The Path

Yesterday I got the path I'm installing on the west side of the property more-or-less wrapped up. All the heavy work is done. Early this AM the Old Amigo figured out a way to trim it out nicely. I met the new neighbors... a young couple with two little kids. Great that we'll have some children in the neighborhood again. Nicki, that's the wife, came over and asked me what I was doing. "Trying to make the view a little bit nicer from your new kitchen," I replied. I think she liked that.

Angel volunteered to go over to Henry's to get more "Mt. Shasta Medium Bark Chips". I bought five bags there, but it wasn't enough to fill the frames to the right level. Unfortunately, now the guy at Henry's says that they have never heard of this product. Go figure. I still have a big pile of bark shreds from when I rented the shredder, but that's more useful for mulching. It's too fine to be placed anywhere that is exposed to the wind.

We'll get it dialed in. Even if we have to go over to Sequim and get some bags from HD, we'll figure out a way to wrap this up and make it look good.

Today is cool and windy, the dog days of August masquerading as autumn. It is nearly time to dismantle the bird netting over the main garden. Yesterday I chased Young Bambi and some of his friends out of one of our flower gardens three times. OTOH, we had a visit from a pair of bald eagles. They rested near the top of one of the big pines just north of us. Spectacular.

Well, I need to read some material for a job I'm bidding on. It looks interesting and the gig is with a startup with some smart guys. Could be fun.

Press on.

The West Side

More progress on the path I'm installing on the west side of our garage. Yesterday I was able to level a space 3' x 8' and lay in a frame of treated lumber. Now I'm in the process of filling the center with ~4" of dirt.

The dirt is over on the east area - the newly terraced bit where I have 550 landscape blocks stacked. That project is in line after the path and garage-west cleanup/beautify. Anyway, I needed to get the dirt moved. That means the wheelbarrow. First wheelbarrow full, I noticed that the tire needed air. Seriously.

So I rummaged around in the garage to find the air hose. That took about a half hour. Then I hooked everything up and fired up my air compressor... first time in about a year. Turns out that one of the fittings was damaged slightly in our move, so there's a slight leak. It's still good enough to hold some air though. Got the wheelbarrow tire pumped up. Then the tires on the hand truck (one of those was completely empty). Finally I pumped up the front tire on the bike.

Then I bled the air compressor and opened the water valve on the bottom of the tank and put everything away.

Then I hauled four more wheelbarrows of dirt over. I think another ten or so will do it. Then I'll wet everything down and let it sit for a week. Then I will be able to pull up the frame and lay in some landscape fabric. When the frame goes back down, another 24 square feet of path will be ready for bark chips.

Little by little.

Retaining Wall In!

Well, actually the wall was poured a week ago, but we let it cure until today. Grumpy neighbors notwithstanding, it looks great. Bill, the earth mover guy was here today with a small bulldozer and a little hydraulic "steam shovel" like thing. "Little" should be in quotes too. I shudder to think what the statement for this project is going to turn out to be, but we've basically quadrupled our level, landscapable, gardenable yard space!

We also have a 10' wide roadway that runs along the south side of our property. This will allow us to bring soil amendments, stackable retaining wall blocks, and so on, right to the spot where they're needed.

It looks great (did I say that already? Who cares? It does!) and having that navigable path will make other projects a huge pleasure instead of backbreaking. It is so cool.

Also, Dan-the-builder (assistant & long-time buddy of Ray-the-contractor) mentioned to the Amigo today that he has another buddy who rebuilds old water pumping windmills. Now having small rain catchment tanks whose contents are pumped to a larger tank at the highest point on the property just might be too hip of a project to pass up. We'll see. Talk about $$ (I'd rather not).