Some Progress

I got the east side bed done in front. All in all it will do. This type of construction is very easy to undue, but I think it will be durable enough to last until I can upgrade the materials to a better quality. I think this is very close to the permanent layout. I will want a be and a walk here permanently. My ultimate goal is to be able to walk all the way around the house barefooted and not get my feet dirty. But I want the system to be more creative than a ring of concrete around the house.

I have been the object of scorn because I screen the soil as I excavate. However, I am steadfastly sold on the idea because the process produces uniform materials which, with the coarse screen, sort three ways. On the very top is the organic stuff like roots and the grass. On the bottom of the screen is the rubble, the rocks, concrete chunks and heavy trash like plumbing parts. The soil in the pan has small pebbles and the worms and grubs.
The rubble can be used for fill and the roots go to the wood pile for compost or the fire pit. The soil is splendid and easy to work. Eventually I will have the top ten inches of the entire property screened.

The Wrestling

I removed the ornamental plants to other areas for temporary storage and excavated for the wall. Then I moved rubble from the rubble pile to serve as the base for the wall. Since the wall will be composed of chunks of the former footer on this site of a wall long gone, I think this type of footer will serve just fine. There will be settling but this will be fine for a couple of years. When I can finally demolish the old porch deck and replace it, the brick works here will be redone and new caps placed on the walls. At that time the landscaping will have to be removed and re-done as well. A big part of this project is for me to increase my experience with the set of materials and prepare me for the time when I will be using mortar to permanently set the things I am building.

Other Side of The Walk

East Side - Before

Now I've got to address this side of the steps. So I sharpened my shovels, brought out the tools, studied the lay of the land and made some notes. The thing has to be clear to me. I will have it in mind where I start and where I want to finish. Being finished is where all the tools are put away and nothing is left to come back to. This is a place that is entirely relative but must be defined with a finality like death. There is an art to that.
No matter how carefully a project is plotted and planned I am blind to what the thing wants. Then in the first 5 minutes of the work the extra things that will make it dramatic begin to be revealed. When this happens I get a rush of excitement and a feeling of gratefulness that it is being revealed. But this has to be tempered with the realization that this is going to be more involved than I had expected in order for it to reach my expectations.
Then the project becomes like a sculpture which is revealing itself to me and that makes it art. Being an artistic production the excitement causes the pain of labor to be unknown to me as well as any idea or thought of failure or fear of criticism. But this costs me in terms of my being forced to buckle down and dig deep to deliver the goods. It means not slacking up until it is done absolutely. But the creative excitement makes this easy.

Next Thing

Here is the other side to be reworked as the other side of the front as outlined in the previous post. And a step back to see what needs to be done:

I suppose I will just take the gravel I need from the patio in back without remorse. I think I get a better deal putting it to use out front. I can take it from an area where it won't really be missed for a while. I got some positive strokes from folks on the walk to the car.

Finally Got Something Done

This is a before picture of the area targeted for renewal:

I wanted some definition and elevation here and this is what I came up with:

This picture shows the composition parts. The "wall" the hose is resting on are chunks of concrete from an old wall footer that was in the same location. In the next line is Agrape(?) border grass which were the individual clumps in the before photo. I cut each clump into four or five pieces with an old hand saw and lined them out. Next is a brick border, then the walk made with gravel screenings I took up from the patio in back. Then another brick border with screened soil fill on the outside taken from the newly created bed on the left.
The project took about 16 hours over two days start to finish. Becky was ecstatic.
One secret to such uniform results is the use of two screen sifters I have previously explained. I used the coarse screen for all the soil I turned and the medium screen for the gravel as I took it up. I found an old horse shoe and a red marble. I plan to fill this bed with leaves as they begin to fall. It will make for some good mulch.
I love doing this type of work and I can only imagine what I could do if I had some money to spend on materials. Let me say it again, I did not lay out a dime for this construction. Do you think it adds value?

Long time - No Post

I haven't posted in a long time. I have been doing work in the yard, though. I really like building things and I did these two little beds around the Azaleas in the front:

I had some some border grass that I separated into pots this year to propagate and I planted three in front of each bed. All this brick work is temporary in nature. I did these very hastily, but I still used some of my underlayment gravel material under the bricks. Mostly I had a whim and acted without measuring or doing any layout.  The need was to bolster these Azalea bushes in their struggle to be established here. Later, I mulched all around the Azaleas and the border grass. Maybe this winter I will redo this into something a little more thought out.
We were working to get the house and yard in shape for the annual neighborhood yard sale and the "Block Party" which we hosted in our back yard. I get more done and I feel more creative when I have a deadline looming.