Our big project for this spring is putting in a pool. As mentioned before, we can’t handle the hotter and hotter summers, so we are going to combat it the way everyone else seems to…with a pool! It just a simple above-ground pool that we can setup in the yard. However, if you have been following along, you will know that the back area that we plan to put the pool was never planned to be fully level. Well, now we are doing the work to make it so.

The bottom was fairly level, or so we thought. It didn’t feel like a big slope from the garden to the fence, but when we started digging it in…well, it told a much different story. In one area, we had to bring the level of the yard down by a couple of feet. So over the last 2 weeks, we have been moving around a lot of earth.

We started out by framing it out last year, with the intention of putting a little stack-stone wall to frame a pathway for the lowest garden bed. This year, we started digging it in lower so that we could get to level with the fence line.

Now, what are we doing with all that soil that we are moving out. I’m happy you asked! We are filling buckets and walking them up to the top of the yard to dump them behind one of the upper walls. Yep, you heard that right. More back-breaking labour. But, it will all be worth it, or so we keep telling ourselves.

To be fair, the area that we are backfilling was on our list of projects for this year. This section of wall is boxing in the original retaining wall for the cedars. The original was all but buried in the crushed gravel that had been steadily sliding because the retaining wall was not at all useful in the capacity that it was built.

Adding a dry-stack wall of rocks on the slope side of the cedars really helped. But adding a much higher retaining wall in front was going to make a huge difference…once it was back filled, creating a nice level area for the cedars.

Now that we had all this soil that we needed to do something with, we had no excuse but to fill the wall. But that lead to another project. We realized that we didn’t want to bury the irrigation in case we needed to do any repairs or make any changes. So we had to adjust the PVC section, so that at the first post, it runs up the post to the top of the wall and would then run along the top of the backfilled area.

It’s always fun when one project turns into multiple projects. At least we have Basil to keep us on track.

So, we dug dirt, we hauled dirt, we dumped dirt, and we piled dirt for the last few weeks. The wall is now mostly filled. We are going to let it settle for a few weeks and see if we need to add more. I feel that there will definitely be a few more loaded buckets being hauled up the hill.

And the area for the pool? Well, we did finally get the footprint dug out. We have a little finessing to make sure it is all level and any humps or small mounds are knocked down, but we now have a good, level area to work with. We also took out the irrigation line that used to run to one of our raised garden beds, since it was in the way of where the pool is going to go. We will have to take out one other line, but that will be easy. We will leave one in so that we can add a spigot to use for filling the pool.

We went ahead and ordered the stackstone, which we will use to build the small retaining wall around the pool. On the garden side, it will stack against the path, and on the fence side it will give us a buffer between the sand and crushed gravel we plan to put down and the fence. We wanted to make sure that we will still be able to easily access our irrigation lines along the back fence.

The stackstone wall will essentially go all the way around the pool and we will use it to fill with sand for the ideal pool pad. Unfortunately, our local supplier is short and it will be about a week before they will get their shipment in and delivered to our house.

That is ok though, we will work on putting down the crushed gravel around the perimeter so that when the stone arrives, we can get started on our stackstone frame.

Our focus is the pool for now, because once that is in, we will be able to better work in some of the summer heat on the rest of the landscaping. We will push most of the remaining soil across the yard to finish leveling the whole area. We will dig in an area for a future floating deck and line that with landscaping fabric and crushed gravel for the summer. We will see how funds go for the summer. If all is well, then we may tackle putting in the raised deck as well.

We want to make it out of composite wood, so the price tag is significantly steeper than a traditional wood deck. But we figure it will be worth it for the much easier up-keep of it than dealing with wood.

While we wait for our stackstone, I am going to start turning the rest of the garden beds…more digging…in preparation for a lot of our plants going outside in a few short weeks. It can’t come soon enough. They are getting huge, and some are actually starting to produce. I should have an update on those fairly soon.