Rework...

Saturday. Forth of July Weekend.

In the morning after dumping a load of dirt, I mixed up some of the dirt with some sand and garden compost to make some potting soil for Aimee to re-pot her flowers that are sitting on the hot tub. She used all dirt the first time and it just ended up caking and water doesn't penetrate well. After the new soil, they should do much better since is seemed like they dried out really fast. In the process we put some compost over the raised flower beds by the garden and it looks a lot more dressed up now. We are thinking of doing it for the rest of the beds along the fence to the right of those raised beds to make them look better until we got something else done with them.

I started to work on the patio area after that. I thought I was done with the digging on the patio for the time being, but in redoing the small deck, I found that I had to dig out the area by the house and also ended up needing to bury the cement footings 4.5 inches below that to even out the step from the house and to the ground. I filled up the rest of the trailer, which I dumped Saturday morning and filled it up again with another a half load of dirt.

Aimee graciously helped me with moving the deck out of the way in one piece since it was all nailed together; I never would have been able to do that by myself. We ended up moving it 4 times before I got it all right; first time off to do the adjustments, first time back on to adjust where the footings were and check their placement, 2nd time off to fill in the dirt around the footings, then 2nd time back on to have a nice little deck. It doesn't quite fit up against the house like I first had it but it will do for temporary; it is pretty solid.

I have found that I am not used to the step up into the house since I stumbled on the threshold at least twice yesterday. I should get used to it quickly. Hopefully Aimee won't have the same problem.

Sam ended up being outside with me while Aimee prepared a spiral sliced ham and the rest of dinner. Sam played with the sprinkler, his water sprayer and the water/sand table for a little while but mostly wanted to just mill around where I was working. He tried to help and mostly stayed out of the way as usual; I am able to just throw dirt around him into the wheelbarrow or ask him to go get my gloves or tape measure.

Oh and Sam was fascinated by the tape measure... he would pull it out about 5 feet, straight up and watch as it got taller, then bring it back down and let it roll back up. It was pretty funny to watch him experiment with it. He got a similar reaction to the torpedo level that would magnet to the steel door, but I had to take it away from him when he kept dropping it.

Aimee then helped me get the last of the landscape fabric down and I spread out the wood chips the rest of the way. I have determined that it is a lot for the space and I am going to put some outside the french doors on the other side of the house so we have some barrier from dirt coming in the house there also. We tend to eat dinner outside on that end of the house under the cherry trees, where it is shaded in the early evenings, so it would be nice to have some on that side as well.

And a before picture for those who can't remember, like me, because it was so many posts ago:


Here's the finished product: