Growing up, our home was built on a former, very flat cornfield. All I knew as a child were rows of small houses on flat lots. Each house was painfully neat, with one tiny tree on either side of the sidewalk. There was little shade and little else of interest. I thought that only really rich people had big trees. My dream was to live out in the country and in the woods.

So, it was the beginning of a dream come true when Wonderful Husband and I were able to purchase two wooded acres with many mature trees. In between the big trees, the land was overrun by brambles, Autumn olives, Japanese honeysuckle and floribunda roses. We couldn’t determine the terrain, obscured by the undergrowth; it was impossible to know the “lay of the land”.

We did not realize the land sloped about 38 feet from the highest point to the pond below. There were eroded gullies left by logging which had occurred about 40 years before. And, the soil was actually just sub-soil, heavy clay with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Wonderful Husband was dead-set on having the stereotypically perfect, emerald green lawn and began the strenuous task of creating it. There was one steep, west-facing slope which defied all his efforts. In the spring, torrential rains washed the grass seed down the hill and into the driveway. In the summer, the scorching sun and months’ long droughts killed the little grass which had managed to grow. He met all setbacks with stoic, Germanic determination.

For years, he tried everything he could think of: fertilization, aeration, irrigation and re-seeding over and over and over again. He’s a stubborn man, but not a stupid one. Finally, he realized that no matter how hard he tried; grass was simply not going to grow there.

So, for a couple of years, the slope remained a brown eyesore right in front of the house while he considered his options. Finally (Eureka!) he had an inspiration! He would terrace the slope with a series of shallow retaining walls. I had suggested the same concept several years before, but being a saintly and patient wife, gently agreed that retaining walls seemed like a good, even a brilliant, idea.