And Ben says "We should do something about this lawn"

And goes on to say that if he notices it, it must be bad. It is, very bad. We've lived here for 10 years and the lawn has been nonexistent for the entire time and it's the first time he's ever noticed. This lack of grass is not due to lack of trying; I've tried to grow grass from seed on numerous occasions but it just won't take. I've sent in a soil test and it comes back just fine but there isn't much soil there because we live in a former quarry, it gets blasted by sun all day (well, in the rare event the sun actually shines in Burlington but it's enough to cause grass trouble) and it's on a slope. These all add up to a very bad grass situation.

Our neighbor across the street has a perfect lawn. He should since he agonizes over it all summer long. He waters it constantly so it's green and weed and brown patch free due to a combination of hard work and lots of chemistry. He's been replacing some of his flower beds with grass to minimize the work and rather than seed it, he decided to use sod. He put out his back and couldn't do the work so he offered the sod to me, not to Ben though as he knew nothing would happen that way. When he offered it to me it was late in the evening so I just tossed it on the ground and hoped for the best but two days later I decided I needed to give it a fighting chance so I pulled it up and dug up the ground under the pieces so the grass had something to grab as it grew. This morning I decided it's silly to have those little pieces of grass sitting there so I started to dig out the entire front of the yard. I asked Ben to go pick up a load of compost and after much procrastination he drove the truck over and watched the front end loader fill the back of the truck. I shoveled it off the truck and then dug it all in. I sent Ben for the sod and he watched them put a pallet of sod in the back of the truck and when he got back he finally ended up doing some manual labor. We unrolled and shaped and unrolled and shaped but alas, there was lots of sod left over so we decided that we should dig some more. Ben helped and I didn't even plan on that! This was so unusual the neighbors made special note of it.

The sky was getting darker and darker as we worked. Thunder. Lightning. Wind. Rain. Our neighbors came out to warn us that the storm would be bad. (I checked weather.com and this is what it said:

* AT 457 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING NICKEL SIZE HAIL...AND DAMAGING WINDS UP TO 60 MPH. THIS STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR RICHMOND... AND MOVING SOUTHEAST AT 30 MPH.
* THE SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WILL BE NEAR... BOLTON AROUND 505 PM EDT. HINESBURG...CHARLOTTE AND HUNTINGTON BY 515 PM.
THIS IS A DANGEROUS STORM. PREPARE FOR DAMAGING WINDS...DESTRUCTIVE HAIL... AND DEADLY CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING. MOVE TO A SHELTER... PREFERABLY INSIDE A STRONG BUILDING BUT AWAY FROM WINDOWS.
HAIL UP TO AN INCH IN DIAMETER HAS BEEN REPORTED IN BURLINGTON WITH THIS STORM. IF YOU ARE IN THE PATH OF THE STORM...TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY.

As we were digging the last load dirt to haul to the back it started blowing like mad and HAILING. We rushed to the house so we never got a chance to admire the new grass.

I just went out to take a picture and it appears the rain washed some of the sod down the hill. Lovely. More work 'cause I'm not quite sore enough after eight hours of digging. And we never did get that last load of dirt off the sidewalk. It may need to wait until tomorrow. Or whenever it is I can actually move once again.

But I'm proud to present our house with a front lawn for the FIRST TIME EVER! And the smoke bushes are in bloom.I can hardly move. Even my fingers are numb. I suspect that tomorrow will a very painful day.

But we have grass! Now, it better live.

Edited to add: Oh, I should have posted a before picture. Here you go.