So...where have I been?

Well, once upon a time, the Red Sock family had a perfectly lovely trailer on a tiny little lot at the river. They were so very happy.

Then one day, along comes...well, let's just call him the Kiski Monster. Now, Kiski Monster is not bad, in fact he's a lovely man who wants everyone to be happy, but seeing his face means you will either spend money or work hard.

The Kiski Monster (or KM) tells the Red Sock family that he knows of a perfectly lovely lot, huge in size, with a lovely trailer, a covered porch and a shed of questionable repute already on it. This lot can be had for the reasonable price of $$$$.00! Of course, when I heard spend, the thrifty gene kicked in and I kicked KM out!

Seven minutes later, we went to look at this palace.

Okay, not great, rather rustic, but it had LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!

It also had a trailer that was OKAY, but clearly not as nice as the one we had. We just walked back to our happy little home on the river...but then, a voice in our head kept talking about all the fun we could have on the new lot...horse shoes, bad minton, picnics and huge camp fires!

My darling husband offered to begin negotions with the owner who clearly was not interested in enjoying all those family type activities. Within days, we agreed upon a price and formulated a plan.

In one fast and easy fell swoop, we could remove the trailer that was there, sell it and replace it with ours. Easy peasy.

Not so. After we exchanged dollars, and came to our senses, and talked to KM and others, we realized that we had to change things. The old trailer lay east-west on the lot, prohibiting anyone from rushing in, hitching it up and pulling it to higher ground in the event of a flood. We were advised to turn the trailer north south.

"Easy", they told us. "Just get Mr. Backhoe to come and move things around."

We arranged for Mr. Backhoe (Mr. B) to come and work with us the following Saturday.

Surely you remember that Saturday. The one where it rained not only cats and dogs, but cats and Mastiffs? By time I got there, they had not only pulled the old porch into the proper orientation, but had yanked the old trailer away and backed our trailer into aproximate position,but it looked as though they were having a porch party! Actually, they were waiting for the rain to subside...

I jumped out of my van, looking all gorgeous and stepped into the mud that once was a wonderful yard waiting for the arrival of our precious children and their volley ball net...The sight of that evil, lot consuming mud encoraching on my French pedicure caused me to swoon...the whole world started spinning...But a cup of coffee soon put my world right again...or as right as it gets when you are looking for your wonderful yard and this is what you see:
When I see men in rain coats...or worse, men in red plastic ponchos...
I always feel like something wierd is going to happen...like having your husband eaten by a back hoe...


Or your sons looking like this:
Then, finally, things were in place...except for...well, we had to dig trenches for new sewer lines. Hubby, bring the industrious man he is, hires Mr. B to do a little more work:
And of course, we had to employ quality control!
And fill all those supervisory positions!

Finally, everything was in place, all the holes were filled...but look...
at my yard! What to do? What to do?

Of course, by then we were out of weekend, so when the next Saturday proved to be sunny and warm...here comes...
Yes, it's Mark and Andy, along with...
Right! You are so smart, it's a rototiller! Now for those of you who have heard the story about a rented rototiller nearly taking Mark down the street years ago, rest assured...this one was not nearly as big, and we had Andy to keep him under control.

With the rototiller, they were able to make...
You heard of crop circles? We had crop lines! After tilling and raking and planting and tamping...all that needed to be done was...
Watching the grass grow!!

Does that answer your questions?