I swear I am the king of unfinished projects. Get something about 3/4 of the way finished… then for some reason it gets out on hold for a unknown period of time. I’m this case it’s been well over a year since I laid cinder blocks around our above ground pool. Since my yard has a slope to it and the pool needs to be perfectly flat, I had to dig out one side and raise the other. The cinder blocks hold the dirt back from caving in and also the other end they keep the sand from washing out.
The area between the pool and the cinder blocks sat with black weed barrier laid down waiting for to be covered with rock. Then we got a couple puppies and they thought it would be fun to tear up the week barrier and dig in the sand. I guess that was the motivation I needed to get some rock and get this project finished.
Before I could get a load of rock I needed to get the side of my house cleaned up. It’s just dirt over there and kind of a place where we pile up dirt, rocks, broken cinder blocks, and other stuff from doing work around the house. I borrowed a dump trailer from a co-worker and a mini-excavator from work in order to make this cleanup real quick and easy.
My neighbors are probably wondering…
What in the world is he doing now!!
My initial plan was to use the excavator to transport the rock across the back yard to the pool, but it would totally trash the yard. Plus access around the pool isn’t the greatest for the excavator. I could get to one side but nowhere else. I got an idea that should work pretty good…
After dumping the crap I cleaned up from the side, I picked up 2 Tons of rock with the dump trailer and my Excursion. Then I used my truck to haul the excavator back to the shop and dropped it off.
Having 2 Diesel Trucks does come in handy :wink:wink
After I dumped the first 2 tons of rock on the side yard, I looked at the pile and though that it wouldn’t be enough. So I ran back to the rock place and got another 3 tons. For a total of 5 tons of 1-1/2 river rock.
Yes, that’s correct. I drive right in the middle of my front yard…
That doesn’t look like no 5 tons of rock…
Since the excavator wouldn’t really work to move the rock, I used my John deer mower with a dump trailer. Only problem with that is the cinder blocks sit up too high and I would have to lift the whole trailer up in order to dump it. Again access is really limited on 2 sides of the pool, even for the mower.
Looks like it’s time to round up as many buckets as I can find and start filling them up. Then I can put them in the dump trailer and haul them over to the pool with the mower.
I lifted the 5 gallon buckets full of rock and dumped them out around the legs of the pool. 
Before…
During…
After…
That sure made things around the pool look a lot nicer. Instead of torn up weed barrier and sand, looking all trashy and crap. Churched up the back yard a bit with this project finally done.
Time to relax in the sun…
And crack a cold one
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