The time the neighbors realized who was really living next door

Or what the neighbors were likely whispering: More mud and more rocks?

Work on the dry creek bed, which is currently a sloppy, slippery mud slide, great for riding Big Wheels and trikes down, is progressing. We cut up the sod and, instead of filling the local landfill with it, were able to use it to create "banks" along the meanders of the creek bed and fill in low spots around the yard. The creek bed is really, really long. It is going to take a LOT more rocks than we originally anticipated to fill it in. Luckily Waterbug helped us dig two good-sized boulders out of the excavation areas. Two down, a million to go. 

We made good use of the sod cutter that we rented for a 4-hour block by cutting up everything at once. The cutting was the easy part. Pulling up heavy, wet sod wasn't much fun at all, and the many grubs, mealworms, earthworms, red worms, beetles and ants whose roof we tore off were not too pleased either. We removed all the sod from the area behind the house where the new patio will go in, and the 4 tons of pebbles for that project were delivered to my driveway this morning! We also re-vamped the old oft-flooded rectangular garden into a perfectly round rain garden. Now I just need to hope that the seeds didn't wash away before they could take root and sprout. 

Things are busy here, but they are always fun. We always have extra rocks to toss in the creek, mud to splash in, and some sort of mound of something in the driveway to climb lately. And that is what a nature playscape is all about.