Starting Friday, September 1st, I am having a couple landscaper friends of mine come from St. Thomas @ 7-8am, and help me excavate and install a new retaining wall system in my backyard.
We would always welcome any help should you wish to do so. I will provide food and beverages for all people who come over. If you do actual work, I may even pay you!

Thursday

• Dingo (ride behind, mini-shovel) arrives with shovel and forks.
  

Friday

• 36,000 lbs of stone gets delivered to my house...
  
• Excavation starts, moving of smaller stuff (old retaining wall blocks, etc...)
  

Saturday & Sunday

• Excavation
  
• Foundation for wall
  
• Laying of wall
  

So if you are in my neighbourhood in Southwest Kitchener and want to come help or even supervise, come on down. My hot tub will be available for those that want/need it. PM me if you plan on coming down and your beverage of choice (No scotch!) and for address if you don't already know it.

sorry, Mike, away for most of that weekend... if I get the chance will pop by and supervise... :-)

Hey Mike,

I can come over and try (and most likely fail) to help out.

As a result of my premature senility, I may require a pm.

Did you say ‘all you can eat wings’?

LOL... Only Mitch for free booze and food for some teeny weeny, minor, back breaking work?

Martin! You like digging holes! This will have a stand behind earth mover! LOL.

Any little bit helps guys. Currently planned for Friday/Sat/Sun. So Saturday would be the best time IMHO.

So many thanks to my good friends Mike M. & Greg S. who travelled daily from St. Thomas to Kitchener to my house.

The block stone, rock, base fill, and stuff before fitting into my front yard driveway... Only 18.5 tons of stone...





In the driveway... Minus a bag or two of rock & fill...




My backyard before the dirt and ground was shifted....






The retaining wall trench being dig out....




Trench nearly complete... then prepping for base plate slabs...




It is Almost ready for the blocks....





Did someone say drainage stone (Gravel)?





Almost done, just needs a final layer!





Retaining wall has been completed! Hosed off to clean off the small rocks and the copious amounts of dirt on the top stones..





Thanks to Mitch who came out repeatedly despite the huge amount of physical labour involved. Very much appreciated! I will give you that bottle of Rye as a token of Thanks.





And also to Norma, who came to help out as well flying CanAm gear. She pressed Mike and Greg's knowledge of plants and green thumb "remedies" as much as possible




My kids were a big help as well, we needed to shift blocks all over the place and they came through like troopers. I'm not supposed to praise them, but they were helpful. Gah...

Next parts to go...
4' x 4' (inside dims) firepit using the same outer stone work as the wall, and a set of stairs to be added on the right side (Look for the divot in the ground...)

Looks great! Improvement is always good! Cheers!