I'll be glad to help.

I was thinking the same thing earlier today. I'm in.

I suggest we hold a cleanup and rebuilding day for GGG on April 19, our scheduled date for the spring trade, which was to be held at her house. She's always been so generous about inviting us to her home for the trades; I think it would be good to help her try to restore some order to the chaos that is now surrounding her house.

Knowing GGG she will have it done or almost done by then. Hows this weekend?

Hey Snoogie, I want to go to Oakhurst this weekend to clean up, and in my neighborhood on the more public streets like Glenwood which are a litter mess and hazard to drivers with debris flying around in the wind.
But thank-you all.
Right now we are getting stumps ground. I need grading and hopefully the fellow with the bobcat parked in my back yard can do that for me between rains this week.
Next up is taking debris out of the holes & filling the holes where the stumps were ground and rescuing the mulch from the stumps. The trees are already all gone, and most of the sticks. The tree men have been wonderful, as is the contractor who worked on our renovation. You should see how fantastic he has been about seeing what needs to be done and finding out how to get it done!

Hi GGG - So sorry for all the mess you're having to clean up. I'm happy that you and your family are safe.

I'm in the market for mulch (top soil and fill dirt too if you know where I can get a good price), so let me know if you have extra that you need cleared out. I live in Lakewood, so I'm really close by you too.

Thanks!
Diana

No extra mulch here. In fact I need mulch. The trees here were way too big to mulch and too time consuming to cut for mulch. My hubby said he counted 10 dump trucks full of wood from our property alone and he said he didn't see the first few loads nor the last. So they just hauled it somewhere else to be cut up and chipped.
Today we are swimming in feet of water due to a clogged storm drain up the hill on the next street. It has further massacred our property. The earlier massacre was by the tree people who are removing trees from other properties. They need access through our yard to get to theirs. It is so wet and mucky and the machines so heavy that our yard has sunk another several feet everywhere and has huge tractor gouges. Then the stupid stump grinding man drove over what little was left of my garden from last year and got stuck in the garden soil and reemed it out getting out. Leaving a stump half ground and another untouched (I wouldn't have even attempted doing it until the ground was much drier if I was him...)
If I were not so annoyed at it all today it would be comical.

GGG

GGG, my heart aches for you and your yard. Seriously, if there is ANYTHING we can do to help, let us know.

GGG - so sorry to hear of your misfortune.... hang in there lady.

Shot

Well. I'll go out and pot up some extra of whatever is coming up in abundance in my yard in case you want some when you get ready to start planting again.

Maybe this years swap will be a restocking GGG.

Good idea, Snoogie ... let's give her a bunch of stuff! I'm up for that.

Esh, I will probably be coming to you, eventually begging for trees.
Folks, please hold onto your plant gifts! I do not have anywhere to put them right now. We have NO yard. Nothing. I can not tell you how bad it is now after yesterdays rains and then the tree crews coming for neighbor trees through our yard yesterday. There are gouges into the mud like 3' deep! It will be quite some time before we can plant. It needs to be graded, drainge put in, two or three swales/dry creeks, retaining walls and terracing etc. and some hardscape is also ready to go in. We had some fill dirt but could now use at least a few dumptrucks of it...plus planting dirt - it is a disaster! I think we probably lost our power equipment in the crawl space yesterday to flooding too.
I appreciate everything but this is one plan that can't be rushed. I really think we are now at the point of major professional help (and I don't just mean mental, lol).

GGG

GGG, I feel your pain. I went through a planned yard renovation and remember the problems and the mud. It always seems to rain right after they dig up your yard and then it becomes a huge mud puddle. At one point I was up to my knees in clay/mud.

Hang in there. Try to think that you wanted to redo your yard. I hope your insurance covers everything.

Glynis,

I am so sorry you have to go through all of this. I can remember when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan came through and took out my entire butterfly garden and left the whole back wooded area deep in the silt run-off from the new new construction uphill from us, I just had to sit and have a good cry, then I remembered how lucky I was that it was just my yard, and not my house or family that was affected. Is your house okay? I know you mentioned that there was water in the crawl space. Please let us know if you need anything. Hopefully by fall you will be ready for us to load you up with plants. Meanwhile you're in my prayers.

Everyone is so kind, thank-you.
Our crawl space next door got flooded but most of the water stayed out of the home we live in, and we now know what we need to do to keep the rest out (if we ever get another heavy rain that is!!).
Our back yard is so totaled. The biggest problem is that the land was sinking anyway - total errosion and I had a terrible time with the city trying to get them to document the errosion (caused mainly by other homes around us re-directing their rain run-off down their back yards and downhill into our property). The city just doesn't want to have to deal with this - even though the excess run-off onto private property is a code violation.
Hopefully now they will supply us with rip-rap and I can have retaining walls/terraces built and fill in the low lying areas for good. I think the land has sunk all it can now after all the heavy machinery that has been on it!
The back yard STINKS to high heaven. The woodland soil was stirred up and all the old bacteria has been brought to the top.
In the long run all this will end up being for the best, I think. The old diseased/damaged/uncared for trees are almost all gone and I can plant new, healthy and well cared for native trees and shrubs back there when the land gets corrected.
The house is fine, no damages and we've had rain enough to prove that the roofer did a good job with repairs to the roof. The contractor that recently remodeled our home made sure we had services like roofer and the tree guys come out the very next day and take care of our home which was great.

We are very thankful we are all fine, and so are the pets. They still run to the basement whenever a wind kicks up which is funny!!

GGG