About three months ago, a terrible storm came through Jackson, which brought several tornados and estimated 100-mph straight-line winds. Our house was right in the middle of the affected area of town. Fortunately, we only had a couple thousand bucks’ worth of damage to our house. To give you an idea of the scale of damage, about three blocks away you couldn’t find a house that didn’t have a tree through it. It did take a little more than a week before power was restored to our house.

Our backyard, however, was not so fortunate as the house.

We lost a massive pine tree in the back yard. It fell straight away from the house, and hit utility lines and the fence. The power crew was nice enough to chop the tree up into small pieces, but that left us with a huge stump in the back yard that came up to about chest height.

So yesterday, the stump grinding service we hired finally got an opening in their schedule to come grind the stump. It’s made quite a difference in the yard, as you can see here:

So now we have a lot more yard space, in addition to a whole bunch of free mulch. Now that the back yard isn’t so shady, we can plant some grass in the back corner there and make the yard feel larger.

So here’s the plan. Yesterday, I went to get a lawnmower, some grass seed, and a shovel. I came home with everything but the lawnmower, because I met a nice guy at the hardware store who had an extra lawnmower and wanted to give it to me. For free. I know, it’s incredible; turns out the guy is a retired pastor and that he and I have several friends in common.

Today, my new friend dropped off the lawnmower at our house, and I mowed the lawn for the first time. (It only got mowed once last year, and once so far this year, using a borrowed lawnmower both times.) I also took the opportunity to groom all our bushes, because they were quite out of control.

Sarah and Buster both helped tremendously, of course.

Tomorrow, the plan is to pull out the weeds from the back area and get rid of the couple of big branches that are still loitering about the yard. Then I’ll spread grass seed and mulch, and then put out the sprinkler. In just a short time, we should have a nice, larger-than-before backyard where we can play football and throw toys for Buster.