Backyard Grass

Since moving into our house we had been unhappy with the grass in our backyard. It was full of weeds carrying sharp prickles. You couldn't put a toe on that lawn without being stabbed by prickles. Our clothes, towels and sheets would also come off the washing line covered in them! Clinton tried weed and feed and we tried pulling them all out by hand but honestly the lawn was more weeds than grass! So we made the decision to pull the whole lot up and start again.

First Clinton poisoned the whole area and turned the sprinklers off. Then on Anzac Day we had a family working bee digging up the dead lawn. Clinton had already made a start on it earlier in the week but it was a huge job! We started early and worked until the end of the day (well I went to the shops in the middle but Clinton worked all day). Harrison is actually a really hard worker with projects like this. He loves getting his hands dirty and using gardening tools. 

 A lot of the dirt was really compacted and needed serious muscle to break it up!

 Sienna helped for a little while then happily watched us!

 By the end of it we had bags and bags of pulled up grass that Clinton took to the tip. We then put the sprinklers back on and let any new grass/weeds pop up and re-poisoned it.

 This three year old may not be into gardening but she's so cute!

 A couple of weeks later Clinton found an old pallet and used it to start levelling the ground...he also had to chop out a huge tree stump on the side of this area with an axe.

 Needless to say he was sore the next day!

 The kids watching Daddy work from the trampoline...

Mucking around on the trampoline!

 The day before we were scheduled to pick up the roll-on grass Clinton had an RDO. He planned to continue his work levelling the area and making it as flat as possible. Unfortunately, he was called into work at 9.30am due to some big problems that needed sorting at the gas plant. He didn't get home again until 7.30pm! He quickly ate some dinner and then turned on the outside lights and continued levelling the garden until 10.30pm! He had taken the next day off to pick up the grass (shipped in from Broome) and roll it out. Bryan lent us his two trailers on Tuesday morning and Clinton and I drove to the industrial area and picked up our two pallets of  Sir Walter lawn. Amy very kindly looked after Sienna all morning for us - which was great because it took us longer to roll out the lawn than we thought! It's a big job moving the rolls of lawn, rolling them out, cutting them to size etc.  

 Our first strip of green, weed-free lawn! Yay!

 I told Clinton there were no photos of me helping through the whole process so he took a couple!

It was a hot day and by the end of it we were both covered in dirt and sweat.

 Alissa after waking up from a nice long morning sleep...very helpful!

Our finished lawn!! Now we just have to keep it alive in the Pilbara heat. The kids are already loving being able to run and play on the new lawn!

 I am grateful to Clinton for working so hard to get the new lawn in, he shows a great example to his children of how to work hard (which he followed from his own father's example).