Part 15-"Sidewalks, and Fruit Trees, and Gables, Oh my!!"-Step 2 Gables

Preparations for Sidewalks-Dig out & Forms
House, shop, Greenhouse

Peach, Apricot, Plum

Picture on left shows small trial cement pour with mixer. Ego is great but this convinced me that I might have to bite the bullet and call a professional. The sidewalk, middle picture shows the scope of the problem and note, the rain softens the mud and tells me where level is!! Almost ready to pour if I had some of those illegal space guys.

Spring 2010 Has arrived and with it the flowers and rains of spring. Planted 5 apple trees and 50 grape vines. Frost almost killed off the new grape vines, see picture below. Without those rains neither the dig-out for the sidewalk, nor the grape vine project would be possible! But as the top picture confirms, clay and water make slip (and they don't call it slip for nothin').

Part 15-Sidewalks and Gables

Spring has allowed some progress to occur. Columbia City High School decided to tear down their greenhouse (~$100,000) and replace it with a storage facility for sports items. Near the football field and made of glass it was a bit of a target. I paid the contractor about $180 and got about $1500 worth of glazing support. Now the question is can the supports be used for polycarbonate, I have no idea and won't probably test for a few more weeks.

Meanwhile, our neighbors, their grandson and a friend, offered to work. I put them to work first levelling the driveway. Next they mulched the new grapes. Devin had put up posts last fall for the grape arbor. Finally, as the picture above shows, he and his friend started to dig out the sidewalk for the shop. Original specification called for an 8' wide sidewalk so that seating and activity could be accomodated. Started to dig the dry clay and realized it was a push. As the first week of April went on it became wetter and wetter. Today they worked until they basically couldn't stand up any more. At the end, they collapsed a dam that was holding back the standing water. That was all she wrote for today!

The next few pictures actualy belong after part 16 but I couldn't justify opening a new page for an old topic. The following year I got a local contractor Noah Hilty to finish the job and here is how it looked during completion. A full 12 months elapsed from the top photos until the bottom. However, I officially declared myself to be old on March 4, 2011. So thats my excuse.