Laying down the limestone blocks on top of the cement walls

On both sides of the new path, and alone the fence, we have poured cement walls, down to bedrock, leaving enough room to put 4x4 inch limestone blocks on the top.  All of this will be underground except the top surface of the limestone blocks which will be the dividing line between the path and the beds on both sides.  For this last set of stones, it seems we want it to match the quality of the stones for the patio, so I figured I should hire a professional, rather than doing it myself.

I hired two guys, working as Saul's Masonry, 512-939-7656.  They came out and we talked over what I wanted, and agreed on a price of $400.  I figured there was about 100 linear feet of stones to be laid.

The most important part is of course the path. 

So they started there, putting down a bed of mortar and laying the stones on that, keeping everything level.

Going down the long side and then coming back and doing the shorter piece.

In addition, we have the cement wall under the fence.




This is easier, since it's just a straight line.  But still, doing a good job is important.  And apparently I should have made the wall slightly higher so they had to use more mortar to make up the difference.



The whole thing took about 6 hour, and looks good.  As they were finishing up, it starts to rain, but only enough to keep things wet.

Finishing the main backyard pit

Having dug out along the fence, and finished putting in a cement wall to outline the backyard along the fence, we then want to finish digging out the main pit and start filling it back in.  We had left a peninsula sticking out into the pit.

 It seems it would be easier to restart the digging if this edge of the part of the yard that has been processed if this was a straight line, so we began digging out that part.

 It took about 3 days to dig that out, separate out the rocks and mix the dirt that remains with leaves and spread it all out.