You'll never guess what I've been doing

When we last left off in the front yard, Greg and I had rented a sod cutter and removed grass up to this point. I wanted to stay outside of the drip line of the dogwood tree, hence this abrupt halt. Because I had things to do, like buying pots and going to Disneyland, it's sat like this for over six weeks.

The weeds decided to have a rager while we were gone. Just wait until their father hears about this.

I had to dig down the soil here because it was sloping toward the house. Back when we removed the cement slab in the backyard, the bobcat was driven through this area, badly compacting the soil in the worst way. So I had to dig down several inches and grade everything away from the house.

Then I had to remove the sod by hand from the rest of the areas where the pathway would go. For the record, I'm sick of removing sod.

Then I had to grade the soil away from the house there, too. For the record, I'm sick of regrading soil.

Faced with yet another large pile of dirt, my first thought was, "I should just buy a bunch of pots." That's more fun than transporting the dirt to the truck, then to the soil recycler.

One yard of cedar chips filled the area perfectly.

I still need to install rock edging on the other side of the pathway and figure out how I'm going to plant the area between my yard and my neighbor's lawn (if anyone has ideas, I'm all ears). The whole thing looks kind of haphazard right now but at least it smells nice. It doesn't help that we're still missing a board from the gate and the posts still need to be cut down, and the rock wall got knocked askew when the sod cutter went through here . . .

Because I'm an awful person, I left this strip of sod that will be impossible to mow (have fun, Greg!). I could've removed it but I was tired and hot and the debris bin was full.

All of these details need to wait because it's supposed to be in the 90s this week, which means I'll be crouching inside by the A/C register, whining about being hot. It's hard being this much of a weather wimp.