The weather around here was beautiful this weekend!
On Saturday, we ventured to my family's cottage for the day to see the Kite Festival on the beach. Someone was trying to fly a HUGE octopus kite, but it just wasn't windy enough.
After attempting naps, both boys decided not to, we could see a lot more kites up while we were sitting on the deck. Jeff took Matt (our older son) back down to the beach where they saw two octopus kites, a giant penguin, and numerous other colorful kites!
On Sunday we finally tackled a project I started a week ago - the pathway to the boys' swing set.
Actually, to back up, on Saturday morning before we left, the big boys went to a stone retailer a few minutes from our house to get some pavers for the path. I had done a drive by the week before and found what I thought would work, but I needed a little assistance with transporting them.
While they were there Jeff sent me a couple of pictures of different
options, and we ended up going with a different stone he had found. Same
concept, just a little more character... I must have missed it.
This Idaho Quartz Stone is beautiful up close and in person! While it's primarily gray in color, some pieces are rust colored and there are patches of sparkles - not sure how else to describe it. When the sun hits it, it shines! It was really hard to capture in a photo.
Last week I started by moving all of the wood chips and landscaping fabric we had put down last spring. It wasn't until last year that we put the swing set in, so this area had previously been landscaped with no access into my mom's pasture behind our house.
We used some high tech tools a couple of weed remover tools and old boat ropes we had to line the edges of the path up straight from the fence. We almost skipped this part, but I'm glad we didn't! When we were looking at this area from the house, the makeshift path we had before was never square. Without this step, we would have had a pretty, but crooked path... not acceptable!
Next, we spread almost a dozen bags of top soil and leveled the area to prep it for the stones. Now, we're not landscaping experts by ANY means! It's taken me almost 5 years to learn what plants grow well in our shady front yard (we'll get to that later). So maybe we used the wrong base, however, I knew I wanted to plant Creeping Thyme between the stones to soften the blow when a kid falls... because that's inevitable, right? It already happened when I was taking the after shots. No worries! Matt got right back up saying, "I'm okay, I'm okay!"
After we made sure it was nice and smooth, we started placing the stones. Jeff found a big one, perfect for the beginning of the path ,that we placed at the bottom. I used the Creeping Thyme as a guide for how far apart we needed to have each stone. We continued to work our way up to the top, in rows of two or three stones wide, until we made it to the swing set.
There she is, in all her glory! Not the swing set, the path! I bought two flats of Creeping Thyme, and that wasn't enough. I still have to go back and get one or two more, and maybe fill in other areas with some wood chips. It probably seems crazy to have a black dirt path to a swing set... and two boys! I'm hoping by next year this Thyme will fill in more, so that when they're both running around, they won't come in looking like the work in a coal mine. ;)
My big helper wanted to join me while I took after photos. For the past year he hasn't wanted to make eye contact with the camera... I'll take what I can get, because he's too cute not to take some sort of picture! He's pointing at the one and only Ty plant on the path. Yup, that's the technical name. No, not really. My mom took our little guy, Ty, to the store with her while we were working. When they came back, they had this plant, and she said, "He wouldn't let me put it back! He loved to pat it!" The word "no" or anything of the likes, is no longer in your vocabulary once you've reached Grandparent status, apparently.
One final look at our new path *almost* complete! I have plans for the sides of the path, too. And for the rest of the backyard landscaping, when I get the time!
Thanks for taking a look!
Linking up to:
This is a wonderful idea. I need to put some paths in around the place and was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the idea. Yours looks so gorgeous, I want to tackle mine now.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! It was pretty quick and easy for a 16' x 4' path. We have a couple other paths to the backyard and to the pasture, but they're much smaller. Good luck!
ReplyDelete