ROCK WALL COMPLETED!

Friday, June 7 – Paul's been sent to the rock pile. No, not for bad behavior, but to gather rocks for the wall and fence along the rear property line. If you recall, Paul had the driveway installers pile the unused dirt along the rear line for this wall. He's now into building the wall in preparation for the fence.

Look who is playing King on the Mount.

He found a good supply of reasonably priced boulders at a local sand and gravel yard. The only catch is he has to select them from huge piles at the gravel yard and haul them home. That means he'll be handling every rock at least three or four times.....jeesh!

He ended up making 3 trips to the rock pit picking up 335 boulders, weighing 8,920 pounds. Now that's a bunch or rocks!

He actually enjoys the wall building process. Doesn't enjoy the shoveling of the dirt in preparation, but the wall building is rewarding work.

It's nice to see the progress as he places the rocks and dirt and advances down the line. It's a pretty good workout too! A little toooo good of a workout. After working all day....OUCH! (That's his back talking.)

End of Day 1.

Paul originally told Marsha that his job for June was to build the rock wall. Marsha knew better than to believe him. It took him only two days to build a 70' wall. She just smiled and thought…I knew you would get it done in a few days.

Look who thinks the grass is greener over the wall.

Now for the fence building along the top of the wall. He's going to put some vinyl fence like you see at Home Depot. A little expensive in the beginning but no upkeep and no painting in the future. Can't have Marsha adding “Paint Fence” to his "honey do" list, now can we... :-)

With the wonderful warm weather and a little bit of rain now and then, the garden is coming along great. The zucchini are growing like weeds. The banana pepper plants have flowers and small peppers already. Marsha pulled a few of the flowers off to get more strength to the plant. Not too far in the future, we will have tasty tomatoes also.

We have lots of grapes growing along the fence at the side of the house. Looks like we may get some good eating grapes this year.

So the “Summer of Work” continues for us. That's okay! We actually enjoy the work after four years of full-time relaxation. We keep making and then changing travel plans for this winter. We decide on exploring Florida, then changed to Arizona and the Southwest. We still haven't made up our minds. We do know we'll be in the Houston area for Thanksgiving and visit our daughter, Carrie. After the Christmas Holidays, we'll either continue West or head East. Time will tell.

Side note: The guys came and finished the driveway. After the initial widening of the apron at the street, we decided we should have had them widen the drive by about five feet. So the guys were willing to come back and make the change. It really looks much better and will be nice for backing in the 5^th wheel. They even gave Paul a discount because he did the prep work by digging out the sod and spreading gravel for the base.

This was just a little to close to Marsha's flowers for her liking.

The driver promised her that he would not hurt one of her flowers. She still stood and watched. He kept his word. In August, Paul will fill in the cracks and seal the rest of the driveway. It will look like new.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!