By: Todd Wheatley

Having spent the bulk of my life in Texas, I grew up around ranchland. Most of them had quirky names like the "Bullgoose Ranch" owned by a prominent car dealer from my hometown. Fast forward a few decades into my wife's obsession with Facebook and her propensity to "CHECK IN" everywhere we go including getting home again at "The Wheatley Courtyard Estates". For a year and a half now she checks us into "The Baltimore Estates". Not too far from now she will change it to "THE BRIDGES AT BALTIMORE".

The first bridge was completed several months ago which connected the drainage on the west side of walkway to drainage on the east. A previous tweet mentioned the DRAINAGE PLAN requested by the city and its completion by a homemade transit. More importantly, the landscaping evolved from the horrible rock waste pushed into lot during construction of subdivion nearly 50 years ago. Consequently the soil doesn't retain moisture and heats up with the summer sun. The best option would have been to rip everything out. Haul off the crap dirt and bring in loads of top soil .... a super expensive option.

So my first thought was move the surplus water from the west side to the east side. Then "pond" it to enhance soil moisture. The landscaping effort started on the day we moved in (Dec.2019) and ramped up (spring 2020) after the coronavirus killed all other activities. Since then I've moved hundreds of loads of dirt ... one wheelbarrow at a time ... taking note of my first tweet of the year, I'm having major difficulties adding images/pictures to my website ... let's see if this one works ... (fingers crossed)