# Landscaping this weekend



## leolav (Sep 16, 2003)

Wow, I gotta tell you, I had a tough weekend. I decided to help out my single sister-in-law. She built a new house and the landscaping needed to be done. She had three truck loads of topsoil delivered and rented a bucket loader with a york rake. We started saturday morning and I was in for a surprise. None of her yard was ready to be "top coated" with top soil. I ended up spending 5 hours just grading her yard and then, finally we got to spread the topsoil. 

Her yard is essentially a hillside. I had to grade her front yard which required extensive earthmoving. In one area, her front yard was at least 6 feet too high and was sloping towards the house. I regraded it to slope away towards her woods. There goes one solid hour.

She has a room in her basement with windows and I had to grade the front yard to the downhill side even more. In the end, her front yard has a 15 degree slope that is still steep, but no where near the 45+ it was when I started. I then proceeded to grade the rest of the yard with the york rake and pick out any of the larger stones.

After spreading all the topsoil, I raked again and then we did all of our final raking by hand.

All said and done, the reason we did it ourselves was to save money. She got quotes to do the work for $3,500-4,000 to grade it and spread the topsoil and seed it.

We did the 2+ acres for:

Machine rental: $250

Topsoil: $1,200

Labor: Free (will trade credits for next big project at my place)

Medicine: 12 Advil (not used to raking that much) 

Grass seed and fertilizer: $400

All said and done, it looks great. 

Good way to ease back into the spring season.


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## Stewart (Sep 17, 2003)

At least you got to run the tractor!!!!! Are you going to trade up now? 

I am going to change my name to manual because most of my projects lately involve hand tools and very little tractor time! Oh well the grass is greening up and needs mowed again so seat time is not too far off! Hope you are not too sore today, I am just a little slow getting started but not bad!


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## SuperFreak (Sep 18, 2003)

What kind of machione did you rent?
Sounds like fun!


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## Ingersoll444 (Sep 17, 2003)

Hey your all warmed up, come on over. I need my lawn done also


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## Spike (Sep 26, 2003)

*Hey*

Sounds like you had a terrific weekend!!!


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## leolav (Sep 16, 2003)

It was a Challenger compact 40hp diesel. York rake, bucket loader, 4WD. Not a bad machine. 

After yorking the yard, I had to hand rake the entire yard to smooth it out further and take out any small stones. 

It was fun, but not something I would want to do everyday.

Glad I'm back sitting at my desk.


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## Stewart (Sep 17, 2003)

Amen Brother, I need a break! 
:cheers:


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