Blisters, Sod, and Random Acts of Kindness

When we bought our house, it had been sitting vacant for about a year. As a result, the yard was overgrown with goat head sticker weeds, and all grass had been erradicated. We've picked at it all summer, but I decided we've got to do something about the weeds and grow some grass in the front before the cold weather hits. This way, we'll have nice grass when spring comes again.

So Wednesday afternoon, I came home from work and got out the shovel, and started hacking away at the strip of weeds between the sidewalk and the driveway. It was hot, and the work was hard. I don't know why, but I forgot to put on gloves. Soon, after clearing only a 2'x3' square, I got tired and got a monster blister. I threw down my shovel and went inside to rest a while. Eventually, I started reading a book and fell asleep on the couch.

Well, as I was working earlier, there was a guy with a backhoe across the street delivering some rock to the neighbor's house. We talked a little, he asked if I was putting in grass, and if he wanted me to have him scrape the yard for me. I told him no, but thanks. When I woke up from my nap, I looked out the window, and the entire side yard of my house was swept clean of weeds, with three piles of dirt and tortuous stickers. I couldn't believe it. Out of the kindness of his heart, he scraped my yard once he'd finished his rock delivery.

It was just such a wonderful thing. Luke and I have experienced a lot of roadblocks and hardships in the past few weeks with his layoff notice, and all the crap going on at my work, and barely scraping by to pay the bills. It was just so nice to look out and see I don't have to work my tail off for once. All I can say is God is good, and does help you out from time to time.

Luke and I spent the rest of the night moving the remaining dirt to under the pine tree out front, where it will progressively get dumped into the trash. But it's done! It would have taken me a lot of time and hard labor to get those weeds gone. So this weekend, Luke and I are finally going to put down grass seed in the front and our house won't look like the scum of the neighborhood. The dogs will now be OK with jumping out of the car on the driver's side, with no fear of landing on stickers!

Tonight, I'll finish prepping the back yard for sod. We decided that the dogs would tear up seed, so we're biting the bullet and putting in sod in the back. It'll be nice to actually have a nice yard where the dogs can lay down in cool grass, and I can sit on the deck and look out on a nice green turf, rather than a dirt pit dotted with dog poo. It's going to be a tough, laborious weekend, but it's going to be such a great workout, and the finished product will be so worth it!