Yard Update

I thought I'd let you all know how our home improvement projects are coming - but first a word about today. Today we went to the Camptonville Branch, and what a nice day that always is! I was asked this past week to do their semi-annual audit, and jumped at the chance. There are great people there and we have some really great friends among them. Among them are Pedro "Pete" Villarreal and his wife, Sandy - who just happened to be the speakers today in Sacrament meeting. They spoke on maintaining strong families, families grounded and rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They did great. Bro. Villarreal loves to tell stories, and one of them he told today was about their recent visit to grandchildren in Minnesota. Since his retirement, he flies out there often to visit, for varying amounts of time, so upon his arrival, his grandson asked how long he would be staying. Wishing to impress him, Pete said, "For 30 days." The response was that he couldn't do that. When Pete asked why, he was told, "Well, you're old, you don't have that long."

Well, I suppose it loses something in the writing, but it was funny as he told it.

So on to our yard. Yesterday was a perfect day to work in the yard as it was not too hot, and there was ample cloud cover all morning, and early afternoon. The first photo is of the little border I put around the front flower garden a couple of weeks ago. It adds a nice touch, and now that we are getting used to it, I no longer trip on it.

Next we have the wide shot of the retaining wall and the raised path along-side of it. As you can see, it really isn't much of a retaining wall at all, except along the south edge. Mostly it is just a single row of blocks that will keep some of the dirt from getting out, and allow us to flatten out the dirt. But in order to keep them in place, and to make things work out, we had to raise the path about 4-5 inches. That is what took the most work.
Here is a close-up of the south side of the "wall" - the only place it really resembles anything approaching a wall. As you can see, the wall is level as the patio slopes for drainage purposes - hence the need for a couple of levels of bricks.

I ran out of steam mid-way through the raising of the paving stones on the north end of the garden, and as they come out of the shed. This photo shows where the old path was, and although the last couple of paving stones are not set yet, you get the idea of where the new level will be.

Finally, here is a broader shot showing the north end of the path along-side of the "wall". As can be seen by the level of the old path, the old needs to be raised to meet the new. We are quite excited about how it is turning out, and are already looking forward to getting the whole thing tilled up so we can put in our winter garden. We are hoping for better results this year. Stay tuned.