Hillbilly Yardwork

There's always a way to do things on the upper end of the financial scale and a way to do things on the lower end of the financial scale.  When we do things on the lower end of the financial scale, it's clearly doing it the "Hillbilly" way.  When faced this weekend with getting the grass re-seeded in our yard that was destroyed (for the second time this summer), I picked the Hillbilly way to get the work done. 

Note:  After the septic system was replaced this Spring, we paid to have the lawn reseeded not knowing for sure if we were going to do the addition.  We ended up paying for two Yahoo, 20-something kids to careen around our yard in a fourwheeler pulling a drag.  At that point, I realized, that I wasn't going to repeat that mistake.  (see old post)

Back to the Hillbilly story.  Some of it is the Alden that is in my blood (see post about the pitchback net).  You see, my Grandpa Alden was famous for his contraptions.  Contraptions which from his viewpoint were functional and resourceful, but from the viewpoint of others they were somewhat of an eyesore and and were the source of much family conversation.  So, with that blood coursing through my veins, I contraptionalized a gadget to cultivate the bare ground in the backyard so that it would be prepared for seed. 

The contraption consisted of two boards with many screws sticking through them.  The two boards were then affixed to a larger board.  On top of the larger board I mounted three large landscaping stones.  Then I attached the whole thing to my riding lawnmower.  Voila!  A Hillbilly, landscaping contraption. 

Here is a picture of the bottom of my contraption after the work had been completed.  Clearly, I needed heavier duty screws and will take that into account if I have to build another one of these.

Here's the pictures of the Master Contraptioner (aka, Hillbilly) at work.  

(Heather laughed loudly when she saw these pictures.)

Next step was the grass seed which I did yesterday right after completing the cultivating.  After the grass seed was planted, it was time to cover it all with straw.  The boys and I headed to Bomgaars today to get some straw bales.  We threw as many in the back of the surburban as we could (you can fit 6 straw bales in the back of a suburban just in case you needed to know that).  I considered tying several to the top of the suburban (you can just picture that, can't you?), but decided to stick with six.

So then the boys and I proceeded with spreading the straw bales.  We felt rather manly as we threw the bales around and smelled like a farm.

Here's the pics of us spreading the straw.  Check out the pipes on those dudes!

The yard work made for a busy weekend, but hopefully the grass will beat the cold weather and we'll end up with a green yard next spring.  It will be a great place for Peaches to play!  We think about her and pray for her everyday.