I am eight hours later than planned in posting this! Whew! Things have been a whirlwind this week…and it is Tuesday! Long story short, my mom is moving out of her house this week, staying with some family close to her until her new house is built, and we get her dogs!! That makes it sound like we are excited. It has been an adjustment. Three house dogs to go with ours plus two cats. It is a lot. But, we are finding a new normal and I am sure there will be many updates about them, especially if you follow us on social media.

There were not any big active projects this week (aside from MORE fence, for our ram pen…more on that to come), so I thought I would share about our yard makeover. This is a project that we (Bryson) started in the fall, and we are just starting to see the results. I should preface this and tell you, I am a natural skeptic. So when this all started, I was not convinced of success, but completely convinced I would forever live in a mud pit.

If you read about our camper-living experience here, you are familiar with the amount of red clay on our property. Turns out, it is really challenging to have a real landscape and grass when your yard will not drain. Our drainage project could be it’s own post, so I will tell you about how we are getting grass to grow. It is also really expensive to haul in enough topsoil to really change the composition of the soil. So we lived with a really muddy yard until…now. 

Bryson got some advice while talking to a colleague about our issue (professional advice, don’t worry) who told him to cover the ground with mulch. The whole yard. I was so excited. Kind of like keeping these dogs. But no fear! In a few months, we would have a great yard! My skepticism had already set in. But, the yard was muddy either way, so at least brown was better than red? Problem two with this idea: mulch is expensive!! We do not have an enormous yard, but it is big enough that the bill was going to be hard to stomach. 

I may be skeptical of a lot of his ideas, but Bryson really does have some great ones more often than not. Coincidently, at this same time of this hair-brained mulch idea, a tree service was trimming power lines. Do you know what they do with the limbs they cut? Yep, it gets chipped and dumped in a big truck. I do not know where the trucks usually go afterwards, but I do know that this crew, when asked politely, was more than willing to bring several loads to our house. For free! (If you decide this is a good route for your yard, be aware that they will bring wood chips for days. Seriously, there were a lot of wood chips. They brought us 40 loads and only stopped after we asked.) Instantly this idea of spreading mulch over our entire yard was more appealing. Especially if we could have real grass. 

Fast forward to this week. We have baby grass!! It is patchy and there is a long way to go, but overall I am calling this project a success. When the mulch was spread initially, Bryson also spread granular nitrogen. Then in late winter/early spring, the mulch was tilled in and a final grade was made. Then about two weeks ago he seeded, and here we are! Apparently the mulch breaks down over time, changing the topsoil. And I wish I had a picture of the “new” soil, it actually made a huge difference! Too bad this is not what is on my garden. He seeded this spring with fescue and will re-seed in the fall with fescue and ryegrass. Both are perennials so they will come back each year. Fescue is a good warm season grass and rye is a good cool season grass. Fingers crossed for continued success! 

As always, thanks for following along with our journey to homesteading on the side! 

“But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Romans 8:25