retaining wall

I'm getting ready to build a retaining wall. This will be my first big landscaping job, but I went to home depot and Vic talked me through it. (God help me) It is going to be hard work, but when I am done it will be something that increases the beauty of my back yard. I will stand on that wall once it is finished and beat my chest to the Gods and say "I am man, look at my creation!" Then the wall will collapse and once again my aflac will come to my rescue. All hail the duck! I will post a picture of the before and after. Hopefully the after will look better than the before. I will list the steps that I plan to go by and if anybody out there knows what they are doing and see's an error or know's a better way of doing please let me know.

My retaining was is going to be in the shape of a half moon.

1. I will dig a trench roughly two to two and a half feet wide, 5 to 6 inches deep.
2. I will lay the landscape fabric and then fill the first 3 to 4 inches with crushed limestone.
3. I should be ready for my first stone at this point. I will take a level and check side to side and front to back. If it is a little off I will tap it with a rubber mallet or if need be use some limestone or fabric to correct the problem.
4. I will then repeat the process through the whole first level of bricks. (though I will to use a level that spands at least two bricks)
5. Once the first level is done it is a matter of just stacking the rest on them. When I get to the third level (this whole time using 57's or pea gravel to fill the gap from the bricks to the dirt wall) I will put in a drainage tube. (if i don't do this the rain could cause my wall to shift)
6. Then continue the stacking and pea gravel until I get near the top. Once I get near the top I fold the landscape fabric back over and cut off the excess. Then fill the rest with dirt and put on my cap stones with an adhesive.

If any one knows this to be inaccurate please let me know before I get started. I am actually looking forward to doing this. I've done small jobs inside of house such as putting in faucets and the guts of a toilet and building shelfs to make the doors of a closet fit. This is by far my largest and most expensive job I will have tried by myself, (with the help of relatives when I need it )

As a great man once said "may the force be with you" I will need it.

poop

I took my boys outside today when I got home from work. We have a fenced in back yard with full grown trees. (though their mostly dead) Napolean also uses the backyard for various reasons. For some reason the boys would stand there and point at the poop and say "daddy, poop!" until I would acknowledge them finding poop by saying something along the lines of "you found poop?" They answer "yeah" and I say "don't touch it, it's dirty" Then they would go to next pile and we would repeat the process. It was quite entertaining for fifteen or twenty minutes. Jacob has been a little under the weather the last day or two so hopefully the fresh air will help. He seemed better when we put him to bed.

I'm in a survivor pull at work, the person I have is still in it. I don't remember which one it is though. I will have to find out.

Word from the wise: Do not dive in to water that is only ankle deep.

Wow

Who would of thought I would still have a blog after being bored to death the last time I was on here. I'm close to going to bed, so I figured I would get on here to really get my brain to stop functioning that way when I lay down I'll fall right to sleep. I'm not very good at using this blog. I can't do any thing with it or talk to anybody. Emily says I can talk to my bros' so I might try that. Maybe they can tell me how to make this a more entertaining experience. Maybe I should advertise my blog. HA! that would be funny. I think I'll post this at work to see if I get any response.

Info of the day: Putting to flashlights up to your eyes doesn't hurt as bad as staring at the Sun.

MarchMadness

The first weekend of games is over and I'm looking pretty good in my bracket pool. There was seventy two brackets turned in and I am tied for tenth place. Being a UK fan my favorite game was Duke losing in a nailbiter. That was a fun game to watch. The SEC got no respect from the anaylst before this started and now the SEC is showing that it is the strongest conference in both football and basketball. I have Florida and Memphis in my final game, having Florida winning it all. I took Memphis to help me on my brackets so if Memphis can make it to the final game I will get some points that nobody else is getting. I doubt that many people had them going that far. Kentucky played Villanova well, passing the ball better than they did most of the year. When Morris brings his A game he is one of the best in the country. The bad thing is he only brings his A game half the time.
There is three SEC teams, three PAC-10 teams, two Big Twelve teams, two Big East teams, one Big Ten team, one of the almighty ACC teams left, and four smaller conferenc schools left. SEC forever....ACC....whatever!
This is my first blog so if my words aren't flowing hopefully it will get better with time. I am getting tired of this so I'll shout at ya later.