A not-so quick update

Things are looking much better in the back yard now!  

First the before:

After the repairs:

Looking much better already, right?  The contractor (not a Sask Energy employee as I initially thought) recommended that we end the sidewalk at the end of the house, then fill in the rest of the area with more base and crusher dust.  As a result they had to pour a small patch of concrete at the meter.

I suspect eventually the patch will lighten and won't be as noticeable, but regardless it makes more sense now.

While I was running errands yesterday I stopped in at both Home Depot and Rona to see what my alternatives for the pathway might be.  I discovered, very quickly that the round concrete blocks I had thought I would use were far too heavy for me to lift (and that was important because I'd be doing that work myself), and fairly expensive.  I found at Home Depot there were plastic alternatives but Rona didn't carry them.  That was a bit disappointing as I still have a gift card (from the paint debacle earlier this year) but I'm sure I'll find something to spend that on later. Back to Home Depot I picked up 36 square Stomp Stones. These are made from recycled tires and were quite inexpensive.  Best of all the placement is very easy.  Simply place the stone on the ground and literally stomp on it!

The almost finished project:

I say almost finished because I wasn't happy with how crooked the path was so went out later with a yardstick and lined them up a little better.  I had used the ruler to measure the space between each block but that didn't keep them straight.

I haven't made up my mind if I will change out the last nine blocks to the same pattern as the rest.  I had placed them in three because the path widens at that spot but I'm still not certain about the placement.  I'll leave it be for awhile and either I'll decide it needs to be changed or I'll just get used to it!

In the backyard there was this unsightly spot, before:

After all the rain we had recently the crusher dust had settled down several inches.  I picked up a few bags of black soil and filled it in before spreading and raking in some grass seed.  It will take awhile to fill in with grass but that's okay, it still looks better than it did.  As you can see there is still a patch by the end of the path that is full of crusher dust the grass didn't grow well there anyway.

The after:

I did have to pay for the removal of the rest of the sidewalk (and the blocks), but Sask Energy picked up the cost of the rest of the work that was done.  This made sense, in that they didn't need to remove all of the sidewalk to move the line thus it would have been my responsibility anyway.  But finding someone to do the work was proving difficult as every landscaper I contacted was busy until September.  That Sask Energy did the right thing and sent out one of their contractors was a pleasant surprise.

Happy Fourth of July to my readers in the United States!  Have a great day everyone.