Brick, walkway, renovation

This poor walkway has been torn apart more than Scarlett and Rhett.   It was pretty much done before the foundation project, but that project tore it asunder in order to make room to work to rebuild the foundation. Since October it has been inoperable, as was the door it lead to. As the weather has warmed, the need for the walkway has increased so it was time to take it on. Two weeks ago we did some of it together.  Last week we did more of it, and this week I continued even further. Its not the best, but it is sure better than walking in the dirt. If you look at the photos you can see where the sides were extended to make it wider, and some upright bricks were put in a vertical position along the sides to hold it in place, and to act as a little retaining wall along the herb garden plantings. The land drops off, so we had to compensate for the drop. The soil is sandy and doesn't hold in place particularly well without assistance of some sort, hence the vertical brick placements. On the left is last week's work, on the right is this week's additions.

When we worked on it last week, Mr insisted on working from the bottom up. I was working from the top down. He didn't want to work with me so he went off on his own making it necessary to tie in his work to my work. I had created a walkway that was ten bricks wide, and told him so. He on the other hand choose to make a nine brick wide walkway. Yes, a problem. A problem yet to be solved, but I made a stab at part of it this weekend. I did my best to tie in the nine brick wide path with the ten brick wide but it looks pretty lame. Take a look at the photo and tell me what you think.  Methinks it will have to get to ten bricks wide or it is going to look too strange. So the story is yet to be finished on this project. Brick by brick, little by little, it will all come together, no matter how long it takes. Surely it will be done before summer. I'll keep you posted.

The yard is such a mess from the foundation renovation project. There are concrete blocks in piles, piles of broken brick debris, another pile of reusable bricks, a pile of lumber used for forms, and a huge pile of sandy soil dug out from the footings. All must go, asap. The weather has been generous from time time. Considering that it is February, we are grateful for any work day that happens. Actually we are quite surprised we have had any work days. Usually we would be able to work outside here in the beginning of December. Not so this year, we were frozen in with a frozen river as of the first week of December. Imagine that river being a giant pile of ice cubes with a fan behind it. The north wind rolling down and over the north/south frozen river creates quite a cold blast. To tell you the truth, I don't know how the Inuits do it....we sure struggle in those conditions and I don't think it approaches the temps in Alaska!