What I Did On My summer Vacation...

Our grass was being overrun by some Wild Bermuda Grass and as the "mower-in-chief" I was starting to get annoyed. The patch was getting bigger and bigger...and our once nice green lawn wasn't looking too well. We had a dry spell and the wild grass was starting to get pretty brown...so I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands and start digging some of it out.
Welll....my "plan" was to dig out some of the dead patches and let the St. Augustine grass grow back in....but things don't always go as planned. (hahaha)
It's pretty hot...but I figured 1/2 - 1 hour a day wouldn't kill me...so I'd get out there with my trusty shovel and start digging it up. Everyone thought I was nuts...they'd either offer advice (get some kids to do it...get a machine to do it...forget it...haha) or avoid eye contact for fear that I might try to get them to help me. hahaha well....about a week or two into my little project...John decided we needed to dig out all of the bad grass...and he started making some calls. we were told to spray it...wait, spray again and then after 3 applications of the "Round-Up" type spray...it should rake right out...we are on week 4 and it was driving John CRAZY! Not just the big brown lawn out front...but me out there digging away...(honestly...I kind of enjoyed it...even though it was hard work and incredibly dirty!)
well..he called and rented a sod cutter and was ready to tackle the remaining lawn. When I left for work this morning it looked like the pictures above...when I came home it looked like this.
You can see the layers of roots...this stuff is hard to kill!
Turns out while I was at work...the Lawson family (Amy in particular) decided they should call John and offer to help him with the project. He hesitated at first...then thought..."Why am I even thinking about this...they are offering to help!" He would have preferred to wait until it was a little later (cooler) in the day...but they were ready to go...Amy decided she didn't want to spend her Saturday sitting around...so she, Reid, Chandler and John cut up all the bad grass, rolled it up and then jumped into the pool!
After eating and reading a while...we went back out to gather up the remaining loose grass...roll the "bales" of dead grass to the curb so the Waste Management truck will pick them up and level off the dirt. The whole time John was kind of muttering about how in the world he wound up doing such a project...how did the grass get so over run...etc, etc...I just kept raking away...la dee da....And really so did he...he worked his rear end off all day to get the grass cut, rolled and to the curb...then raked up...and sprayed one last time...before we put the new sod down. so we don't have to do anything for two more weeks!
(we kind of look like that couple with the pitch fork! )hahaha
I am hoping that John will be happier I KNOW he'll be sore! when he looks out at the front yard tomorrow...and the weeds are gone!I feel good...knowing we are halfway there....even if I do feel like a character in the story "HOLES".
I can't thank Amy, Reid and Chandler enough for coming over...in the HEAT and getting dirty and hot while they helped John finish with the sod cutter...he could not have done it without them!