Friday, June 7, 2013

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.

dirt pile

Look who is playing King on the Mount.
bella

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!

heaving rocks

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.

rock garden

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.)

laying rock

End of Day 1.
rock garden 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.

rock wall

rock wall

Look who thinks the grass is greener over the wall.bella other side of 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.

zucchini

peppers

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.

grapes

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 5th 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.widening drive

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.

finished product

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

16 comments:

  1. sure glad I didn't live too close by...

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  2. Good job, Paul, with the rocking (and rolling?) ;)

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  3. Look at those muscles!! The rocks really look great. We had one of those no up keep fences and loved it.

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  4. Ouch, my aching back. I bet the satisfaction of getting the wall done was worth it, though. You're going to have fresh produce straight from the garden ... it will taste all the better for being homegrown.

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  5. Paul, that wall is beautiful! Wonderful work. You are going to have a back of steel!!

    Boy, the driveway does look much better with the added width. We won't have any trouble with our back in site!!!

    The house is really looking great. The flower beds and fresh mulch make it look new.

    Glad to see Bella out supervising!!

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  6. Hey, the new wall looks great, but my back got sore reading the post!

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  7. Nice job on the wall, Paul, but I'd have made that job last all summer! What a lot of killer type work.

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  8. What a good looking wall that is! You need to slow down. By the end of the summer you'll be too tired to go anyplace.

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  9. Your place is looking great. Widening the driveway will really help in backing the 5er in.

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  10. Your place is really looking great!

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  11. Love that wall along the back of the property. You two recycle with class! The wider driveway looks much easier to navigate. Sounds like the vegetable garden is coming along nicely.

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  12. I'm absolutely worn out just reading about all the work. . .ugh! Have fun y'all. . .

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  13. Great job on the rock wall. I think Paul should bottle up some of that energy and sell at WalMart. He'd make a fortune!

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  14. My back is hurting just reading this post and looking at the pictures. Paul, you did good my man!

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  15. That wall looks great! Eager to see the fence and flowers in bloom.

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