Today Kathy and I installed sprinkler pipe for the lawn in the back yard. We are sunburned in many spots and sore all over. Kathy’s feet are even sunburned where they showed through her sandals.

Yesterday Kathy did a fair amount of work as well, installing most of the valves for the drip system. I didn’t help much with that because I was busy trying to lure parts out of Lowes and Home Depot. I wasted a huge amount of time doing this on two separate trips. Lowes is closer, but if I go there I will almost always end up driving to Home Depot because Lowes doesn’t have what I need. One day I will completely give up and just go to Home Depot first.

Two years ago we took a drawing of our yard plan to Sprinkler Supply in West Jordan. They put the plan into their computer, which created a very nice sprinkler design, and we bought the parts to build it. A year ago, we installed the sprinklers and lawn in the front yard, just in time to satisfy the city’s requirements and get back our $1000 deposit. While we had the trencher, we also dug trenches in the back yard, but didn’t get any further with it.

Earlier this year, we bought a ton of lumber and parts to build a super payhouse and swingset. That project is on hold until we can get our concrete patio enlarged into a basketball court. The concrete is on hold until we can get the surrounding area graded. Getting the grade finished is on hold until the the lower level of the back yard is filled with topsoil and graded. We can’t do that until we have sprinkler pipe fully installed, which we almost got done today.

All of the gluing is done and we have flushed part of the system. We still have to run the wires for one more valve, install the funnypipe, flush the rest of the system, and bury the PVC. After that’s done, that part of the yard will still need topsoil and eventually sod. In the meantime, we can bring in filldirt to grade the upper part of the yard for the basketball court, which will provide a finished edge and reference point for the playground construction.

Hopefully I can still move in the morning, and can manage to remove the purple and blue stains that the PVC glue has put on my fingers.