Tiny steps of progress

I have spent most every day working in the yard this week…not this ⇧yard of course, but it is symbolic in a sense. I spent the better part of 3 days digging up broken tile from the small section around the curve in the sidewalk, raking it up onto the sidewalk, and carting it downhill to fill in a section of water run-off erosion. I could only do about half of a five-gallon bucket at at time, and only 3 or 4 before a rest. For such a small area, there was quite a bit of debris. Never mind how all the broken tile and dirt ended up there in the first place–it is a long story about that little section of the landscape.

Yesterday, I finally cleared it all out and swept the hole clean in preparation for leveling the ground with a base, and filling it in with a concrete and brick design, along with patching the section of broken sidewalk when the roofer drove his truck and trailer across it. It will become a solid spot which can support a few large plants in pots.

I awoke this morning to find the hole full of water as it rained sometime during the night. It also has more fallen leaves in it. I have been working on this spot, along with the area where we removed a tree during the tree/dirt work a few weeks ago. Although I had fairly well cleared all the roots, bricks and concrete block pieces and raked it smooth, it now looks like this:

My grandmother gave me as many of the rocks from her house as I wanted, which I dutifully carted to Mississippi with me 17 years ago, and my goal here is to create a small dry creek to help channel water run-off, a couple of paths and space for a chair and the firepit, and some more plants. I have a rough design for the plan. I need to wait until we finish the tree/dirt work in the back, as the Bobcat is going to have to drive right across this space to get to the back of the house–I only want to build this thing once!

More rain is predicted to head this way due to the tropical storm/hurricane of the week, so I told Rando I thought I would take the day off today…and probably the rest of the week, as far as yard work. It has been beautiful this week, with temps in the high 60s and sunny, clear blue weather–my favorite time of the year.