The football team

Six weeks after winning the Deluxe Gardening Package in a live auction, the football arrived to complete the prize.  I had a HUGE list of things for them to accomplish, and only three hours (with threateningly gray skies) to do it in. Needless to say, I was worried and stressed to the point of nauseousness that we wouldn't get everything done, either because it was simply too much to accomplish in three hours or because the skies would open and heavy rains would force us to take cover.

Seriously, my garden plans are ambitious, and I needed these guys, and their physical labor, to get it started. There's just no way I could do this by myself.   So, at 8:30am nine players and one coach arrived, looked at my yard, at me and at each other, and then got to work. 

Here's what happened:

1. Dethatch the entire yard.

2. Dig up all the bush roots in the front yard (this is where my new flower beds will go).

3. Transplant three lilac bushes to the side of the house, and dump the rest.

4. Dig holes for the six fruit trees hanging out in my foyer (more on those next week).

Take a good look at the above picture. See the big brown trench on the right side next to the fence?  That's just a small section of the yard that The Big Guy prepped for my garden area. 

5.  Lay the sod that The Big Guy cut the day before.

6. Move the Arborvitae from the side of the garage to the southeast corner of the house. The tree was slightly damaged during the move, but I can deal with that. After all, these kids are football players and not landscapers, and some mishaps are bound to happen.

7. Shovel one ton of partially-composted horse manure into the new vegetable garden beds. 

Seriously, you should have seen the looks on their faces when this load arrived!  But I have to give credit where credit is due: they all dug in and got to work with minimal complaining.

8. Distribute the topsoil around the house to prep flower/vegetable beds and otherwise fill in holes by the house foundation.

Notice the Little Guy trying to help with this one--he's the short kid on the right.

While the prep work the day before was tough, and I was extremely stressed out about everything going right with the football players on the day of, it was all worth it in the end.  They got EVERY SINGLE THING done on my list.  And bonus: they even got my fruit trees planted! That item never appeared on my original list because I didn't think there would be time, but they made it happen.

These great guys accomplished things in three hours that it honestly would have taken me all summer to do.  I could not be more pleased with the result of their (and mine and The Big Guy's) hard work.  Thanks so much to the ACCHS football team for donating their labor, and once again, thanks to The Big Guy for winning such an awesome auction item.