Round Two.

It's all about the grass this time around.  Or the lack of.

Leveling the dirt, getting ready for the sod.

Drizzling rain, wet soggy mud, cold air and lots of shoveling.  A wheelbarrow would've made this job a whole lot easier, but our Habitat supervisor had just come back from break and missed dibs for the good equipment.  

However, outdoors was preferable to applying insulation or sealant in the attic of the house: surrounded by all the hot air of the house concentrated in one place without circulation.  Guys coming out from that job came out drenched, not by rain, but sweat. 

Trimming the front lawn, by shovel.

The shoveling of dirt lasted about 2 hours, and sodding took another 3 hours.  A house's gotta have a good looking lawn right?  We laid the sod in a brick pattern, tucking the sides to make seamless the patches-to-patches of sod.  Even the picture you see above looks like regular grass rather than whole bunch of patchwork sod.  

The result and all the players.

Visually satisfying.  Something about changing the brown landscape to green grass gives a feeling of accomplishment.  The next hours would be spent cleaning up this site and another site down the street.  A truss was laying by the side of a fence, it had to go: for that we took out a reciprocating saw (sawzall). 

Reciprocating Saw

Learning to use one of these was interesting.  Safety first: if not working at a workbench, you'll need someone to keep the object steady as you cut.  Always keep the safety-plate flushed with the object.  And always SAFETY GOGGLES.

Another fun day.