Bench Work

When I was a child we used to have 4 hours of chores to do every Saturday. I picture my father staying up late Friday nights to make the lists for all five of us. A few times my father came to me and asked if I wanted a break. Boy! Did I!


Then he would have me come help him with one of his projects! If I complained that this was not a break he would explain that doing something different IS a break!




So , I am taking a break from clearing the driveway. Lee and I spent Saturday digging the ground for the brick area under the bench. It has a slope so we have to bury part of it to make it level. I want to keep a small amount of slope for water to run off and not collect on the bricked area.

If we were to do a professional job we would dig down at least 8 inches and then add 3 or so inches of gravel for drainage and then 3 or so for the sand. But if we wanted a professional job, we should have hired professionals because that is not what we are doing.

We dug about 4 inches and that will have to do.




We used the pick-ax to chop away at the grass. We pulled it up and piled it in the Mule. Then Lee took it to fill low spots in the lawn.




Lee brought around the tractor and we filled the bucket a couple of times with the soil. Lee then took it and used it to fill some holes in the field.



We used a level to check the digging.


Next we start building the frame to hold the brick. But the digging took us about 2 hours (lots of shale and rock) and we were too sore to keep going!