Work Eric, Work!!

Well Eric has been working like a madman & has made great progress on our retaining wall. It's looking so very nice don't you think so? I told him I would like to have a wall like this built all around the backyard, needless to say his response was a look of 'are you off your rocker?' Well, actually........ yes dear I feel like I am....... most of the time!!! Unfortunately these Alan blocks are quite expensive & the work is heavy, dusty & time consuming but oh the results!

Remember how it looked 'before'?

Each Alan block has to be filled with small rocks the trench you see behind the Alan blocks also has to be back filled with rock. This is to make sure the retaining wall is good & stable & won't come tumbling down one day if we have good sized downpour which loosens the bank it's built against.

This actually happened a short while ago to a brand new house that was built in my friends sub division. The owner had built a multi thousand dollar 10 foot retaining wall out of these bricks in his back yard but hadn't done it properly. We had a major rainfall a while ago & the whole wall came tumbling down. I guess it sounded like an earthquake when it happened, the scary thing is he has small children & thank the Lord no one was in the backyard when it happened or they would have been killed instantly.

Now don't you agree the perimeter of the backyard would look awesome done all in Alan block?

One day, or so I'm told :) all the 'stuff' you see in our back yard will magically disappear (into the new shop) & we'll actually have a back yard again. I've been busily dreaming & planning what I'm going to do back there when the day comes, I can hardly wait!!