500 pounds of crushed limestone

Got up around 8 this morning and skipped exercising (which I do most mornings(skip, that is), but actually got done yesterday) and headed outside on the strength of one 4 ounce glass of orange juice and some vitamins and started working on the 'let's lay pavers' project I started last summer.

Have been wanting to work on it all summer, but refused to go outside in 95 degree heat and 95% humidity to work. At least today it was only 70 degrees and 95% humidity! I took me at least 15 minutes before I started dripping sweat. Sheesh...

I got the last part of the 'area to be tamed' excavated a month ago. Those were the little white baggies of dirt I wanted to donate to Katrina relief. But, like most of my projects, I changed my mind on how much below grade I wanted to go and wound up attaching some retaining boards to the fence and dumping all that dirt back into the hole. Oh, well... anyway... put the dirt in, got my 'fill-to-here' lines drawn and leveled and tamped all the dirt down. Then out to the truck to schlep the 50 pound bags of crushed limestone over to the hole. Schleped may be too severe a word. I used a wheeled trolly. Much easier on the muscles. (Although the hamstrings protested mightily a few hours later when I tried to get up from breakfast!)

It's amazing how much information I've absorbed from watching Daddy work on various and sundry projects all these years. I dumped the limestone a little at a time (instead of all at once) and used the 2x4 to level it out and tamp it down. Go slow and only do once... worked out pretty good. Is fairly level, too! Thanks, Daddy!!!

Got done with that and got out the big cast iron tamper and dropped it about a million times on the limestone. Looked pretty darn good, unfortunately, mother nature insisted on dropping dead slimy leaves all over it... and it was quitting time (BB was up and I was HUNGRY) and I knew I wouldn't get to work on it again until next weekend, so I got out my trusty blue tarp and covered the whole thing... just about 3 minutes before the downpour started. I now have my very own water feature/mosquito breeder. But, darn it, I worked really hard on making it compact and clean and since it will be 6 more days before I get to work on it again and I don't want to spend hours picking leaves off and recompacting to get rid of the squirrel tracks and such.... next weekend I really want to rent a compacter and make the base HARD! Will see how much I get done this week... need to buy pavers and more limestone and some sand and I will be ready. And somewhere in there I should mow the grass and rake the leaves....

But, overall, given the amount of time I spent on the project this weekend, I am very pleased with the progress. Yesterday morning it was little more than plain fence and a pile of dirt.

And I didn't mind the rain at all... it was close to 80 when I quit and the water was a welcome relief after the sweating. Got the yard picked up and the sidewalks cleaned of mud. Not a bad morning. Then BB took me out to breakfast at my favorite place... Lumies! There is nothing I love more (meal-wise) than Sunday breakfast.

Added a little shopping after breakfast and it wound up being a great day... but.... now it's time to do more drugs... my back is none to happy with me....