Okay I'm being dead serious. Based on your location, your bermuda lawn will not be ready for leveling until July. Please reconsider your timing. I'd hate to see you back here in April wondering how to revive your bermuda. I have seen an improved variety of bermuda lawn smothered in the early spring by using too much compost. That lawn never did come back. Finally, 2 years later, the owner sold the house, and the new owner replaced the sorry looking lawn with St Augustine. Do you know who the experts are in leveling? It is the baseball community. Every professional baseball infield is leveled before every game so the multimillionaire athletes are not hurt by stepping on a clod or something. Check out this article on how they do it. Following close behind the baseball community is the rodeo community. They level their arena soil before every event all day long. They use the same sort of equipment but do not go to all the trouble the baseball people do. The key tool in their bag of tools is the drag. I made my own drag with a piece of chain link fence about 6 feet by 8 feet. I wired one edge to a 2x4 about 8 feet wide, tied a 12-foot rope to each end, and pulled the drag around behind me walking in every direction until I was happy (or was I exhausted???). It worked like a charm and saved uncountable man-hours of raking. I had to weigh down the drag to get a good effect in my sand. I think I used a couple more 2x4s and a bag of mulch (very scientific). Then if you really want to groom it, pull a rug behind you. You can get putting green perfection when you use the right tools. A rake is not the right tool. I am obviously not the person to ask about aerating and the whats and whens, but I always have an opinion. I would fertilize before aerating. If you fertilize afterward you would be dropping fertilizer into holes.

***"Contaminants and moisture should already be entrained in the oil, shouldn't it?"*** To a degree, yes. Contaminants will be entrained during operation of the engine and circulation of the lube oil. Moisture is a "transient" contaminant with a short life span. Even though the H2O is "transient", some of the moisture will re-combine with other components of combustion even while still in the combustion chamber (prior to being "blown-by". These compounds are NOT TRANSIENT and will remain in solution in the oil where they will become acid and attack the oil and engine surfaces. Actual moisture is introduced to the crankcase lube oil in 2 ways. Most of the moisture gets into the crankcase as a component in the blow-by gasses during cold start up. The water is one by product of the combustion process. The other, and "lesser" way is from the natural humidity of the inducted air. The "inducted air" moisture gets to the crankcase lube oil as a component of blow-by, but also in the air that is "fed" to the engine to ventilate the crankcase (PCV system). The moisture is only able to mix with the lube oil when the engine surfaces and the oil mass are cold. After the engine and oil mass heat up, most of the moisture is "driven out" of the oil. The evaporated moisture will be drawn out of the crankcase by the PCV system and be sent back through the induction system again where it can be expelled out the exhaust. High temps are the determining factor in keeping the moisture "out of solution" or "out of emulsion" in the lube oil. Even though the contaminants are in suspension during operation of the engine, as soon as the engine stops and the majority of the oil drains to the sump, STRATIFICATION of the liquid begins to happen. During stratification, the heavy, solid particles settle to the bottom of the sump first. After that, the liquid components of the oil begin to separate into distinct layers, or "strata", according to the specific gravity of each component of the blend. The longer the time at rest, the more complete will be the settling process. The "more used" or older the oil is, the faster the solids will settle too. ***"Sludge is another thing, and again I doubt you'll get much more of that by running the motor. The oil pump isn't going to pull it off the bottom of the pan (at least you'll hope not) and you'll pretty much have to remove the pan to clean it out....or run some solvent thru your motor first."*** The sludge is formed ONLY WHEN the oil in the crankcase has remained in service for too long. Oil that has been in service too long, has lost most of its additive package to heat and contamination from blow-by. When good oil is fresh or new, hardly any settling or stratification occurs (unless the engine is 'off" for a very long time). During the time after fresh new oil is put in an engine, practically everything the oil has "picked up", remains in suspension. If the engine has always had "timely" oil changes, and has always been run long enough after cold starts to drive off moisture, there will be very little (if any) "sludge" in the pan or elsewhere in the engine. As the oil ages and degrades, stratification begins to occur during periods the engine is not running. During this "phase" of the oil's life cycle, any particles that settle (sludge keystones) will be "scrubbed" and swirled back into suspension by the detergent additives in the oil's formula. As these additives grow weaker and thinner with continued use of oil that is degraded (and really no longer fit for service), the "sludge" that forms during "off periods", is more difficult to "remix" in subsequent run periods. So, consider the oil additives as though they are "continuous solvents" that scrub and clean the engine whenever the engine is running. Oil change is good. Fresh oil is good. Vibrant additive package, good. In my opinion.....there is a definite benefit to changing the oil WHILE STILL HOT from a long run time. The "perfect time" to change the oil would be at the end of a 12 hour period of use, immediately after the engine was turned off. Obviously, this is not practcal, so we must try to do the next best thing.

Thank you Dave! I always look forward to your responses as well as others here. My main concern was the safety and I wouldn't be too concerned with the color unless it looked really bad. But each jar has been sealed properly and I am able to lift them by the lid edges. I dont know if this is common, but I find the longest part of the canning process is to actually fill the jars! LOL Maybe because I am doing peppers, but it is a challenge sometimes after packing the peppers and adding the solution, the peppers begin to float. And when I try to remove any air bubbles, then the peppers tend to come to the top so I push them back down and adjust the levels. Not sure if its because I am using cherry peppers whole? My first round was chilis and bananas and I cut them into rings. And I didnt remember this issue. Also the pint jars seem to have trouble standing upright in the BWB. sometimes they tilt and I adjust them. The rack that came with my BWB doesnt make sense really. It doesnt provide a nice flat area. Very weird.

15 yards is about what a large 18-wheeler or 5 small dump trucks can carry. Somehow I can't see you moving that around with a rake. I would call at least 2 more landscapers for their opinions. Proper drainage is the most important concern. 15 yards is a LOT of soil. I'm assuming you have a dramatic slope away from your house already and the 15 yards will bring it up to somewhat level but still not cause it to back up into your basement. The tool they will use to move the dirt and level it will be a tractor with a box blade attached on back. The box blade comes with ripper tines that can be used to extract the roots of your remaining strubs. If this is what you're going to have done, you can stop right now with anything you might have thought about doing yourself. This is a HUGE job.