Patio stages One through Five.

So, it's not done, but here's the progress so far. Let me say, that this was my idea, and I have participated in each step. Clyde has done some of the heavy lifting as you will see.


First step was buying some railroad ties. After looking on Craigslist for what seemed like forever, Big R had them for 11 bucks apiece. So I ran out there the first day of the sale and bought 10. So, first step was to get the new patio outlined with the railroad ties. Here's the first layer above.


Then it was time to move the second level. These things were HEAVY!!! And they had to be cut with a hand saw. Then they had to be secured to the lower layer, which was secured to the ground with rebar. Unfortunately, the drill was good for one drill at a time. Then it was, take off the battery, charge it, and drill another hole. That was the most time consuming part.


And Clyde was THRILLED that it was taking so long! Here he is resting between drilling holes and pounding in stakes.

And here he is pounding in a stake.


Next, I had to get dirt to fill it in, and that was another frustrating thing on Craigslist. So we finally went down to Pioneer Sand and bought a large bucket load of fill dirt. Which promptly deflated one of the tires on the trailer, so we had to borrow their air compressor and pump up the tire, and then pull that almost 9 tons of dirt all the way up Black Forest Road. With my little 2500 since the big truck isn't running reliable. After spreading out the dirt, and leaving it to settle for a while, I had Clyde dump in bucket loads of sand from the pile we have in the round pen. And we spread that out to settle. Then I cleaned out the flower bed, had Clyde put sand in that, spread it out and went and bought bricks and pavers.

So today, I put the bricks and pavers in that section. Now I have patio on both sides of the tree, and it looks great. I can hardly wait to finish this, but it may have to wait until next summer. I have two landscape timbers to cut to divide it into 3 sections, and then I have to buy more bricks and pavers. But you can see how it's going to look.


Well, busy day. Still have more stuff to do before bedtime.