Curb Appeal; Guest Posting

Thursday through Sunday, I went up north to my cousin’s place in Darrington to help him put some curb appeal on his place before it goes on the market. The soil up here isn’t really soil so much as it is ground up glacial rock flour left over from when the glaciers retreated back up the mountains not so long ago in geologic time. Any water that precipitates quickly percolates and it’s hard to get anything but moss and sand trout to grow in the sandy native soil so he had 25 yards of good topsoil delivered and we’ve been putting in a front yard.


Off to guest poster Steve:

My house is in Darrington, which is about 75 miles North by Northeast of Seattle and is rural in every sense of the word. I’ve lived here since 1999 and have mostly enjoyed it but I decided that it would be in my best interest to move closer in towards Seattle, where I work and enjoy hanging out a lot more than I do up in the woods with the Coyotes and Sasquatches. For that reason I decided that putting in a lawn and ‘prettying up’ the front of the house would probably be a good idea – street appeal is a big deal when selling a house – or so I hear. Currently there is just a big patch of weeds occupying the places where a front and back lawn would go.


Like Scott said the soil around here ranges from sandy to rocky, with a few variations in between. The local plants do pretty well in this soil but domestic grass will absolutely not grow – I’ve tried to get some going and it won’t germinate in the nutrient free sand. Paying 700 plus dollars for the dirt I need to cover the front yard is an absolute necessity. While I was at it I got a few yards of gravel to cover my driveway. This happened on Thursday the 24th and Scott and I played around with trying to spread out 25 yards of soil with shovels and rakes for about half an hour before we decided we were being silly and we should wait for the machinery I had rented to show up the next day.

Dirt Delivery:


Friday the 25th was ‘Bobcat’ day. The guy from the rental place came out with the machine (an Ingersoll/Rand Excavator), gave Scott and me a 5 minute class on which controls do what, and drove away. Scott and I then proceeded to make a mess of my back lot.





For those of you who haven’t operated any equipment with tracks on it, like me before Friday, I offer a word of caution: Tracks dig up the turf something terrible if you aren’t careful. My plans to delicately spread the topsoil over the front yard soon turned in to a big mess, but the dirt got spread out relatively evenly after probably twice as much time as it should have taken me.





Spreading It Around:


Scott had fun tearing apart an old compost heap, and digging up old tree stumps (from when this area was nothing but cedar forest). .When all was said and done on Friday we were looking at maybe two hours of raking and fine tuning in the front before we were ready for the next step.







[Note from Scott; Fun is the word for it. Every scoop of the bucket was about two wheel barrow loads of soil. I've been having fantasies of renting one of these bad boys for my own use around our place. I could redo the whole garden area, putting in real raised beds and putting into service the area the the top of the garden that is currently a useless steep sided dome covered in black berries.]



Gravel Spread:













We awoke on Saturday to find that it was raining. No work was done outside. Instead we played Battlefield Vietnam on a LAN and drank coffee.






I'd also like to add to what Steve said about it being really easy to mess up your lawn with one of these. Digging holes in the ground - easy! Tearing out stumps, fence posts, etc. - easy! Terrorizing small animals - easy! Putting the dirt back in the hole, smoothing everything out, and making it look like a tractor hasn't been tearing around the yard all day - not so easy.

SD

posted by Scott in Washington at 11:22 AM |