Giving Up and Starting Over

After 2 years I've given up.  What started out as a brilliant idea in my mind's eye to build a fancy duck pond in the back yard has ended with me having to pay plenty of money to get the hole filled back up and bring some beauty back to our yard.

A couple months ago, Dale asked me to host a barbecue for some friends.  I looked out at our back yard--the ginormous, gaping hole that keeps growing into an odd shape from all the rains, the deteriorating pile of sand next to that hole, and the bricks that are falling apart all over our porch--and I realized it was time for an overhaul.

What started out as this...

Turned into this...

And is now back to this... (still a complete mess!)

But now we have a mess with a plan attached to it.  Abel has pulled every brick off our patio and he's eager to earn money jack-hammering up our old, cracked patio slab so we can lay the bricks back down in nice neat rows.  We've sectioned off the chickens so we can plant new seed throughout the area and we'll plant rows of jasmine to hide the chicken fence.

We have a long way to go but, in a couple months, our yard should look like a brand new lush landscape!