Here today gone tomorrow?

I got the word yesterday that someone could come by Friday morning to pick up the dirt - great news. There is some question about how much he is prepared to take. The one big catch was that about 1/3 to 1/2 of the dirt was in our back yard. Sooo, I broke out the shovel and wheelbarrow (again) and started digging.

My wife was packing to leave town (this time out of the country), so as soon as I got the kids to bed I started shoveling. I did some quick math and figured that in total I've moved about 130 cubic feet of dirt. I figured less than half was in the back and I could get 4 cubft per wheelbarrow. So I had about 16 wheelbarrows-full of dirt to move; piece of cake.

After the first six loads I looked at the remaining dirt and it looked like I was about 1/5 of the way there. But then realized it couldn't be that much. Well, 29 wheelbarrows later (yes, I counted each one) I was done. Thankfully, this project has made my back stronger so I was able to finish after just a few hours of digging!

I decided to cut the left over block to make some garden borders and to make a (very) low raised garden - probably just two blocks. I've been spreading in some sand on the walkway, but still probably have a few wheelbarrows full. Other than the wall block, I ordered pretty well I think. Left over I've got:

• Sand (2-3 wheelbarrows full)
• 1/4 pallet of 6x6 pavers
• 8 6x9 pavers (I was right that the I Pattern (used more large pavers)
• about 1/3 of a super bag of river rock, and
• about a wheelbarrow full of CR6.

Unfortunately (for my neighbors), except for the the pavers, everything is still in my driveway. (The two dirt piles without the plastic on it is what I moved last night). The dirt is the biggest eyesore I guess and hopefully this was the last day it will be there...

99.99%

BEFORE

AFTER

So close

This weekend was all about the walkway. I spent friday cleaning up and re-checking the grading on the walkway. I also got all of the sand down and screed. It was a full day of hand-tamping, shoveling, and screeding. BUT, when I went to bed, things were in great shape to start laying the pavers Saturday.

















Look at the difference between pulling the screed poles up (on the left) and sliding them out (on the right). Less damage and easier to fill the holes.

I got pretty good at repairing the screed pole holes using a spade and bucket of sand. Here was my masterpiece Friday evening.
















I woke up Saturday morning pumped and ready to start laying pavers in my nice sand only to find that evil forces had been at work overnight



There was some sort of animal wrestling match in my clean sand. I was angry. We have some squirrels around and more rabbits than you could eat in a sitting. But this almost seemed deliberate. I soon found the smoking gun....
















It didn't take much googling to confirm my suspicions that the nighttime vandal was a raccoon. Then, the confusing thing was that there were tracks from a differenet animal. I realized they were cat prints. But, short of a fight or some sort of twisted midnight raccoon-kitty square dance on my sand, why the two animals?

I think I figured out what happened. The raccoon went snooping around my walkway (they are "curious" you know). Then later, a cat went sniffing around the raccoon droppings, which I learned (the hard way) look an awful lot like acorns.

By the time the investigation had ended, my temper had cooled and I put my sandworking skills back to work. It took about 20 minutes to fix (about a half as long as the investigation).

By Saturday evening, I had many of the pavers down. I ended up using a border of 1 6x9 then 2 6x6 because I was (correctly it turns out) afraid I wouldn't have enough 6x9 pavers. I worked hard to make sure that the wall was parallel with the house. Check out the lines in this picture (and my sweet new laser level)















I rented a brick saw friday afternoon. I was REALLY glad I didnt even try to use just a chissle. I had a lot of cutting to do (but the saw sat idle until Sunday morning $110 down the tubes). Sunday was of course Father's day, so I goofed off a little, but spend several hours on the walkway. Mostly, I cut all of the pieces along the edge. Unfortunately, I had to run off to dinner with the fam about an hour shy of being done. But, Sunday evening, here's where I am:




















What's left? That little sliver of pavers along the driveway (look at some of the slivers in the pictures above). I also need to cut the pavers along the front (along the PVC pipe) and lock them in with a border.



soooo close...

Wisdom

Last weekend I was home alone with the kid again (only one) and opted to interact with the child rather than stick him in a pack-n-play and work around him. I did get in a few hours though sunday afternoon.

Now that the wall is completed, the ground leveled and compacted, I started thinking about the logistics to lay the pavers. How would I lay the sand, then place all of the pavers in the area without disturbing the sand I just put down?

The method (ok, pretty obvious) came in a flood of google results - lay the pavers from the paver-side not from the sand side. So, once all the sand is down, you start putting pavers down and kneel on the pavers you just laid to keep working down the walkway.

Well, I had decided already that it will be much easier to get things right if I put the pavers down from back to front (largely because of the shape of the walkway). BUT therein lies the rub. If you remember my earlier pictures, all the the pavers are in the FRONT of the house. If I'm going to be laying pavers from the back to the front that means I need to move all of the pavers (two pallets) from the front of the house to the back.

So, Sunday evening was spent turning this:

into this:

brutal.

"How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise" -- Tereisias (...or Robert De Niro depending on your perspective)