Finishing the walkway

The walkway has been completely defined at this point.  It goes from the fence to the raised garden, around the raised garden, and then over to the back patio.  It was designed to be 36 inches wide and follow the slope of the yard.  It has two walls, of cement, going down 2 to 3 feet to bedrock, topped with limestone blocks.  The area between the two walls is filled with rock rubble and then topped with decomposed granite.  It has been allowed to settle for months now.  Seems like it is time to put down the flagstones over the decomposed granite, so that it matches the patio.

My  rough measurements show that the actual width of the walkway varies from 27 to 36 inches (between the limestone block edges).  From the fence to the raised garden is about 17 feet.  The raised garden is about 17 feet by 20 feet, and then 60 feet from the raised garden to the back patio.  So assuming it was 3 feet wide, that's about 450 square feet of surface.

The back patio is covered with "Oklahoma thin".

We need to find a source for the stone, and stone people to put it down.

Saul's Masonry did a good job the last time, so we went back to them again.  Now they are working as "Max's Masonry".  They looked it over and figure it will take at least a week to do.  $2000 for labor.

Plus materials.  We found the same stone as the patio at Austin Custom Stone: Oklahoma Thin MC.  Plus 2 cubic yards of masonry sand from Austin Custom Stone and 10 bags of Alamo Portland Cement from Home Depot.

The delivery from Austin Custom Stone was scheduled for Thursday.  The two cubic yards of sand have to be moved around back.

 And we have 3 pallets of the Oklahoma Thin MC flagstone. The pallets are 1.70 ton, 1.73 ton, and 1.92 ton.

Total cost for the sand and the flagstones -- $1718.01.  The Alamo Masonry Cement was $73.73 from Home Depot.

They started putting the flagstone down on Thursday, starting at the far end, where it meets the back patio.  The flagstones are selected and cut to fit (this is the hard part, selecting one stone out of all of them and then making it fit).  Then a layer of mortar is laid down on top of the decomposed granite to allow the flagstone piece to be levelled and held in place.

This continues, one piece after another.  Some pieces larger; some smaller.

until the entire area is filled in.

Then it continues around the corner over to the raised garden.

The pieces are selected and cut before they are mortared in place.  Around the raised garden.

It took 5 days to finish laying the flagstone.  Once it is in place, I put three 50-pound bags of Techniseal RG+ Polymeric Sand (Southern Grey) on it to fill the cracks between the stones.  $36.49 per bag from Ewing Irrigation (14 August 2014).

Digging up the East Lawn, Part 2

Having dug down to bedrock around the tree, we now turn our attention to the other side of this section of the back yard.

It appears that we have one very large rock under this patch of the yard, so first lets try to outline the rock.

And then take the dirt off the rock between these two sides.

Once we remove the dirt, we can see that it is not one big rock but two big rocks, plus something there in the far back.  So the next problem is to break it into manageable pieces. 

And then haul the pieces out to the front of the house, leaving a big hole where the rock had been.

A little clean up and we are done with this part of the backyard.