Shoring it up

Due to the layout of the neighborhood, almost every lot has a large hill on one side. Although the dirt is fairly well compacted, slicing into the slope and not building a barrier wall tends to allow erosion.
After debating on materials, we opted to use redwood planks since we've dealt with them before and they're relatively low cost.

On Saturday we jumped out of bed and ran outside with shovels and saws, prepared to tackle the installation from front yard to back. Clearing away dirt took little time since it had not set to concrete, yet. 

The part that was hard involved pounding the stakes into the ground. I opted to dig with a trowel while Ced grabbed various tools from the garage to get the job done. Making little progress while Ced set stake after stake, I eventually gave in and started pulling weeds.

Once all the stakes were set we lined them with Geotextile fabric to help prevent weeds growing between boards.

We were now ready for the fun part - nailing the slats to the stakes!

The little fence went up quickly with the nail gun.

Once the wall was up, the sidewalk was scrubbed and hosed down. Free of dirt, we could finally appreciate the width of the walkway.

Putting up that small section of fence ended up taking a bit longer than expected, so we opted to put off the backyard build for another day. This fence is not completely finished, the tops of the stakes need to be lopped off. Despite that small detail, we're really enjoying the look of the little retaining wall and are quite pleased with how it turned out.