So while Steve was on holidays last week, he had some boys around and did some hard backyard action. It was a crazy backyard blitz working bee that lasted most of the day (and actually didn't really get finished until 5 days later, but no one is complaining about that, least of all me. :) ). 

John and Wade turned up pretty early and pulled out some trees around the front before the came round the back and got started with the BBQ. I was thinking the BBQ would take quite a bit of time, but they managed to pull apart the bessablocks like pros and the whole thing came apart like lego really. 

All the bessablocks are stacked under the stairs now. Ready to be a garden edging or a bookshelf. :D 

The boys also took out the large chunk of cement that has always lived in the middle of our yard for no apparent reason. Again, something we were thinking would take a long long time, but actually was just a matter of levering it up. Sarah's Steve turned up to help then too. You can see the bit I did in this photo.  I lopped off most of a tree at the very back corner and then sharpened an axe. It was a quality contribution to the day. Then I contented myself with providing refreshments and food for the hard workers. 

Good thing Melissa and Sarah were around to help lift the drainage into the trench the boys dug. This was probably the most time consuming part of the day. They took out more trees and dug the trench and then figured out how to put the drain together before they mixed the cement and put it all in.

We were short just a bit of cement, but Steve and I finished that off after another few trips to Bunnings. Backyard work seems to compound on itself quite easily. Digging the trench leads to putting the drain in, which meant that we had to sledge part of the fence cement on the side to put the drain around the house, which then needs to be joined up with the storm water drain, so we need to dig another trench and get some more pipe and take out another tree to do all that. It goes on and on. Thankfully it's all mostly back in order now. Going to get some Sir Walter for the big brown patch in the middle of the lawn. Too bad I didn't get more of the garden bed cleaned up before pregnancy became too much for me. Oh well.