Yesterday, we decided to take on the weed field that is the south side of our house. I didn't get a picture before we filled multiple large garbage bags of weeds, but it was a literal carpet, mostly those goat's head sticker weeds. We might have stopped earlier, but the day was so perfect for yard work, cloudy with a light breeze. We kept going. By noon we had put down the ground cover layer of fabric and I had called it...I was done.
The day before yesterday we ordered gravel...lots and lots of gravel. Now that the fabric was down, we would be spending the next couple of months moving the gravel to the other side of the house using our Fisher Price wheelbarrow. It would take time, but we knew we could do it little by little.
After putting in the hard work yesterday afternoon I was taking a nap when the doorbell rang. Our neighbor saw us working in the yard and she saw the huge pile of gravel. Turns out, her husband bought a new toy to put in their yard...a mini-backhoe. She asked if we wanted him to come down and move the rocks for us.
I was speechless.
When I did regain the ability to talk, of course we agreed to the help. Minutes later, he drove up in a brand-new shiny tractor. In about 30 minutes, we had the back and side yards covered with gravel. I still can't believe that the project we started and expected to take weeks, if not months to finish, was done by the time we went to bed. As luck would have it, my wife had just baked some chocolate chip cookies and we game him a plate.
Last summer, another neighbor asked us if we needed help moving some rocks. Once again, we did not turn down an offer for help. Once again, the neighbor had recently purchased a big toy--another tractor. I know these people did not need to help us. We're so grateful they did. But, if you think about it another way, maybe them helping is part to help and part just to play with the new toys. Either way, we came out the big winners.
