M O D F R U G A L

We’ve had a lot of rain (again) which makes the horsetail and other plants happy.  It makes me wet.

Horsetail is easily blown over by those high winds……

I’m hauling the peas every morning after the Things are off to school so I can avoid working in the triple digit weather with 100% humidity.  If it drizzles, I work, if it pours, I wait until it stops.  I try to take several breaks anyway.  When I start, I can fill the buckets 3/4 of the way..after about 10 trips, the volume starts creeping down and I know it’s time to knock off for awhile.

So how far have I gotten?

I’ve gotten one layer down now.  Problem is..we need about 3 more in order to hide the exposed areas where the “stucco” ends…like here…..

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?  Perhaps we should stucco further down the wall on this side!  Ya THINK!?!

The guy we used to build all this in the fall was scheduled to come back and do some “touch-up” on the stucco this spring, but he never showed.  We didn’t chase him since we figured the touch up wasn’t really totally necessary at the time and we were all square with him financially.

If we had all the stuff, it would be a no brainer DIY.  This has it’s own set of issues since I don’t know if we can replicate the “formula” for the color to match.  If I  go through my receipts, I can find the brand etc he used and try?  If I remember correctly, he used 2 bags of black to one bag of brown…but I’m not sure.  I should just call him and just say..”Hey, how have ya been?  Gimme the recipe!”

I dunno, in the meantime, I need to haul a bit more (ARGH!) to cover some thin areas, then the CC and I need to sit down and discuss this other, much less exhausting option.

Well, it’s only been about 9 months since the walls were built…we are finally finishing the top patio in the front.  In our feeble defense, it’s just been lower on the list since we wanted to spend spring and summer filling the new beds and getting stuff planted.

It was tough to decide which gravel to use.  Since we needed massive amounts, the budget needed to be less than $50/yard.  That pretty much left us with limestone or pea gravel.  The granite chips were 3 times that so…no dice.  We can’t use decomposed stone fines (my 1st choice) because they set up too hard and the water will run off away from the tree …we need the water to drain down so that it gets at its roots.

I’ve used limestone before for gravel patios and it worked great, but I wanted to explore something softer and easier on the feet. I’ve always hated pea gravel…it felt very dated and ugly to me, but I found a few nice gardens that changed my mind.

This patio used pea gravel in between the hardscape…

Photo via Studio G

… and this post showed a nice pea gravel patio

Photo via Rock Stock & Quade

Now we have a monster sized pile of pea gravel to put on top of the large limestone.  I started spreading it in the rain since it’s as cool as it’s ever going to be (only 87°!).  I discovered I can only fill the buckets half way or it hurts.  Up all the steps, dump and repeat.  2 buckets are best since it keeps me balanced instead of bending over a single full bucket.

Phew…gonna be a long week.  Problem is….I think I might hate the color….stay tuned for a hopeful improvement…maybe when it’s dry…maybe.