Last summer, I dug up our side yard. All the crab grass, rocks and weeds, and the ugliest yard in the neighborhood had finally taken its toll on my patience.

Curtis has been threatening to dig up the whole yard since we moved here. Did I mention we have the ugliest yard in the neighborhood?

First, it was all the dandelions. Curtis dug thousands of them up by hand, and sprayed the rest. After a summer of doing that, we haven’t had as much problem with them. Then, it was the clover. We can’t do anything with that. Every time it rains in the summer, the rank smell of ghetto grass wafts up to remind us that we have clovers.

The front yard has acorns and rocks, and very thin topsoil, which barely covers the debris thrown out in the yard during construction. Our house is now 13 years old, and the topsoil is even thinner.

The back yard has its own problems. It was a thicket of weeds and brambles when we bought the house. The neighbors nicknamed it ‘the jungle,’ and it was one of the many reasons they hated the people who lived here before we moved in. They cheered when we had most of the trees and thicket cut down.

Now they hate us because instead of ‘the jungle,’ we have an unsightly mud patch and sad grass. Every time you spend any time in the back yard, you find broken glass in that mud patch. I suspect ‘the jungle’ was the site of many illicit teenage parties before we moved in.

We had a landscaping company come in during our first spring here–in 2000. They sprayed that blue woodchip grass seed mixture back there. The grass came in tentatively and thin. It all died when we put Rufus, our German Shepherd back there in 2003. Rufus is gone now, and so is the grass. (don’t worry about him; he is spoiled rotten in his new dog lovers’ home). The only grass in the back yard is that ghetto clover grass by the back door that was always back there, plus a little thin stuff along the middle of the yard.

So, anyway, I’ve been in disagreement with Curtis since we’ve moved in about what to do with the yard. I didn’t think we had to tear up ALL the grass in order to get a decent looking yard. Surely we could use the chemicals, mow regularly, fertilize, etc.

Well, we tried that. For years. And our yard is THE UGLIEST IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

Finally, in a symbol of agreement with Curtis, I dug up our side yard last summer. I thought I could do the side yard without any expensive rented equipment, and it would be a start. I used the garden weasel to dig up the crab grass, weeds, and the tiny bit of regular grass that we had.

Just below the surface was a whole quarry of rocks. I didn’t think it would be possible to get all these rocks out. We decided it would be ok to leave the tiny ones, and just concentrate on getting the big ones out. Most of our neighbors have boulders surrounding their flower beds. They all claim the boulders came from their yards! I didn’t find any that big, but there were some good sized rocks.

We raked, we weaseled, and it was a hot summer. I think it was October when Curtis rented a tiller to finish the side yard. He had an easier time in the ground I’d worked first.

We now have a huge pile of rocks against the garage. Curtis planted grass seed in the side yard.

The mild winter has meant that we’ve had patches of new grass peeking up all winter. It is patchy.

And I noticed today that the dirt has eroded into the street.

What a mess. And it’s not even a smooth dirt patch. It’s all full of garbage can tracks and footprints. (drat that child labor!) And, not surprisingly, rocks. Did I mention that it’s all bumpy, instead of smooth?

I don’t know what to do. We haven’t even had the discretion of snow to keep this ugliness covered all winter. Now, instead of the ugliest yard in the neighborhood, we have THE BIGGEST EYESORE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

What do we do?