The Big Dig

The back corner of the house has plagued us for 3 years. The problem is due to the grading of our backyard. Essentially, a lot of water (including the proceeds of a major downspout on the house next door) is directed straight at the back corner of our house. With nowhere else to go, it has contributed to a mud pit in several places, and also some minor leaking in the basement. So in an attempt to fix all of those issues, we decided to tear out all the grass, dig a drainage ditch to carry water away from the house, regrade the yard so it actually slopes away from the house, and cover it all with a mulch bed.


This of course is the "Before" picture. Notice the dirt path worn out next to the house and the mud pit next to the deck. As a result of this exposed dirt, every time it rained and the boys went outside they came in leaving a trail of muddy paw prints in their wake.







As our work proceeded, we had plenty of help. Here is Gator keeping tabs on his tennis ball, always a very important job.


Thatcher and the snuggle puppy (Valerie and Damon's brand new puppy!) are in charge of making sure that enough sniffing is done on the day.

And of course, there is the boss of the whole project checking out the snuggle puppy to make sure that she is up to the task of all that sniffing!























With all of this quality help, you know that we ended up doing a great job and in just one day! Here are some shots of the work in progress:

Some interesting facts:
It took 12 bags of gravel to fill the ditch around the drainage pipe.
The pile of grass and dirt to the right was the only soil removed, the rest we shifted up next to the house so that the surface slopes away from the house and to the ditch.
I officially have no comment regarding the destination of the soil that we did remove.

And finally, a finished picture that shows the new slope (and also Thatcher's tail end):