Stuck Like Glue

--landscape brick glue, that is!

When it comes to my wonderful husband, no project is simple. Along with his amazingly strong work ethic and perfectionism, my David also has the awesome ability to see things as they could be--not just how they are. He is always striving to make things better for our family, home, and farm. This strength comes with the price that most projects--that start out as something very small--can expand quite a bit before they are finished. His ideas are often so good, though, I cannot disagree with him. As long we're doing the work anyway, I can easily be talked into doing a little bit more to make it that much better. In this case, I got out the gardening gloves, picked up my shovel, and got to work.
Allow me to recap our recent landscape project:
Wednesday: We brought home shrubs, a palette of lanscaping blocks, and an oak tree, which was to go in the backyard.
Thursday: The clouds were still giving us rain on and off, but I HAD to get outside! David asked me to make a layout of the bricks. I couldn't get them quite right just coming off the corner of the house. Shortly after we started working on it together, David decided we had to go back to Aberdeen to get drain tile for our sump pump hose, landscape rock, and more bricks. My original tiny idea of two bushes planted beside the house had exploded into an entirely new vision. The construction was now going to extend to both window wells. He threw in a movie with the trip, so how could I turn that down? Besides, it was VERY exciting getting work done together outside that we have been putting off since we added on. We came home with a load of rock and another pallette of bricks.
Friday: Construction went on for most of the day. We dug and shoveled and moved bricks that each weigh as much as Nathan. This picture shows what I had in mind at first.

We took out some of the old bricks in the window wells, dug down to fill the edge with rocks, and added another layer of new bricks at the ground level.
We found a den of toads against our house. That kept the kids busy for the later afternoon and evening.
As our day was coming to a close, we were still coming up short on the bricks. David called Menards. They only had 80 left. We would be making an early Saturday morning trip. I made sure he threw in coffee.
Saturday: We were all in the pickup at 7:30am on our way to get our last load of bricks. While we were waiting for them to load, Teresa and I picked out another shrub to fill in our expanded project. After stopping for pancakes at my in-laws, we were back to work.
By the time we actually planted our shrubs last evening, I was pretty much exhausted, but we got it ALL done and planted our oak tree before calling it a night. We will still add one more shrub to the front of the house at some point this summer.
So, yes, it is now done and looks like it has always been there. It just blends in that well. Without David's vision and work, it would never have all of the different levels and details that it has. So, I am thankful for these strengths of his.


I just find them quite exhausting!