New Lawn Install

Lonnie Wormley on April 23, 2019

Toro Soil Cultivator
Toro Dingo with bucket
Toro Dingo with bucket

Today Sylvia and I finished installing our lawn. We started the project on Saturday, April 20, 2019, and finished it this evening. It was a lot of hard work, but we finally have a decent start to getting our yard normalized after Hurricane Michael came to through Albany and wiped out our little forest that surrounded our house.


I rented a Toro Dingo and a Toro Soil Cultivator from Sunbelt Rentals. It took me a few hours to get the hang of how to operate the bucket and pick up stuff and move it. I spent a few hours moving a large woodpile to the back of our lot. Some of the wood was really rotten so I hauled it to the curb for pick up by the city. The woodpile is used to fule my smoker when I smoke brisket, ribs, and turkeys.

Pile of yard debris at the curb
Pile of yard debris at the curb

Leveling the yard

Toro Soil Cultivator
Toro Soil Cultivator

Once I hauled off all of the yard debris and completed some crude rough leveling with the bucket I attached the soil cultivator. This tool worked great at turning the ryegrass and mulch from the ground up tree stumps into the soil. I ran the cultivator crisscross over the front and back yard to get a crude level planting environment for the Bermuda seed that was going to be planted.

  • Leveling the front yard
  • Leveling the front yard
  • Leveling the yard
  • Leveling the back yard
  • Moved these plants with the Dingo
  • Leveling the back yard
  • Seeding the yard
  • Seeding the yard
  • Happy to be done

First Brush Clearing Post Hurricane Michael

Lonnie Wormley on April 14, 2019

Lonnie mowing the font yard

Cutting the
Perennial Ryegrass

My wife Sylvia knows a lot about plants, the soil web and how to grow stuff. I like to rent machines to do stuff outside. We make a good team when it comes to yard work. I have rented the Billy Goat Outback from Sunbelt Rentals a lot since we purchased our home in Albany Georgia.

I started using it to clear the brush on our 2-acre lot shortly after we purchased the property in 2011. At that time we had lots of trees and I had fun making paths through all of the brush. Over time we cultivated a lot of the native plants and let them grow in areas that we wanted them and I would mow over them in areas that we wanted to be clear. This weekend was the first time that I mowed since the big hurricane took out most of our trees. We took about 35 trees from our lot due to direct blow down from the storm or trees that were damaged by other falling trees hitting them.

BC26 Series Outback
BC26 Series Outback® Brushcutter 26” Hydro Drive Brushcutter

Clean Slate for a new design

  • Mowing the front yard
  • The back yard
  • View from the back of the lot looking at the back of the house
  • Mowing the back yard
  • Lonnie with his gear. Headphones for noise abatement and music. Mask to prevent poison ivy, dust and exhaust fumes from choking him.

Last winter Sylvia sowed lost of Perennial Ryegrass. Cutting the ryegrass was fun and it reminded me of mowing hay and grass on a tractor on the ranch that I use to own in Texas. I like just mowing grass, it is fun for me.

Revealing the land from the thick blanket of ryegrass which in some places was 3 feet tall was amazing. We have been wondering what we were going to do with our yard since the original plan for the yard has been scrapped because it was dependant on the lush forest of trees on our lot. Now that the grass is a bit shorter we can continue our assessment of the yard and start making new plans for installing irrigation and fiking the pavement damaged by tree removal. Our design adventure continues.