Day Three-fifty-nine: more of the great outdoors

A few days ago we mentioned that we were taking advantage of the unseasonably mild weather to tackle some outdoor projects. Well, the string of warm temps continued into the week so we kept at it. There's a picture of a small tree in the front of the house in the last post that gave us a devil of a time when we tried to get it out. Fortunately, with a spade, pick mattock, axe, and a lot of elbow grease we finally got up this stump:

Which produced this hole:

For those of you who remember the movie, it was a bit like when the cowboy and rancher tackle the stump in "Shane." When it was all said and done, we filled about 30 trash bags with yard waste--stumps, ivy, mulch, etc.--taken from the front of the house.

What will we use to fill in the gaps and gouges we created? Why soil from a local distributor, of course. We'll grade the area right to maintain drainage before covering the couple feet against the house with what remains of our 2 cubic yards of rocks.

Meanwhile down in the basement...we mentioned back in November that we had all the parts for the new sink in our laundry room. Or as our favorite plumber calls it our "fancy sink". This is a nice galvanized steel job, commercial grade and makes a great addition. Every part of it, including the spray hose, cries out "ready for work". With two drains and new water hookups added the sink's running like a champ.