The Hard Way

This is a story about the patio our family and some friends have been building in our backyard. It’s a story about hardscaping the marshy wetlands behind our pool, but it’s also the lesson of what our family has learned about community.

The story begins with the muddy dead space that’s been behind our pool for the past five years. We’ve always meant to do something with these wetlands that slope into the nature preserve, but we’ve never had the time.

But then! In January, a dear friend started a landscaping business. I was SO EXCITED for her to help our out-of-shape backyard. And she did! She cleared out the  overgrown parts of our yard and planted beautiful shrubs and bushes and flowers.

But what to do with the mud pit behind the pool? We needed more poolside seating. Our current chairs sit in the 200-degree sun, which discourages most moms from hanging out and lifeguarding their kids. So, for the safety of all future swimmers, we decided on a patio.

From the start, Mike had his doubts about the project. Ninety percent of his doubts were the cost. The other ten percent were that we didn’t have an extra minute in a given day, how in HECK could we manage a huge backyard building project? And did I mention he REALLY hates to spend money?

This is where my ingenious plan kicked in. We could help! The Hergenraders are hard workers. We have lots of kids. Yes! the six of us could carry ten yards of dirt into the backyard, one wheelbarrow at a time. Yes! we could lug all that stone back there. Yes! we could dig trenches. Yes! we could clear out years of old tree roots and shrubs. Yes! we could help build a retaining wall.

My sweet friend loved the out-of-the-box solution, so she agreed our family would be her landscaping crew. This was a really good solution since she didn’t actually have a landscaping crew yet. Plus, our daughters are best friends and her son loves to go fishing with Catie. Hooray! Hours of playdates and patio-building together! Let’s DO this.

Very quickly into Project Patio, we all realized this was a much bigger task than we had realized. Every time we estimated a step would take ten hours, it took twice that. When we  agreed a section would require a crew of three, we actually needed a crew of eight. When we thought we had an ironclad plan, everything changed–irrigation lines got broken, my landscaping friend hurt her back, and Mike had to go out of town.

Our ragtag landscaping crew was fraying. We desperately needed help. My friend hired two friends from the kids’ school to do the heavy lifting. She also coaxed her mom and husband into donating countless afternoons to our backyard. Catie and Mike worked for an entire weekend laying flagstone and making sure every  piece was level. Catie has learned more about construction than most civil engineers master their  freshman year.

The patio is almost finished, and it’s a monument to Lessons Learned. For example, we now know lots about the tinsel strength of retaining walls than we ever cared to. But we also discovered that sometimes the hard way is the best way.

While building a patio, we  built wonderful friendships. Weeks of hauling dirt together, debating who got to run to McDonalds for  lunch orders, eating late dinners with the bone-tired crew, laughing at  the misadventures of us novice construction workers has bonded us together.

Like I told my dear friend (who is so busy with her flourishing new company!), the patio is not only my favorite part of the house, it’s a permanent monument to how we built a makeshift community. Too often I can get all high-strung about having people over, about how messy our house is, about how my cooking isn’t perfect.

But for the past month, in the true spirit of community, clean houses and perfect meal plans haven’t mattered. During this project, I’ve learned to feed the hungry whatever food I have and not to sweep up the mud they track into our house.

So, come on over! Our family has had lessons in hospitality, casual dining, and community building. We are ready for more laid-back evenings with friends.

Only now, let’s all sit on the patio rather than build it.