'Til the End of Lawn

As you may remember, we found a big boulder in our lawn about 1” below grade. We were feeling frisky and thus attacked it. We’ve received lots of advice about this. My father recommended drilling holes and using explosives. Another friend recommended digging a deeper hole and burying it. In the end, I used a jack hammer in an attempt to break the rock into smaller more manageable pieces since not even our trucks would have budged it. I soon found out that a jack hammer is good at finding and exploiting pre-existing fissures but not actually creating them from scratch. I made about 10-15 little dents in the rock before finding (luckily) a hairline crack that I was able to force open. The resulting halves were about a 2/5ths piece and a 3/5ths piece. Still pretty big pieces, though.

My spouse was sick that week so I went at it by myself. I tied off to a tree in the yard and used one of my truck straps as a come along. I guess I was just too lazy to go buy/rent a real come along. I was able to budge the larger rock half a couple of inches at a time. Using a 2x4 and some concrete blocks, I supported and adjusted the rock and eventually got it almost out of the hole. I knew if I just had one more person I could probably roll the rock across and off of the lawn area. I called a friend and he came over with his 21 month old son. Hey, every little bit helps! Together we rolled the boulder half out of the hole and off the lawn (little by little). His son would come over from time to time and help us by pushing and making grunting sounds (not very dissimilar from the sounds we were making). The rest of the time he’d dig in the dirt with a mini pick axe tool.

Working the rock.

Success! (Half-way)

Moving one of the halves was pretty exhausting. I wasn’t really into moving the other half. I decided to bury it. The smaller of the halves now resides 6” below grade in the lawn.

Success! (Out of sight, out of mind)

With the lawn clear of boulders and holes, I spread 7 yards of 2-way compost (sand-compost mix) over the approximately 30’ x 30’ area. I had to shovel it, wheel barrow it, then rake it out. My spouse helped rake as well, but she was still sick and didn’t have a lot of endurance.

After spreading it, I tilled the compost to mix it with the already tilled pre-existing “soil” that was under it. After tilling along the x axis and then the y axis, I leveled the area with a rake.

I rented a roller, filled it about one third full of water and gently compacted the soil. After that, I scored the smooth surface with a rake so that the grass seed would have more contact with the soil.

A friend had loaned us a fertilizer spreader and I had already used it to spread some lime before tilling the compost into the soil. Spreading the grass seed was a very touchy process, but I got reasonably even coverage. Finally, I went over the whole area again with the flat side of a leaf rake to gently cover the grass seed. It rained the next day, which was prefect.

Unfortunately, it has gotten quite cold and we haven’t seen any growth yet. We will likely have to seed again in the spring. Until spring though, we’re not messing with the lawn anymore!