Fixing Major Problems

As many of you know, we've had some big dirt mounds in our front yard.  This is to hopefully document the journey that still is not over yet. 
To begin our journey I'd have to back up, so this will only be about the outside of the house in this post.  The rest of the journey is yet to be written. 

As you will notice, above is what resembles where we use to have our square foot gardens.  Earlier this Spring, we took them out to relocate them and plant something else here.  Little did we realize at that time that we would be using this space for transplanting my flowers in to from the front of the house.

This is only a few of the perennials that have been transplanted. 

This is why we needed to transplant all of the perennials.  This wonderful gentleman from our church came to help us dig out our foundation so we could install french drains.  This was just the beginning.    
 He was able to dig all the way down to 9 feet below the ground level, thankfully. 

Here he is precariously balanced on our hill. 
For all this, we've had quite an experience.  After the gentleman left, my daughter was sitting on the porch tying bundles of chives for drying when her yarn rolled off in to the 9' hole pictured above.  The boys got the ladder out, got the yarn out and left the ladder in the hole at my direction.  I figured that since my husband was going to be working in the hole the next day that leaving it there wouldn't be a problem.  Just after dusk, my youngest son said, "Mom, what was that sound?"  I said, "No, let's go check it out."  We went out to the front porch to this...
 ...a half burried ladder with 4 feet of clay filling up the originally dug 9 foot hole.  (This is standing on the porch looking down in to the hole.)

The next day, my dearest husband and youngest son were perched on the porch in this fashion checking things out and figuring things in their minds.
 In this picture you can see exactly how much of the wall of dirt came down.  The hole is a little more than 4 feet deep in this picture.  The black stuff is tar.  This is the first coat. 
Hubby painting the tar on the foundation...


 After all of the tar is painted on, the plastic goes up, then the pipe and gravel.

 Of course the bucket brigade helped to save my hubby's back.  Each of them were incredibly helpful in the whole process.
  Here is the french drains completed and ready to be filled in.
 ...by our ever helpful friend who came to till with this same tractor this past Spring.  He was such a wonderful help and I am ever so greatful to him for his friendship and help to make sure my hubby's back doesn't get hurt further.  What a blessing!

 Yippee!  It's getting fuller and fuller!

 Almost done!
 Of course the screen decided to rip out of the screen door and look at who wants to see everything that is going on!  LOL  Silly Biscuit!
 And who can miss...the filled in hole!  From the side...
We are ready to begin work on the inside of the house now.  Tomorrow my hubby will begin the computations for getting everything from mold resistent drywall to the framing wood.  I'll get more pictures as we progress with the project.  For now though, the soil needs to settle in the front yard before we do anything more.
Blessings,