Installing Irrigation

After fixing the well and demolishing everything in the backyard, it was finally ready for some new irrigation. The Engineer had it all planned out and was more than ready to get the system installed and running.

The pump had already been relocated around the corner after we pushed the fence a few feet.

It might not seem like much, but since we were putting in new piping from the well to the pump there wasn't any reason why we shouldn't put it where we wanted it. The new location put it out of sight from the majority of the back yard and pretty much eliminated any noise from the pump from most areas of the back yard.

Then The Engineer started trenching. We could have rented a trencher, but after tilling a lot of the roots were cut or loosened. Since we were only installing irrigation in the back yard, we figured digging by hand wouldn't kill anyone. The Engineer dug two trenches along the two long sides of our yard for the main lines.

He then started piping from the pump through our manifold and along the lines to the locations of the sprinkler heads.

We have the option for two other zones in the back yard with this setup and we know we will use one for the garden once it is built. For now, we are just running one zone to irrigate the grass. *Ahem, excuse me, future grass*

At the very end of one of his trenches The Engineer hit something substantial…he called it our biggest archaeological find yet because if you have been following our progress…we have found one thousand and one pavers buried in the yard!

But this was big.

Yeah, we didn't know what it was either. It appears that it may have been the anchor from a basket ball hoop or something like that. Unfortunately, we were determined to get it out. Partly because it was really close to the surface and the new grass wouldn't have much soil below it before it hit this thing, and partly because we were invested and we wanted to get it out of the ground for the sake of getting it out of the ground. Sigh.

We ended up with a 5-6 ft. hole and a concrete mass that was much too heavy for us to lift. We took a section of the old galvanized down pipe that came out of the old irrigation well, tied it to the  concrete mushroom, and used cinder blocks to make a fulcrum out of it. I knew it wasn't a good sign when I could hang on the end of the pole and it didn't move. So we tried to lift it together and bent the pipe!

Needless to say, there was no way we were getting that thing out without some serious lifting power. We decided to cut our losses and since we could wiggle it, we dug out the hole on one side and rocked it until it bent over enough for us to bury and have plenty of soil on top of it for the grass (just and FYI, that was an intense process!).

After passing that minor road block, The Engineer and his dad laid the pipes and installed the sprinkler heads.

And of course buried everything.

After a test, everything worked great! What a relief!

I then fertilized and leveled the yard because despite how it looks in pictures, it was not level at all! And I installed a new border for a path that would be much smaller than our old one!

Those were the last tasks we wanted to complete before our sod delivery and we were done about two days early! The only thing left is the easy part…laying that sod!!