I really just want to cry. I want to curl up in bed and watch old re-runs of Family Ties until all my troubles go away. I want to drink really vile manly drinks with names like Rusty Nail and Beer Buster until I can’t think straight. I want to try some safe new drug that doesn’t jack me up, but rather knocks me out until my savings account has reached some astronomically large amount to where what’s bugging me, doesn’t bug me anymore because I’ll have the means to fix it.

What’s that?

Oh. Sorry…a little history for those of you at home. Basically, I’m losing my backyard to erosion.

And we’re not talking about a little erosion here, we’re talking about foundation exposing, trees falling off the side of the cliff erosion. All to the tune of $25 thousand to fix erosion. That’s what I’m stressing over.

When we bought this house two years ago, a tornado had just finished ripping through the backyard. And while everyone else left their downed trees to be reclaimed by nature, the previous owner of our house opted to clean it all up.

It looked great. It gave us a bit of a backyard down at the bottom where it leveled out; we’ll take it! SOLD!
Unfortunately, it also took away all the trees and mulch that were holding the hill in place. And now I am left with the REAL aftermath.

I’ve had three “experts” in to qualify the problem and propose a fix. And even in “this economy,” where you’d think you could catch a break on labor costs, here’s what I’ve gotten:

Option #1

• “You need a retaining wall about “head high.”  A retaining wall “head high” means one about 7′ tall and about 100′ wide. The materials alone come out to around $8 grand, and then you add on the labor costs and you’re hitting about $15K.

Option #2

• “For the money, unless you just want to spend $16K, I would just come in here with a drip irrigation system and plant the shit out of it. I mean, plants all over it.”  This would run me about $9K

Now, “if money weren’t an object” the optimum solution would be a two-tier retaining wall system with the plants, but since money IS an object, I have NO FRIGGIN IDEA WHAT TO DO!

But do you see my quandry? What if I spend $9K on plants and it doesn’t fix the problem? I mean, that’s a butt-load of money to put on something that “might” work. The contractor is pretty confident it will, but…I don’t share his optimism.

I keep thinking, “OK, you put up a 7′ retaining wall and you’ve at least got SOMETHING. I mean, if I suddenly fell off the hill, at least the wall would catch me right? Has a Juniper bush  ever stopped a person from falling off a hill? I don’t think so.”

Oh, also part of the problem is that we don’t HAVE the money to do this, but we don’t really have a choice. We HAVE to do this. Only, which one do you do? Do you go the less expensive route and hope it works, or do you go the more expensive route and hope it works? Or, do you bite the bullet and do them both figuring, “Hey, if one is good, then two should be even better?”

Seriously, where’s the booze, cuz I could really use something stronger than my reality right now!