Phew!!!!

[matt4x4]

After 3 years and many many many hours of hard labour, I believe I'm aboout 2 small trailer loads of Gravel away from being done! (replacing the innitial temporary mulch).
It took 150 feet of 5" edging, each inch painstakingly held in place while backfilling, I don't even want to know how much landscape fabric I've used, and I know I'm up around 4 yards of gravel to make it all pretty(er).
Just watch, with my luck, my DW will want me to cover it all up with a wrap around deck next year!!!
For the last 2 years, i've been trying to make my place maintenance free - as maintenance free as owning 5 acres will let you get anyways! I'm done with the pool, I will no longer have to whipper snip, roundup or do much of anything else other than enjoy it, since it is all nicely edged for the riding mower to leave a clean edge in one path. I included the solar panels and solar blanket roller inside the edged gravel area, as well as our collection of outdoor boxes for pool toy storage. The hill on the high side has a drainage ditch at the bottom to divert runoff around the pool.

All this work was done in some of the best clay in the country - those of you with clay, will appreciate what i suffered through, I'd like to thank my 7 year old son, who has been helping me from the beginning, when he was 4 and i put him to work picking rocks from the fill, he was pretty enthusiastic about getting a pool, since then, the hardest part has been getting him out of the pool!

Next on the agenda - about 3-400 feet of edging around the house - boy, I'm glad this heat is breaking!
I will post pics soon, honestly, I was too beaten last night to even think of it!

[tenax]

sounds nice,matt..links to pics?