Trenching with a shovel

The deal has always been that after the Grand Canyon I am not allowed to do anything epic until the yard has been landscaped. I agreed to this because I value my marital happiness. It was interesting that after the Grand Canyon run, actually leading up to the run I didn't feel like doing anything. I was burned out, period. All I wanted to do was sleep. But then that is also how I felt when I was hiking out of that cursed hole.

Since then I have decided to start landscaping the yard. My yard is a little on the intimidating side. We have a small house on 4 acres and there are dying plants everywhere. The previous owners planted about 80 oleander in a 300 foot long row around our yard, and they had mature eucalyptus trees, and a couple of pine trees on the south side of the house.

Since we moved in Two Pine trees have died and 1 of the huge eucalyptus succumbed to extreme dehydration.

The fact is that if you have small children and you don't have an automatic watering system in for plants and you live in the south west, your plants will die. So that's what is happening here. It's sad really, but the truth is that I have enjoyed running two marathons and running through the grand canyon, and riding hundreds of miles on my bike with my kids more than I like having mature trees. And to be fair, my wife and kids also could have watered them, but they were doing something else instead.

Anyway I decided to start landscaping. Really what I should have started with was buying a tractor, but I didn't. I don't have the money for that so I got a shovel and went to work. I wanted to start doing the watering system, but I haven't figured out what exactly I need to buy yet, so I bought pipe to put in a trench to move the water overflow for rain gutters and the washing machine from the middle of our yard to outside the yard.

This requires a trench about 100 feet long and I figure about 9 or 10 inches wide. Not a small trench for a back yard, and I dug it by hand. I know many people who think that is stupid. I think it is epic. The truth is that I like digging trenches. It feels like I am doing something painful and creative at the same time. For all the problems in my head that I deal with on a daily basis, I really find clarity when I am physically exhausted. My lower back is starting t adjust because I have been abusing it on a regular basis. The only problem is going to be what to do when the trenching is done. Actually I'm not too worried because there are hundreds more feet to trench still.

I think it will be nice when it is done, but that will be a while. Perhaps at least I'll be able to get enough done that I can go to the Grand Canyon again sometime soon.

Here's a video of the trench.