SO much respect for landscapers!

This is where we started: dirt mounded up from re-pouring the sidewalk, dead grass, rocks all over the yard..and the random nail here and there left over from roofing and siding projects.
Pretty much a mess!

Cleared the river rock from around the house, laid my landscaping fabric, and trenched in the stones for a nice border.

Added wood mulch inside the rock border, raked up the dead grass, rocks, and junk with a steel rake, and smoothed everything out.
This picture shows the before (foreground) and after. Now the yard is a nice clean slate - hopefully the grass seed I threw down yesterday will start taking off over the next couple weeks!

So..I got myself into another project. I read about a method of organic fertilizing called compost tea - it's all of the benefits of spreading a layer of compost, but it's liquefied so it reaches the roots faster.
I bought a fish tank bubbler to aerate the water so helpful bacteria would grow during the "brewing" process. 

Ideally, you'd use a rain barrel, but I don't have one - I just used City water from the hose and let the bubbler work at it for a while.
Compost tea in practice at Haaaavaad Yaaaad ;)

Make a giant tea bag filled with compost and suspend it from the lid of the can into the bubbling water. Add molasses to feed the bacteria, and a little organic fish fertilizer if you can get it. All in all, it's a great shot of nitrogen to the soil, it helps the root system of the grass reach deeper and increases the lawns drought resistance. And it's organic - even if it doesn't work exactly like it's supposed to, there's nothing in it that's going to hurt anything. Pretty cool process!
Compost Tea