Exterior landscaping

 Matt and I hate the idea of paying money to remove dirt, so with all of our construction projects, we've found ways to keep our excavation soil on our property. The main way we're doing that on this one is raising the grade in the side/east yard, which prior to the project sloped down from a high ridge on the east side of the yard (with a steep slope down to the street on the east - a wild-growing hillside) gradually toward the garage and down the driveway to the street on the front/south side. Not only will doing this let us keep the soil on site, but it also should reduce the amount of water run-off down the driveway. Bringing the foundation walls up on the north and east of the garage lets us nestle the building itself down into the ground by raising the level of the soil all around it. I love how it looks (makes it not quite so big feeling when we're out in the yard) and I also, as a gardener, love the transitional zone it creates as you leave the driveway and step up to "enter" the garden. But to accomplish that, there's one location where we needed a retaining wall. All of the other retaining walls we've put in around the yard over the years have been done with rock we had on site. This one, because we needed steps for access as this is a main thoroughfare in the yard (to get to the chickens, the veggie garden, the clothesline, the shed), we decided to do with purchased stone.

The stones we purchased were BIG. (The price tag on those was just much prettier than some of the other options!)

And while some of them we were able to cut to size and maneuver into place, those three steps were big. Really Big. Too big for me and Matt and Leah to move. And Owen's still in Montana. And Krassi's got some serious biceps (really, he does!!) but not a lot of bulk (he still weighs under 100 pounds at 21 years old) or real coordination.

But, thankfully, we had help. 😁

As you may have noticed in a handful of pictures since June, Gavin's been around. A lot. 😊 And it's a very good thing. (And he's not coming here to hang out with Owen like he did when he was a kid!) AND, as an added bonus, he's good at lifting heavy things. (If you don't remember, look back at that BIG laminate beam he helped with last fall!)

First we think. (I did a calculation later in the day, and a piece of Kasota stone the size of each one of those steps weighs about 350 pounds.)

Then Leah and I put on our "working hard" faces while Matt and Gavin move the first step off the pile down onto a pallet.

Then we think some more.

And then we* slide it off the pallet and into place.
*We being Gavin and Matt. Leah is supervising while I photograph.