Still More Rock

Another week of hard work and help from Trav's parents have brought us to this point in our progress on the rock wall and columns...

Still Rocking...

Another full week of rock done and lots more progress to show for it.  I have basically finished the rock wall on the north side of the house.  I still have to backfill a little more and have the bottom wall extend a little further, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Travis had started on the wall on the other side a while back, and with the help of my parents we made a lot more progress on it.  When you are working on the wall, you feel so exhausted and don't see any progress.  Looking back, we knew we did a lot because the dirt piles were getting smaller and we were having to lift the shovels of dirt above our waists to backfill.  Thanks to my parents for the help and the company!

Travis also made a lot of progress on the rock on the house and is almost done on the back side of the house.  Still have the capstones, columns, and rock on the side of the garage, but it looks amazing!  We really like how the rock from the rock wall matches with the rock on the house.

More Rocks

In the last post, I said the rocks were going to be delivered on a Friday.  Well it ended up being almost a whole week later than that Friday, but either way, we have been working hard on making the walls.  Travis has also found some time to work on the rock on the house too.  This picture was from Saturday night, but you can see how much progress Trav is making on the house.

We had 3 dump trucks of rock delivered; 2 of which were on the south side where we are going to make a path/stairway.  Travis started on one of the walls on the south side.  I wanted to show his progress, but the picture didn't turn out very good because it was getting late.

This picture shows the rock wall progress as of Sunday night.  With the help of Travis' parents, we made quite a bit of progress on the north wall and the windows look a lot cleaner!

We are getting close to having the wall to the height that we want it.  It's very labor intensive work and backfilling with dirt one shovel at a time takes forever, so we really appreciated the help this weekend.

Rock Update

I'd like to say that I've been busy working away on the rock wall, but I can't.  We went through the 10 yards of rock by early last week and called to order two more loads.  Unfortunately, more rock won't be delivered until Friday.  It is somewhat hard to see in the picture, but there are two rock walls.  The front wall is about 3 feet high and we are just getting started on the back wall on both ends. 

Travis has been more productive than I, except we always seem to have rainy weather on his days off.  He got to the french door and started working on the other side early this week. 

I don't think any picture does the rock work justice.  I drove by the back of the house the other night and was amazed at how nice the one side looked with all the rock finished. 

Rock Retaining Walls

As promised, they delivered 10 yards of rock to our house yesterday...

We used gravity to our advantage and rolled some down the hill to get started on the retaining wall.  We didn't get a whole lot done because it was windy and I got more dirt in my eyes than rocks on the wall.

In this picture, you can see that Travis also started on the wall next to the french doors.  Trav is definitely making progress!

Today was day 2 on the rock wall.  It was real windy again until about 8:30, so we only got an hour of rock in, but managed to get a fair amount done in that short time. 

Got Dirt?!?!

Once again Travis was up early putting up rock before going to work.  It's hard to see in this picture, so why on earth did I post it?  Was it because I wanted to show how tall and green our weeds are getting?  Nope...I wanted to show the giant piles of dirt on the sides of our house!  Our neighbors are probably wondering what the heck we are doing now and don't see the beauty (yet!), but we are sure excited!  We had the excavator come in today and dig out some of our land so that we could make rock retaining walls.  We got 10 yards of rock being delivered to the house tomorrow, so there isn't any shortage of work in our future.  I also like this picture because seeing the rock getting completed on the left side of the house helps me imagine how nice it will look when it is all done. 

On the left side, we were going to build a firepit and little sitting area.  I know what we want it to look like, but it is hard to picture because all I see are big dirt piles.

On this side of the house, we are going to have two areas of plants and flowers separated by rock retaining walls and stairs.  They cut in the stairs, but it is hard to see in the pictures.

I also wanted to show Trav's progress on the rock through today and Mocha hasn't made an appearance in any posts lately.  They are both a little hard to see because of shadows, but you get the idea:)

Rockin' Away

After we finished the siding, the next step has been the rock on the back of the house.  Travis has had late shifts for work lately, which allows him to get a lot of rock done each morning.  I'm amazed at how much progress he makes each day, especially after I attempted to help the other day.  I think it took me an hour and all I did was put up 3 tiny rocks!  He joked with me that he wasn't sure if he wanted me to help because everyone always comments on the tile, so he didn't want to have to give me credit for the rock too.  Don't worry Trav, based on my productivity, I think you are safe:)

Trav started putting in long days on Thursday.  You can see his initial progress from the previous siding pictures and the next picture is just after one day...

Outside of the three rocks that I did put up, I also put tar paper and the wire lathe around the columns so that Trav could continue rocking away.  This is also the progress after Tuesday - he is almost finished up with three sides!

Even the antelope are coming to check out the progress...In the past week, I have woke up to a deer or antelope in our yard at least four times!