Patio Upgrade

Here is Greg digging up the area around our patio.  We went to Home Depot Friday night and we honestly thought we would complete our project in one day!  However, what we thought would be an inexpensive, quick project, quickly turned into a three week project!  First, we had to have somewhere to put the dirt, so Greg and I compromised on where our fruit trees should be moved to and where I could have a garden bed.  Then we had to dig out that garden bed, and remove a tree and its accompanied stump, and then continue to remove the land around the patio.  We thought we had made great headway (all in one day) when we came across a sprinkler line with two heads that had been buried under the grass.

We probably could have just moved the heads of the sprinklers, since they are on flexible pipe, but in the future we would like to put a pergola up, and would need to pore concrete right where the sprinkler line went.  Additionally, we broke one head and thought for about an hour that we had a leak in the system.... somewhere.  After a crash course in sprinkler systems from Greg's brother, we were able to move the line, put a new head in and continue on in the project.  However, we have yet to find all of our valves and actually understand where all our pipes go.  Perhaps our valves are buried underneath the grass like our sprinkler heads were!

We actually thought last weekend that we would be able to finish at least part of the patio, but ran out of paver base and sand at 9:00 p.m. when the stores all close.  However, in Greg's words he said, "I am not going to Home depot one more time today"...  so we would have had to have waited anyway.  Unfortunately, all our work was flooded Saturday night with a huge rain storm, most of our sand and paver base was mixed and unleveled, and the water has not drained because of subsequent rain ever since. 

However, Greg's perfectionism paid off and it is finally complete!    I dream one day to have a plumeria, hybiscus, callalillies, philadendron, papaya, avocado, lime, lemon and grapefruit trees! We will see what will fit in the future!