Sledge Hammers and Chain Saws

My backyard looks like a tornado touched down. It is a disaster! Last weekend we looked for some patio furniture that we have been wanting/planning to buy for about 9 months. We knew we wanted to get some for this summer. We ran in at Lowe's and they were already out of what we wanted. I told my husband we probably needed to look at Home Depot soon and go ahead and buy what we had found that we liked a few months before. He responded with "well, lets go". So we did and we bought a patio table and 6 chairs. This is how the chaos began. We called my baby brother, Greg, to bring his truck and help us get this all home.

On the care ride home Trace and I began discussing our plans for the backyard. It went something like this...
Trace: I guess we can put this table and chairs in the grass until we can rip out the screened in back porch and the uneven stone porch (that was all here when we bought the house) and get some cement poured (we plan to get a cement porch extension added on to the house).
Christa: How are we going to tear out the stone porch? Do we need to rent some equipment...like a jackhammer?
Trace: Maybe we could do it with a sledge hammer? Maybe that old man down the street (as we have affectionately named him, but we do know his family calls him Papa Penn) has one and I can try and see how hard it will be.
Christa: I can ask him, he is always willing to let us borrow his stuff.
Trace: Maybe Greg would want to do it? He doesn't have a job right now does he?
Christa: I can always ask him and see if he wants to. Hey look, their outside (meaning that old man). Do you want me to ask him now and when Greg gets here we can let him give it a good whack and see how hard it will be?
Trace: Yeah, go ask.

A few hours and a little bit of sweat results in the screened in porch being torn down and the stone porch beaten out with the sledge hammer and stacked in a pile. We loaded up Greg's truck and sent him off to the dump to dispose of the mess.

We also had 7 Crate Myrtle trees in a semi-circle surrounding this uneven water collecting mess of a porch. Trace has wanted to cut them down since we moved in. Well, today we said goodbye to the Crate Myrtles. Our neighbor brought out his heavy duty chain saw and Trace and he got busy. They are literally lying on the ground exactly where they dropped them. Greg is coming again tomorrow to help us cut them down and dispose of them. We also still have some of the mess from last week that we could not get in the truck. In the middle of this Trace has been working on putting together a swing set for the kids that is still not complete. This is the brilliant way we plan at our house. I will make a mental note...whenever sledge hammers and chain saws come out we are NOT going to see how much work it is going to be we are beginning the chaos, ready or not.

Now if we could just determine the best way to get rid of the stumps left from the trees...then the demolition would be complete and we could move on to fun things like getting the concrete poured and putting together the patio furniture. I am even beginning to dream about entertaining in the backyard while the kids play and we fire up the grill. One day the craziness will be worth it...one day.