Couple yard pics 3

Just another after pic showing plants growth

Couple yard pics 2

The plants have grown a lot

Three years of planning and it is basically done

After a long wait, my plan for these two regulation horseshoe pits has finally come to pass.  Since the first summer I spent at my house I began to plan on a cool area in this part of my yard.  I will be planting lots of plants in the beds around the pits but the project is basically done and I think it looks great.

Regulation Horseshoe Court added to yard

So I know I rarely post on my blog anymore.  Partly this is due to just being burned out on everything at the moment.  Running, eating, WW, working out, work, blogging, etc.  This is real and it has been very hard to work through but I am working through it to be sure.  So I am taking the rest of this month off from running.  In fact, I am probably not going to do many marathons for the rest of this year but hope to make it to the 24 hour race in Arizona this December.

So to change things up I have gone back to my yard.  It is a place where I find peace yet accomplishment at the same time.  I have done a project that I have been wanting to do for a long time.  I am half-way done so far.  It is a regulation horseshoe court.  I wanted two of them side by side.  I have been pondering and planning this for two years now.  This weekend, I went for it and I feel really good.  I got a ton of exercise and it was beautiful all weekend to do it.

I printed up every plan for a regulation horseshoe pit that I could find so that I could make sure that I did it the right way.

I started out with these plans about two years ago.  I had to get a permit to put them in because I put them in underneath power lines which the energy company has the right-of-way.  I got the permit a long time ago but life happened and I never got to it.  I built it exactly to these specifications except for that I had a couple of extra “rules” to follow because I have two side by side.

This is the court laid out in all the correct dimensions. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the intermediate digging up of the sod

So I spied out my spot for the two courts and laid it out with string and big nails.  Then I painted the lines out so that I would not have to trip over the string or worry about cutting it when I was digging out the grass.  The courts were dug down to a depth of about 4 inches.  I did it the same way that I have done all the flagstone pathways on my property.  That is the worst part by far……….the digging.  I also sprayed the grass AND WEEDS with round-up a couple of days before.

About a full day's heavy labor later I have all the flagstone in and the depth I need for the pit itself

I basically did 3/4 of the flagstone last night and I was so tired I just could not do anymore……….well, I could have but I didn’t want to. 🙂  It is part of me trying to be balanced to purposefully not finish all at once.  The path is the regulation 18 inches wide all the way down so the “pitchers” have something nice and level to walk on.  I think it looks pretty nice too.  You can see I left the grass in the middle.  I will weed-eat this to get it really short and then plant a real nice athletic style triple perrenial rye grass blend.  I will cut it with a real mower that is manually pushed that way I don’t mess up the pathway with my riding mower and it should only take a few minutes.  The flagstones are about 3-4 inches thick with about 2-3 inches of 1/4 inch minus as a bedding.

I used red bricks to set apart visually the foul lines for the court

A regulation court calls for a 37 foot and a 27 foot foul line.  I used some old bricks from the former fire pit to make the foul lines.  I may change it later to something different but for now I kind of like it.  The 27 foot line is for juniors and women and the 37 foot line is for adult men.

12 degree forward lean towards the pitcher

I forgot to take pictures of the stake placement but the stake is supposed to have a 12 degree forward lean and be about 14-15 inches above the sand or clay.  Right now it looks longer because the pit material is not in place yet.  They exactly 40 feet apart as the plan calls for.  I used 18 inch width pieces of railroad tie to anchor the stakes in to make them solid but have good shock absorption.  They should last for many years of fun.  The stakes are 1 inch cold rolled steal.

Regulation courts have a backstop at least the width of the pit. My pit is 36 inches wide

You would not believe how dry and hard the soil was in my right-of-way area.  Dang it was hard.  It took my like 1000 hits with the post hole digger to make a 15 inch deep hole for the back stops.  The back stops are 18 inches high by 36 inches wide.  They are mostly there to catch the sand that flies.  They look pretty good and they better after all that digging.  I also have a loop on each back stop that will hold a measuring tool for all disputes of distance and ringers.

Pit just about finished now

All that is needed now is the pit material.  Blue clay is supposedly the best material to use but where the heck to you get blue clay. HAHAHAHA.  I am going to use sand for mine.  It’s easy and plus the neighborhood cats might even poop in it. 🙂

All done for today. Maybe finish the next court in a few weeks.

There is the court all finished up.  Felt good to take this picture.  We are going to have a bbq with lots of people over before the good weather is up so we can enjoy the little park I have made at my home.  I can’t wait until I can get the nice rye grass planted, it will make a HUGE difference in the way it all looks and flows together.  Notice it is in the shade.  I planned for this.  I took this pic around 2:30 pm.  It is full shade from that time on in this area.  Just in case it is too hot.  I will also paint the stakes white after the sand is in to make the stake contrast off the back board to give the pitchers better visability.

I thought it would be cool to just take a picture from ground level.  It shows the distance well and the flagstone looks neat from this angle as well.  This is my favorite picture of the bunch.  Not bad for a cell phone.

The pathway leading to fun

I didn’t forget about the logistics of getting to the pit either.  I built this flagstone stepping stone path about 1.5 years ago when I first started planning on having a recreational area under the power lines.  These are huge select flagstones leading from the fire pit area to the recreational area.  You can see the court kind of but the pic is not that great.  The pathway goes through these two giant cedar trees.

Another view of the opposite end from the pathway leading to the area.  This will also be where I am going to put a picnic table and some benches for the spectators.  It is also a nice forested shade area so it should be nice and comfy on a summer afternoon.

Thats all the pics I took and it was a fun project.  I burned massive amounts of calories installing it all.  I hope you guys enjoyed having a small lookey loo into my life.  see you later.

Strolling Jim 40 Miler 2010: Basic Scenery Pics

There are many streams in middle Tennessee and also on the race course. This adds so much beauty to the race. This is also the reason why the floods got so bad.

There are vast properties on the Strolling Jim 40 mile course that are personally owned. Many of the owners are "Walking Horse" Trainers and Raisers. It is very popular there. This is one of those properties.

It is amazing how many miles of expensive beautiful fencing that some of the properties have. This property has its own lake with really cool stream edged with huge lime stones.

This is a cool pic my friend took. We both loved the fences. Look how green everything is.

This is a phone ariel shot from the plane of the swollen rivers in Tennessee. Thank God we got out finally.

25th anniversary! Off topic but a major part of my daily life.

The above picture is a mole.  Most of us don’t like moles because they can cause mass destruction of a lawn or garden.  I moved into my home last August.  I have been living there almost one year.  When I moved in the moles had established a small kingdom in my lawn.  I hated it.  I felt helpless as to how to fix the issue.  Many of you may feel the same.  So what did I do?????????????????  I did my research.  I learned about the mole.  I studied the mole activity in my lawn to confirm what I had learned.  Then I set out on the war of attrition.  I set out to reduce their numbers.  I began to catch the moles.

In a little less than one year, I have caught 25 moles.  Last night I had my 25th anniversy.  I got my 25th mole.  What satisfaction it was.I have found two major and permanent tunnels used to enter my property.  I now catch the moles before any damage can be done.  Here are some fast facts about moles and what you can do to get rid of them.

• Trapping is the only effective way to manage moles.  They eat insects and worms so they are not interested at all in poisons.  All research that says poisons work is performed by the poison manufacturer and is biased.
• Moles can dig new tunnels at a rate of 18 feet per hour and they can travel through an established tunnel at a rate of 80 feet per hour.  This is true.  I have captured a live mole and put it in a box of soil to monitor.  They are quite fast and they can gobble up a worm in no time.  Very interesting.
• When trapping a mole, you must find the permanent tunnel that they are using.  The mole hill IS NOT THE PERMANENT TUNNEL.  The vertical tunnel in a mole hill LEADS to the permanent tunnel that is usually around 1 foot to one side of the hill.  Use a steel probe to find this tunnel and put your device there.
• Home remedies do not work.  Car exhaust in the tunnels, flooding, smoke, razor blades, glass, gum, etc.  These do not work.  Mole activity can be sporadic and this makes it “appear” that these strategies have worked but in actuality the moles are just moving deeper or to another location.
• Moles are so soft because of their special hair structure.  Their hair is on a folical that can pivot in all directions so that it can easily move forward and backward in a tunnel without at problem.

Here are some great links to do your own research on how to deal with moles in your landscape.

Mole control from Ohio State University

General mole information

Washington State University mole identification and activity

Wildlife management

The best site for mole information: THE MOLE MAN.

Michigan State University how to identify a moles activity

The biology of moles

Huge landscaping post. Lots of before and after pics.

FIRE PIT BEFORE AND AFTERS

This is the before pic. of my fire pit area

Fire pit after

 

fire pit after pic from a different angle

FOUNDATION BEDS BEFORE AND AFTERS

This is the foundation bed in the front of my house

Front foundation bed after

Side view of the front planting bed

front side foundation bed after

 

back foundation bed after

side foundation bed after

more side and back planting bed afters

FRONT ENTRY

front entry

MORE BACKYARD PLANTING BEDS

backyard planting bedanother view of a backyard bed

 BACK DECK

back deck

MORE FLAGSTONE PATHWAY BEFORE AND AFTERS

This is the site for a stepping stone path.

stepping stone path after

Cross scupture before picture. This shows the area before any flagstone or boulders were placed.

cross and pathway after

 VARIOUS

Before picture of a special area in front yard

special front area after

woodland forest area and path before. This was all lawn a couple days ago. There will be a flagstone path and plantings added to make a nice area under the forest canopy

PROJECT IN PROGRESS:  THE DECK!

Here is my truck full of the plantings that will go in pots on my deck. I am working getting the deck to be an extension of my little landscaping kingdom

Landscaping update!

Here I am after finishing the flagstone patio. My wife caught me looking off into nowhere. HAHAHA

Although I have not been posting about my landscaping lately, I have been doing a lot of it.  Since my last posts, I have finished a very long stepping stone path with flagstone.  This in a sense is my little nature trail in  my back yard.  I have also finished a small seating area that is situated so that anyone sitting there can reflect and look at the cross sculpture.

Even more exciting is the fact that I have now planted lots of stuff.  I have planted 6 rainbow drooping leucothes, 5 evergreen huckleberries, 3 Rhody’s, transplanted two flowering red currents, and transplanted about 30 sword ferns.  Things are really coming together and the plan is beginning to take shape.  Oh yeah, I have also added some more “accent” boulders to various areas.  I have also recieved the foundation planting shrubs and am putting those in hopefully tonight before I pack for my race.

Pictures will be coming soon.

The cross sculpture/reflective area is now finished.

One of the things I wanted in my landscape was a sculpture.  Not an fancy type, but a more rustic and rugged type.  I chose a cross to be my sculpture because it carries with it a strong significance and meaning to me.  Although it is not the “thing” that means anything, but what Jesus did for me and others.  I wanted this area to be a place you could see from the inside of the home, on the deck, and from the fire pit.  I set it up so that at each place you can see a different angle of the sculpture.  It also has a stone seat and the small platform of flagstone is surrounded by boulders (which I moved by myself and it was very difficult).  The stones don’t look big but they were over three hundred pounds each.  Here are the pictures.

This is the view of the back yard from the fire pit. You can see a before shot of my reflective area just under the small Cedar tree right down the center of the photo.

 

Cross scupture before picture. This shows the area before any flagstone or boulders were placed.

Finished. The cross will be planted just behind the hacked down fern in the mid to upper left of the pic

blurry view of the area from the fire pit

Before and After shots of Leyland Cypress back yard screening

 Can’t remember if I showed these pics yet, but here it goes.  The back property line behind my  house has been transformed into a very nice planting bed for trees and shrubs.  There used to be about 30 Arbovitae on the property line and grass right up to them.  Now there is Leyland Cypress, Vine Maple, and Fire Maple.  No shrubs yet

This is a special Gold Variety of the Leyland Cypress

 

 

This shows the property behind my house. You can also see some of the trees that used to be in this planting bed. It is all redone now.

The golden leyland cypress is now planted between two transplanted leyland cypress. I also removed an alder and two pine trees that you can see in the before pictures.

 

 

This is another view of the leyland cypress screening in the back after transplanting. There are four leyland cypress, One golden Leyland, two vine maples, and three fire maple on the back property line now. This is just to the right of my fire pit.

Finalized before and after landscaping pictures: Back Yard Fire Pit

The back yard fire pit is done.  I am very pleased with it and I finally got pictures that were during the day for you all to see.  Here they are.

 

This is the before pic. of my fire pit area

 

You can see the stone table is now on the right. Wooo hooo!

Stone wall is now up and the hole for the fire pit is in

 

At this point, I had built the stone wall three times and the fire pit twice. Both are finished now and it is time for the flagstone patio.

 

Here I am after finishing the flagstone patio. My wife caught me looking off into nowhere. HAHAHA

 

Here is the final product. The repositioned stone table, stone wall, natural stone fire pit, and flagstone patio are finished. They all fit together perfectly according to the landscape design.

 

Here is a closer view for all who are curious. The flagstone is laid on 1/4 minus crushed rock and then the same it packed between the stone. It later dries to be very secure.

Warning: Beautiful wife does guest post. A day in the life of Jason

Many of you have asked me how I get so much done in so little time.  Well, I just go for it I guess.  Here is a post that my wife put up on her blog.

Here he is spraying weeds after his 35 mile long run

Wake up at 4 (on day off), go to work and open gate for workers, run 35 miles, come home, mow lawn, spray all emerging weeds, eat lunch with Audrey, go to Costco, visit with family, eat pizza, watch a movie, go to sleep. Wow! Where does he get his energy? This week he worked on the fire pit (you know, in his down time from his 60-70 hour work week). He built the retaining wall surrounding it and the fire pit itself. It is really turning out beautifully. He is currently halfway through placing flagstone pieces around the fire pit. I look forward to sitting around a fire with friends and family on a beautiful summer night eating smores and talking.

A couple of updated fire pit pics. Amen! I am finished

 

Finished fire pit without the flagstone patio

I finished the fire pit on Saturday.  Then on monday I finished the patio.  I looks great and it is going to be nice to FINALLY site down and have a fire.  Now I just need to save money for some chairs.

 

Here it is the night I finished the whole set up

Leyland cypress and fire maples.

Here I am near a new fire maple and younger leyland cyprees.

To the left is a newly planted fire maple and the evergreen tree to the right is a leyland cypress.  Both of these trees are the back property line.   The man that owns the ground behind me has around 20 acres there and says that he will never sell it.  I don’t believe that so I have planted some screening trees that will block any new construction from destroying my privacy in the future.  By the time that people do build on that property the trees will have grown much larger to form a beautiful and natural barrier.  I am actually going to dig up the 4-6 leyland cypress trees and move them about 8 feet away from the property line.  Right now they are dead on the line.  Not sure why the previous owners would plant them they but that is not the location that the design calls for.  So I will move them a little bit.  Below is a picture of the property line in my back yard.

This show the property behind my house. You can also see some of the trees that I planted that will screen out future building

Three random pics of my landscaping. New angles in landscaping

This is a different angle towards my back deck from the future home of one of the flagstone stepping stone pathways.

If you were to take a walk around this planting island in the back yard on my future pathway, this is the exact view that you would have.  Ahhhhhh.  Imagine the wonderful summer months and little kiddos playing around the deck.

Just a slightly different angle of the screening bed in the front side yard.

This different angle just shows a little more front lawn.  You can also see some of the other plantings that are in the bed.  From closest to furthest I have: Hogan Western Red Cedar Trees, Vine Maple, Two Huge Summit Ash Trees, another Vine Maple, a very large Vibernum, and finally a decorative plum.  There will be many added shrubs to this bed but that is for a later date.  Maybe the fall.

Here is a picture of the vine maples that I have been planting.

I have planted 6 vine maples so far and have one more to put in.  The last one will go about 12 feet away from this one.  These are beautiful trees when they grow up.  Sometimes the branches will get low to the ground and grow parellel with it.  I have some very mature vine maples in my yard that have done this and they are spectacular.

The successful compromise: Fire pit heaven

Well everyone, I finish the dang fire pit.  My wife AND I both like the new look.  It is 4 feet wide inside diameter and I leveled out all of the boulders to my wife’s liking.  I am so happy with it and thanks for all of your encouragement regarding it.  I don’t have finished product pics because it got dark but I have in process pics.  So here you go.

My weigh-in results and a botched fire pit job!!

As most of you know, yesterday was my day to weigh-in at weight watchers.  I didn’t want to go but I remembered what happened the last time I did not go to my meeting.  I compromised with myself and decided to go the meeting and just weigh-in but not stay.  I wanted to get home to work on my fire pit area really really bad.  I also did not watch the biggest loser this week.

Anyways, I went to my meeting hoping that I would at least stay the same since I have not been real great on program as far as counting goes but I have been eating healthy foods and exercising in significant amounts.  I stepped on the scale and it read 181.4 lbs.  I lost 3 pounds since my last weigh-in.  I was shocked, happy, and in a bit of disbelief.   Maybe I did good or maybe the scale was messed up.  HAHAHA.  Who knows!

After the weigh-in I went home to build the fire pit.  This was fun for me but somehow my 5 foot wide pit ended up only being 2 feet wide when I was finished.  Now I am going to dig it completely up and redo it all.  I wanted it to be 4 feet wide on the inside of the fire pit.  This made me extremely disappointed and overwhelmed with the amount of work I did and would have to do to redo it.  So I am pissed about my fire pit situation right now.  I am just glad that one day I will be sitting there enjoying the fruits of my labor without remembrance of putting it in and then digging it up.  Here are some pictures of the present fire pit before I dig it up.

This is the finished product and now I am digging it all up

Landscaping psychadelics. Progress pics of the fire pit area.

I have made some progress in the fire pit area.  I am very happy to say that the giant stone table was moved yesterday.  I got home and I ran over to the fire pit area like a little kid to see what had happened while I was gone at work.  Ahhh yeah!!  The table was in it’s new location.  I don’t know how they moved it but I am sure glad I wasn’t there.  That sucker was heavy.  So here are the  progress pics of the area.

This is the before pic. of my fire pit area

This is the result of our failed effort to move the table without a machine

You can see the stone table is now on the right. Wooo hooo!

This a horrible pic, but my camera ran out of batteries. I finished the stone wall and fire pit patio excavation at 9 pm last night.

Landscaping before and after pics. Planting bed design.

Well, the stone company who was going to come and move my stone table had a break down on their forklift thing.  They did not come and move the table so I could not build the patio or the fire pit.  I was very very disappointed with this.  I still had a lot to do though.  I had a friend come and help me yesterday.  That was nice and a lot got down.  One of the things we did was design the planting bed on part of my driveway.  I transplanted and moved a couple of plants around, removed sod with a pick (no sod cutter this time), and mulch the area.  It was pretty darn hard.  I also tried to remove the basketball hoop but the person installed it into about a 2 foot by 4 foot pillar of concrete and we just could not move it.  Anyhoo, here are the before and after pictures of the planting bed.  In the future, there is going to be a small concrete paver pad in the middle of this bed.  That work and those pictures will came some time later.  It is hard to see the plants but the change in the bed is dramatic.  By the way, I am very sore from the work today.  It is a lot of work to removed sod with a pic but it is easier than using a shovel. All in all, I burned around 400-500 calories on this part of the days landscaping work.

Before I removed the sod for the planting bed

 

THis is a before shot of a planting bed prior to sod removal

 

This is an after picture of the planting bed

 

This is the after picture

Future home of yet another stepping stone pathway.

This is the site for a stepping stone path.

Here I am in the back yard again.  My wife caught me on the move. HAHAHA  Just to the right of me is the future home of another stepping stone pathway that I will put laying down.  This pathway is of low priority but I thought I would share the picture with you anyway.  I have a substantial drainage issue in this area so I will have to develop a way to keep water away from the path so that it will stay clean on peoples feet.  The path will flow from the lawns edge to about 20 feet away where it will “Y” off into two directions.  At that point the path will flow to the left to the front lawn and also to the right all the way around the planting island to the right.  Below is a picture of where the path the turns to the right around the island will end.

Back lawn planting bed and home of the end of the steeping stone path

So the island that the path will go around is at the top left of the photo.  The path will hit the lawn just as the lawn is curving toward the island.  This is also where the cross sculpture will go as well as a seating area near the property line to the righ.  This picture also shows three fire maples that I just recently planted towards the back.  You can really only see one of them in the sunlight.  Notice the nice design of the lawn’s edge as it flows serpentine like.  I love that look.  It is more relaxed and less formal than straight lines.