This patio was our May 5th project.
The day after our Badlands adventure, we did some yard work. A lot of yard work. There it all goes to the tree dump behind the Envoy. I believe Terry raked the yard and we pulled weeds, that kind of thing.
High on our accomplishment, we went to work remaking the patio that we had finished not long ago in 2015 when we put in the brick path. Terry is using string to get an idea of the shape that I wanted.
I wanted it a bit larger since I had always thought that corner jutted out awkwardly. But mostly, the gravel surrounding the stones drove me nuts. It was always a mess or Ezra would dig holes in it, or it would get everywhere. I would sweep and sweep but could never keep it looking nice. I finally decided that I'd rather have cement. So Terry started pulling up the stones. Yay!
Then he removed the stakes holding the plastic into the ground.
Kitty cat came to see what was up. That was Ezra's bucket for putting gravel in.
Ezra helped daddy the entire project, which only took an afternoon. Here he is lining up the removed stakes.
Luna wanted to play fetch all afternoon except no matter how much I encouraged her to come to me or did the actual toss, she'd still bring it back to Terry. Everyone loves Terry best. That's okay. He likes me.
Adding a bit more gravel back.
Terry rigged up this board to get all the stones the same level. He'd add gravel underneath or remove it from underneath each stone and then tamp it down until they were the same height.
Sometimes Ezra helped add the gravel.
Stone placement done!
Terry went to Hardware Hank before dark and got some cement. Here he's sweeping all the cement into the cracks.
Adding water so it would harden. He regretted not getting better sand cement (instead of the kind with more stones in it), but it's totally fine. There are no more rocks coming out everywhere, and if anything, it's more rustic this way.
Video footage
By the time he finished darkness had really fallen, but he still came out a couple more times and sprayed more water just to make sure it sunk down deep between the stones.
So this is a before picture...
...and after! MUCH better. Good job Terry and Ezra!
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