Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Potager Construction Days 7 - 10

The weather and life finally gave us a break and we put in some time on finishing this project. It's not there yet, but we made some real progress over the past few days. Of course, I was too tired to post (I could barely milk the goat, let alone type...) So, here is what we have been doing on the potager (other things have been happening too, but I'll save those for another post.)

Day 7 we put down a lot more pavers. This really happened over several days in small bursts between rain storms, but would have been day seven if the weather had cooperated.

Day 8 (Thursday, the 23rd) - the sun was actually shining. The supervisor was ready, so we got to work.

First we had to finish the pavers. This happened as the blocks for the wall and the edging arrived.

More sand and stones were moved to make a level bed for the pavers.

Finally they were all in place.

They looked pretty good.

Day 9 - The saw arrived.

All the odd little places where full pavers didn't fit got special cut pavers to fill the gaps.
It was lots of cuts...
and fitting.
Then we started on the edgers.

They fit in surprisingly well.
Things looked pretty nice by the end of the day.

Day 10 - April 26th (a day of "rest")
The supervisor was waiting when I walked out the door. All we had left was one little retaining wall. Just a few (115 @ 80 lbs each plus capstones) blocks to move into place (50 yards, really poor planning on my part.) No problem. Of course, we had to move some dirt first. The wall needed to sit on a 2 foot wide 6 inch deep packed gravel base. Since the dirt needing retaining loomed 2 1/2 feet above the level of the pavers, that turned out to be a wee bit of earth to move. Then we got to fill it back in with gravel. (a kind of military training exercise I remenber from Basic - Dig a hole, Fill the hole!) The wheel barrow got a work out.

Filling the pad for the retaining wall.
Cutting the first stone. (You have to start at the most important corner. If you don't things get ugly. To start you have to split a block. It's tedious, nerve wracking (for an amature stone mason) work and it's the first thing you have to do....)
The first stone in place!
Moving 80 pound blocks 50 yards is too much work for me, even with the handy block lifter. I used a wheel barrow to cover most the distince. I started with four blocks, but soon was down to three and eventually only two per trip.
After a lot of trips the wall came together.
It looked pretty good.
The cap stones helped a lot.
A good end to a not so restfull day.

April 28th

This is where we are today. Still a ways to go, but it is almost finished!

9 comments:

kaka said...

you are a careful architect.Great!

Olive said...

Great work ! Looks beautiful. Poor supervisor though, I think he works too hard :-)

Ali said...

It looks terrific! Very inspiring (watch out Dan!) It is clear that the excellent supervision led to a gorgeous outcome. :-)

Daphne said...

That makes my 10 hours of double digging seem easy. It looks great.

our friend Ben said...

Wow, beautiful, Alan!!! Congratulations!!!!

Michelle Clay said...

Oh my word! What a mighty ton of work, and what fantastic results! I can't wait to see the area planted. This will bring many decades of beauty. I hope you got lots of rest!

Barbee' said...

I'd say it not only looks pretty good, but that it looks GREAT! That is a huge project in my opinion.

tansy said...

wow! i can't wait to see t planted!

Faith said...

Looks great!

Faith

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