Trying to Pretty Up the Backyard

I am trying to be a better steward of our little patch of earth.  Our backyard is divided into three parts.

• left half of fenced in portion is a big permaculture garden
• right half of fenced in portion is our recreation/play area
• right side of yard outside the fence is more garden, a path down through the trees to the stream, firewood stacks, fort, etc

This post is about our recreation/play area:

Our patio is a little too small.  I regret we didn't make it bigger.  R's huge gas grill (which we use frequently), the bench, the fire pit and now the Big Green Egg which is his Father's Day gift crowd the small space.  My husband is extremely hard to get presents for and usually Father's Day is about a card and maybe a very small gift.  But he asked for the Big Green Egg.  I am excited to see how it works.  Hopefully it will last for years and years.  He hasn't officially gotten it yet but we had to have it delivered and assembled on Wed.  He's being very polite and not mentioning the fact it is sitting out there in full view.  LOL.  Surprise!

We had leftover flagstones from various projects and we just laid them down to sort of expand the patio area.  I like it!  I put two chairs off the patio to help it feel bigger.  It does feel bigger.  It's nothing fancy but I find it makes the whole area more pleasant.

We bought this blow up pool for D.  This summer of the coronavirus means he doesn't have any play dates.  So we are trying desperately to keep him busy.  He has really been loving this pool.  I have never gotten a pool like this before (maybe once a much smaller pool that feel into disuse quickly for some reason).  I had to learn how to clean it.  They get gross!  It took me two days.  We had to drain it which took quite a while, then we cleaned out all the debris that had fallen in, dead bugs, twigs, leaves, grass, dirt.  It had gotten really slimy too all over the bottom and sides with this brown type of mold.  This was after only 2.5 or 3 weeks of using it.  So we dumped all the remaining water out and I sprayed it with a mild bleach solution and then wiped the whole thing down, rinsed it again thoroughly.  Another thing no one tells you about these pools is that if you put them on grass (and that was the only level spot we had) the grass underneath begins to die and lets off the most awful smell, kind of like manure.  Yuck.  So I looked up about how to solve that problem and one suggestion was to put sand down underneath.  Well, we happened to have three bags of play sand left over from two years ago when R built D a sandbox.  So we used two of those bags to lay over the dying grass, then put the pool back in the same space.  And I also bought a pool cover to keep gross stuff out.

The sand trick really worked!  No more bad smell.  However, we have not tried the pool again this week because either the temperature was on the cool side (and the pool area is fairly shaded) or it was raining.  And it's supposed to storm and rain for the next five days!  But I am sure we'll get to use the pool plenty of times before summer's end.  It's big enough that I might dig out my swim suit and spend some time just soaking out there while D plays.

And this is the sandbox.

Ugly sandbox covered with tarp and last bag of play sand. 

Unfortunately, the tarp is an inadequate cover and the box got infested with spiders and toads.  Ick.  So I am not sure what to do with it.  I'd really like him to have a sandbox.  We have an old fairly beat up turtle sandbox that maybe I should try to clean as much as possible and fill with sand.  But that might offend R.  It's a delicate situation.   And then do we want the sandbox and the pool near each other? Because that seems problematic to me.  

Anyway, I am trying to make the backyard kid and family friendly.  It's a pleasant place to be.  We spend lots of time out there and also on the screen porch.