Grass plugs in backyard are going strong!

Our grass in the back is finally making an appearance! Brent harvested plugs from our front to get our back lawn going. The strip in the front for the harvest was only about 2 feet by 4 feet and it filled all of this. Very impressive!  In the fall of 2018 he planted the little tiny plugs in a section of the backyard. By early May of 2019 this is what the tiny plugs looked like:

 Not bad! It was a summer of babysitting this patch (weeds, ugh!!!). But just this morning I took the picture below and you can see that it is filling in very well.  Pay special attention to my "rock harvesting" in the back corner of our lot. Sifting dirt makes my back ache but I am determined to have the best soil around! 

 Below is a photo of a patch that we did over a year ago and you can see that it does eventually fill in well. Patience and pulling (the weeds, not your hair) are key. It is so nice to cover our dust bowl in the back! Before we planted the plugs we hauled in multiple loads of mulch/compost that we tilled into the ground. Our soil is pretty dead so it needed a lot of organic material to thrive. We raked rocks for day and days, watered to level the soil, then planted. 

 In other news, I actually picked some permanent plants for the front! I have loved my mini white Rose of Sharon tree. I also planted a flat of yellow petunias from Costco that were on clearance for $6. They took over that front patch. They obviously love the soil that I made! 

 First day of school in front of the exploding petunias! 

Garden Progress

We continue to add to our garden. Brent built a large steel bed in the back yard and planted tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, asparagus, and cotton. He added 2 pomegranate bushes on the south side of our garage. I continue to raise pumpkins and zinnias in the front. Someday I will add the permanent landscaping, still working on amending the dirt.

The pecan tree yielded 3 nuts that we were not expecting this year:

My pumpkin was growing one HUGE pumpkin and we only allowed an additional 3 pumpkins to keep growing on the plant. But one very, very sad day I came out and my plant looked like this:

The next day completely dead. Squash bugs. Ugh. I was very sad since I love my pumpkins! 

Our grapes went crazy this year and I was able to steam/process 67 quarts of the most delicious concord grape juice ever! I was surprised to get so many quarts since it's just the third year of our grapes. We will enjoy the juice it all year long! 

July 2017: Self Installed Solar Panels

Brent installed our solar panels! We were able to find a company in SLC who designed the layout, applied for the permits and sold us the panels. Brent spent more than a month, every day after work, setting up the panels. He went through all the city inspections and they were complimentary about his electrical skills (no surprise to me).  He is the hardest working man I know!  I got on the roof a couple of times as did my brother Adam. The panels have been a wonderful addition to Our Concrete Home! We even hit a month when our ENTIRE utility bill was $9.00. Whoopie!

We love our detached garage. All the panels are on the garage's south facing roof. From the street you can barely tell that there are panels on the roof. I love the hidden panels.

We celebrated the installation of the panels with a new purchase: 2017 Nissan Leaf. The kidlettes call it the "raspberry". It's a smooth, quick car and we love the feeling of independence it gives us.

Some days the lighting is striking!

Utah Rewards--Beautiful Sunrise

Sunrise in Utah has been incredible lately. View from my back porch. 

The Pizza Oven Building Officially Begins

Brent has been researching the building of a pizza oven. He needs to be a guest author and post the technical details and the sites he follows. He's done his homework!

The pizza oven is one of the first features to go into our backyard landscaping. We still have a healthy bunch of weeds growing but we're getting in the big stuff first!

He first built a cinder block base and reinforced it with rebar. We recently poured the concrete and I think the kiddos had a good time getting messy!

The beginnings of the base:

 Base ready for a pour:

 Estee's job was to get out the bubbles with a long rebar stick. She did great!

 Maya liked finish work.

 Brent and Cole had the messy job of loading up the cement and pouring it in.

 Brent preparing the base for the concrete slab.

While most of us were doing the pizza oven Sierra worked on another project (everyone ALWAYS has a project at our house). She was making a pinata head to resemble a friend for her b-day--it turned out awesome!