in the Spring. In a hurry we found a guy who was doing some driveway work in the neighborhood with his bobcat and figured he would give us a good deal and in theory he did. He didn't end up doing much, claiming the soil was too wet to work with !

We lived with this moundy, clayey mess in the backyard until we figured out what we had to do next. In winter, we diligently sat down and laid out what we wanted where and Guru put things down on the computer (to scale.....i should mention). He used his 3D modelling software, that was never intended to do such stuff. His vendor friend was impressed immensely (to say the least).