This weekend Peter and David started work on the sidewalk. The first stage was digging the trench where the sidewalk would go. It’s amazing just how much dirt gets displaced when you need to dig down 9 inches or so (~4-5 inches of packed gravel, 1 inch of sand and 3 inches for the brick.)

Yes, we’ve already cracked wise about bodies buried in the back yard…

First snag: Turns out the gravel that was delivered was wrong – we asked for crushed (irregular chunks with little bits of grit mixed in); we ended up with washed (smoother pebbles, no grit). This was problematic, since for interlocking brick you want the rough gravel base to scrape next to each other, packing down firmly with no shifting between rocks. Dave found that mixing some of the sand with the gravel packed things down fairly well. Not perfect, but it’ll have to do.

Dave with the tamper, pounding down the gravel.

Of course, that meant we had to go buy more sand for the layer under the bricks…

Dave did a lovely job of laying the bricks…

Next snag: A tree that we had removed several years ago had huge roots, too close to the surface to ignore. Poor Peter spent much of Saturday and most of Sunday hacking away at the roots with axe and saw and not making much headway. (Not that he wasn’t getting anywhere, but rather that the roots are so frickin’ BIG!) There were a lot of comments &#8211 said only half-jokingly &#8211 about leaving the roots sticking up amongst the brick!

Peter has good reason to pout &#8211 that’s one big root!

So the sidewalk didn’t get finished, and we don’t know when it will get done. It will depend on a) when we can clear that root out and b) when Dave can fit us into his hectic schedule.

And then there’s getting rid of that 3- or 4-cubic-yard pile of dirt from our backyard…