Why do some kids like to do manual labor?

As we continue our landscaping project in our front yard, it was time to start getting the rock back where it belongs. This pile of rock that we previously pulled from the landscaping has been sitting in the driveway, in MY parking spot for a few weeks now, and we finally were getting back to it.

John build a "sifter" to separate the rocks from the dirt that we shoveled up with it. Apparently the kids in the neighborhood thought this was the coolest thing and we shortly had 2 of the neighbor kids come over and ask if they could help.

Kids, asking to help shovel rocks? Were they for real? So John said yeah, why not. He figured that they would help for 5 minutes and then run off to play. Boy was he wrong! Not only did they help us for the entire evening, more of the neighborhood kids came over to help! At one point, we actually had 4 of the neighbor's kids, in our driveway, shoveling rocks into John's homemade sifter. They were shoveling so fast that he could not keep up with them! They got to take many breaks as he sifted and put rocks into the wheelbarrow.

Before long, they had shoveled over half of the rocks and were still going strong... but John was out of gas. He was ready to call it a night and find a shower. The kids would have kept shoveling until the pile of rocks was gone, but he thanked them many times for all their help and told them he was done for the night.

Yeah, he was in need of a shower!!!



But the landscaping in the front of the house was starting to look much better!!!

The Spring Landscaping begins

Before...

Today was the start of our spring landscaping project. We are not really sure how long it will take, or what we will end up with in the end.... we are still trying to get through the planning. The above photo was actually taken in April 2006, but it was the best photo we had that would really show everything that was there at the beginning. The only really difference between the start today and this picture (besides the size of the trees) is that we actually removed all the bushes in front of the front window last fall.

This is the start of our journey to redo the front landscaping ourselves this year.

This morning was the first HUGE step to our new "curb appeal". We have been talking for years that we wanted to do something with the pine trees near the garage. They have become overgrown and are we are really not even sure what the rest of the landscaping around them was suppose to look like!

We found out that Nick just bought a new chainsaw and was looking for trees to cut down to play with his new toy... so he offered to cut down our trees! He would cut them down, but we had to take care of all the hauling.

We had already started removing some of the lower, smaller branches and were discovering the hidden "treasure's" that these trees held. Aside from the 2 pine trees, that was 3 other smaller trees that were trying to grow as well as 3 other various shrubs that probably provided some great curb appeal when they were first put in. Now, they were overgrown and starting to die.

Nick made quick work of these trees. As he was cutting the branches off, we started pulling them away into a big pile so that we could get them hauled away later. It was really fun trying to get the trees to fall int eh direction that we wanted. There was a light incline that the trees were on so gravity wanted to pull them right towards the neighbor's house!

We have some great kids in this neighborhood too! When they saw us starting to haul the branches and wood from the trees away, they all came over to help too! What kids (ages anywhere from 4 to 10) want to spend their afternoon hauling brush voluntarily???? Apparently the ones in our cul-du-sac! I will have to say that if it were not for their help as well as all the neighbors that also came over to help, it would have been an even longer day that it already was!

Several hours later... trees are gone and brush is hauled away... now just to get the stumps ground out so we can plant some grass!

The end results of our days work... (the photo is slightly distorted as it is a 180 degree composite photo).
Thanks again everyone for all your help!!!