7.1.2016

Time just keeps flying by...hard to believe it's July already!  We just keep working hard every day...

This was another day where we were supposed to get some possible heavy rain, but it wasn't supposed to start until later in the afternoon.  So morning saw us getting ready for another round of brickwork.

Jim is marking the next lines on the wall...

The bag of mortar we split yesterday was our last bag from doing block work last year.  Jim noticed it had some chunks in it, so he decided to use the sifter.  However, there were so many hard pieces in it that we finally decided it wasn't worth it and opened up a new bag.

Making the mortar...

Starting on the front...Jim has to use a block to stand on now.

Jim also started building up the back corner...

Once the corners were built, Jim worked in between.

Jointing...

A great day's work.  Both front and back corners are built up, so tomorrow Jim can just work on the middle.  That will go a little more quickly since they are all full pieces.

Clean up time!

Anticipating those afternoon showers, we covered all the new brick work.  In fact, once we saw that heavy winds were in the forecast, we later went back and added more bricks on top of the plastic to make sure everything stayed in place to keep the bricks dry.

After lunch, we did a little clean up of rocks.  Jim has uncovered quite a few big rocks grading the driveway - we took 2 big bucketsful of rocks down to our pile.

More clean up...we have this leftover wire mesh that Jim wants to advertise.  A pretty little wildflower garden was growing in it so Jim had to use the Bobcat forks to lift the wire.

All ready to put on Craig's List!

Moving the wire uncovered the decking that we will use for our lower staircase landing.  So Jim moved it down the hill so that it will be ready to go.

Another item that is going to go on Craig's List...the dozer blade.  Jim used it when initially doing the grading but now it doesn't have much utility.  So he got it all cleaned up and we took some pictures.

 

Then Jim worked on various other projects in the afternoon.  Before the rains came, he figured out the brick pattern he wanted to use for the next front corner section.  Then he moved his attention to steel work - he got 14 pieces made for the overhang on the front!

 

The rain did come through late afternoon, so we were thankful that the brickwork was all covered.  It didn't last too long, and as I write this the sun is shining!

 

High 80/Low 57