Somebody Stole Our Yard!

Boy, you can’t trust anybody these days, even in small towns. You go to sleep one night and everything’s okay, and you wake up the next morning and somebody stole your yard!

Not really. I’ve mentioned before that we were amazed that companies here actually show up on time and do the jobs they say they’re going to do, unlike in Florida, where we had numerous contractors and other so-called professionals who made appointments and never showed up, or who did come and give us an estimate but then failed to return and do the work on the agreed upon date. More often than not, they never came back even after we signed a contract! But here in Alabama, our experience has been that folks show up when they say they’re going to, and even ahead of schedule, and do the job right.

I’ve written before about the problems we had with drainage on our property due to the heavy clay content in the soil. We had Austin Marcum from ProScape in Tuscaloosa come out and give us an estimate to mitigate these problems, and he said they would start on Tuesday (today) of this week. But bright and early yesterday morning we were awakened to the sound of heavy equipment in our yard, and looked up to see a crew hard at work stripping off all of the topsoil.

This picture is what part of the backyard looked like before they started, and the picture below it is what it looked like by the end of the day.

They have to take all of the soil off the top and regrade the land so that the water will flow better to a drainage ditch on one side of the property, and to French drains they will be installing on the other side. Then they will replace what they removed with new topsoil, sod, and grass seed.

Everything that was coming off the top was taken to the back end of our pasture and deposited there. I will use it later to fill in some low spots on the road back to the barn and the trails surrounding the property.

There was a crew of five young men and they worked hard all day long, only stopping at lunch and for one short break in the afternoon. Once all of the top layer of soil was stripped from the backyard, they started putting in trenches in the front for the French drains.

When we moved here in January we got everything we needed into the house except my big gun safe. It’s the size of a refrigerator and weighs 685 pounds. The front yard was so muddy that we couldn’t get an appliance dolly through it, so it’s been sitting in the garage waiting for things to dry up enough to someday get it into the house. I mentioned that to Austin when he gave us the estimate, and he said he was sure his crew could help me get that job done. And sure enough, when the guys were finished yesterday they used their Kubota bucket loader to move the safe from the garage onto the front porch, and then took it back to where we needed it to be in our bedroom. Talk about going the extra mile!

They will be back again today, hitting it hard. I’m impressed!

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – A friend is someone who overlooks your broken fences and admires the flowers in your garden.