Filling in a sloped portion of backyard

CoolBrees said
Always remove instead of adding. You can’t really just put dirt on a slope to level it. You have to compact it at a minimum and if the material isn’t great you have to cut a key way. otherwise the first time it rains your pool will be at the bottom if the hill.

rent a John Deere with a blade and bucket attachments. Or for about $400 you can rent a backhoe from sunbelt or whatever your local equipment rental outfit is. You don’t need a license or any training and if you don’t have a hitch big enough they will bring it to you for additional $ - depending on how far you are away.

Driving a backhoe a messing around in the dirt is crazy fun too.

Don't get me wrong, this is totally badass and you'll never have to sell me on renting some sort of machine entirely too big for the job just to drive around on it with a cooler full of beer.

However, we're talking a 14 foot diameter pool in like a half acre backyard ? ? ? ? . I live in the middle of a major city. Renting a backhoe to fix a grade that's maybe 6-8 inches over the entire slope might be juuuust a bit overkill. Renting a backhoe would cost more than the actual pool.

I started on it some during the kiddo and my scheduled outdoor time during our thrice a week daddy day care. I just started digging into the high side and throwing the dirt over to the low side. The 18 month old mostly helped, and by helped I mean he threw the dirt everywhere. It took an hour and I'm probably halfway done. Picking up some retaining wall stones tonight and will finish up tomorrow or over the weekend, and see how it goes. I'll probably get a few bags of sand to fill out any unevenness in the dug out parts. My goal was to get it done for under $200 which I should come in under unless I need more retaining wall than I expect.