Layne and Valeen Terry Family: My Summer Project

This summer I took on an "elephant" of a project. But I took it on "one bite at a time" and finally accomplished it. Last fall we had to pull out some dead juniper bushes at my dad's house. So we covered the area with travertine landscaping rock. Well, it looked so nice that my dad mentioned it would be nice to put it around the rest of the house. He of course didn't want to come right out and ask me to do it because he saw how frustrating it was for me to shovel four truck loads onto the front yard project. He wondered if we could hire someone to come and do it. But being my dad's daughter is a blessing and a curse because of the work ethic he instilled in me I couldn't see paying someone else to do something that I could do myself.

So I called measured up the rock beds that needed to be covered and called Idaho Travertine and asked them to deliver the rock. This was so much better than picking it up one truck load at a time. It was a lot easier to shovel it off of the asphalt than out of the truck. And I really could do it just a little bit at a time. I only spent about an hour and a half a day doing it. And sometimes many days, or weeks went by without me doing anything at all. Especially around the time of Zak and Shay's wedding.

This is what the original rock looked like. This was put in over twenty years ago and it is like a volcanic rock that is very light. The color has really faded and because it is so light it has slipped off the back hillside and was looking pretty shabby.

My first wagon dump. I had no idea what I had ahead of me!

This was actually my second load of rocks. A friend that I went to high school with runs Idaho Travertine. So I asked him, just out of curiosity how much a yard of travertine weighs. He said that I should remember that a ton of rocks weighs the same as a ton of feathers. Good point! It would have taken me a lot longer to shovel a ton of feathers. Then he informed me that each yard, or truck load weighs about 3000 pounds.

So by the time I finished I had shoveled twenty yards of rock which equals 60,000 pounds. I think I deserve a gold star for that one!

This shows how badly the hillside in the back yard had erroded.

This doesn't look that steep, but it sure wasn't easy rolling a wheelbarrow with hundreds of pounds rock up this slope.

These stepping stones are pretty much obsolete because the junipers are growing over them and you can't make it all the way up to the top anymore. Even though my dad said to just cover them up the cheap skate in me couldn't stand to just waste them. So I picked up all of them that I could get loose so that maybe someone else could use them. So those weren't light either. I need to add them to my total weight!

Here is the finished product. My dad is really please and I really do feel a great sense of accomplishment.

The funny thing is that I have paid someone to do the major landscaping projects at my own home. But that is probably because I don't have enough time or energy by the time I get home after doing my dad's projects!

These two small patches are where the insanity all began. As small as they are it still took four truck loads!

I am trying to focus on how good the rock looks and ignore the fact that the metal siding needs to be re-painted. That is one job I refuse to take on!