digging deeper, with chips

I "donated" the second load of dirt to the local landscape dump, ~ 3 cubic yards in total. When I left, I had thought the trailer wheel was flat, but found it had just sunk into the gravel due tot he weight of the dirt.

Thinking that the patio was sufficiently flat, I decided to get a load of wood chips to put down so that the mud was kept to a minimum until we were able to actually do the patio later this summer. I then tried and eventually succeeded in wrestling the trailer into the back yard with 1.5 yards of wood chips, wet wood chips. The trailer and wood chips probably weighed about a half ton all together and if it wasn't for my uneven grass and backyard, it would have been fine. I had to use the come-along a couple times to get it out of ruts in the grass and by the cherry trees since the weight of the trailer was compacting the ground in areas and the wheel would sink.



I surveyed my digging before putting down the wood chips and found I was not taking enough dirt out to make a slope away from the house, so I had to take down the area outside the door about 3 inches and the area by the hot tub about 6-8 inches. Since the trailer was full, I had to just pile the dirt at the end of the patio. It took about another hour and a half to get the side of the patio the slope I needed, landscape fabric down and the trailer turned around and pushed down the side yard to where I could get it over the area I had prepared for it. Unloading was a little challenging since a yard and a half of wood chips is a lot to put in a 6x8 foot area. I ended up staking some boards at the "house" side to make a barrier to hold the pile back. The pile ended up being about 2 feet deep on average.


It probably would have been easier to just have used the wheelbarrow and like 18 trips, but I got it in my head it would be easier to pull the trailer... oh well. I was spent after I got that unloaded and quit for the night.



When I was taking off my gloves and bandage from my blister, I saw the white ball in the blister wound and thought it weird until I realized it was skin and that my blister had gotten another blister that had ripped open also. It looks a lot worse than what it feels like and doesn't look much different than the previous picture, it just really stings when it gets wet. I plan on taking some time off while this heals and give the patio a break for now. Or at least take a couple days to recuperate a little and look up online how to wrap an open blister so it doesn't get worse while working.