Water in the Desert

Have I mentioned that after six plus years of living in this house and watering our backyard by hand, we finally installed a sprinkler system this year. And by we, I mean we got help from anyone who would give it to us.

We got a quote way back when from our home teacher, who is a professional landscaper, but I decided we couldn't afford that and I was sure I could do it myself. Fast forward a few years - I visited Home Depot and brought home every pamphlet about installing sprinklers yourself. Over the next couple months I read all of them, devised a plan, and then put off actually starting.

Luckily I had a push start when my brother in law called me one day and said he had to rent a trencher for work and there would be about 21 hours left of rental time. This was a huge help, being free and all - even when I realized there was no way I could handle this big machine and paid someone to run it for me.

The next weekend Aaron took the boys to his parents so I could get started on the project. Let's just say that when they got back, even with help from my parents & sil Candice, I had exhausted my budget and not gotten very far. We had money put aside in savings for this project, but guess what? Turns out it cost more than double what I had guestimated, and was pretty close to our professional estimate from years ago. And it ended up taking two months of having open trenches in our backyard and forbidding the boys to play out there.

In the end, we turned to our old home teacher for help and he gave a lot of advice, loaned a lot of tools, and did a lot of work for a very little pay. Not as much as he deserved anyway. Thanks, Jason! If anyone needs work done I highly recommend him and will give out his contact info.

I still need to cut the risers on the heads down so we can actually mow, but everything is working now, including bubblers for the trees. Here's hoping it takes less than six years to put the timer on too! The boys have been enjoying playing in the sprinklers, can you tell their clothes are sopping in the picture above?