No one likes to see a girl shovel alone…

Yesterday the people in my life rocked. 

Holy Crapola! Where did all the material go?

Well, the Shovel Fairy (previously the Master of The Hatchet) stopped by when I was at work and moved about 80% of the sand pile to the back by the garage (that’s the darker material) all by herself in 98-degree weather.

I went almost directly after work to go –horror of all horrors– bathing suit shopping. No woman should ever have to look at herself under fluorescent dressing room lights in a string bikini. <shudder> I realized too, just what a number the mosquitoes have done to my legs this year… it looks like I have some sort of pox. Ugh. It took me two hours to complete that dreaded task. 

So I was home an shoveling by 8pm… (when it was blessedly cooler… and by that I mean, oh, 95 degrees) I had the rest of the sand pile, and about half the stone pile moved by 9:15 when another Shovel Fairy stopped in… and this one was huge. That was a big help because if the wheelbarrow has more than 15 shovel-fulls in it at a time, I can’t move the thing without tipping it over… the Big Shovel Fairy did not have such a problem. We had the rest of the pile cleared out in 20 minutes.

My driveway is looking less and less like a construction zone, but I can’t say the same for the back yard:

But it’ll be worth it when we can back the truck all the way up to the backyard to offload the stone. Next problem? Now that I’m mortaring the joints on the stone wall, I need to pour a concrete footer instead of the tamped down stone… more shoveling anyone?  

I also spent a good part of the day trying to get these babies from the rock shop to my back yard. Since everyone else fell through on me at the last minute (I swear, men are never sensitive to the timeframe of a womans project… sometimes I think every guy I know is hardwired to reassure me to the very last minute that they have everything under control– which they don’t– just to sabotage my plans.) I would be peeved, but I’m not. Because after I shanghied one of my own drivers from half way across the city… this is what is in my driveway:

That’s for the retaining wall, of course, and this huge pieces are for the top:

Guess what I’m doing this weekend????

I never mentioned earlier that Moms & I did get at least 2/3 of the footer poured last night. So we’re ready to rock and roll first thing tomorrow. Fingers crossed, I have big news to report come Monday. I’m gearing up to shoot out of here at 5 and get some more concrete and mortar!!!! (Who gets this excited about dirt? I do.)

JUMP TO PART XI of The Pergola Saga- The Great Wall of…