A New Sidewalk

When I moved into my house, I built a quick and inexpensive pea gravel walkway to link the house and garage.  After five years of use and effects of gravity with the slope of my yard, it was time for a change.  The pea gravel continually shifted down the hill and had to be raked back into place every couple of weeks.

After much discussion and debate we decided to go with a boardwalk to avoid lots of grade work and to keep costs down.  We found a multi-hued hardwood floor on Pinterest that served as an inspiration for our final product.  We decided to floor the boardwalk with a combination of 2x4, 2x6, and 2x8 boards stained with three different colors.

Step one was to cut all the floorboards to their final width of 36" then stain all the floorboards and boards that would become the substructure.

After everything was stained, we used recycled bricks and newly purchased capblock to serve as a foundation for the sidewalk.

Next, we put in the substructure.  We used 2x4's for the upper side and middle and 4x4's for the lower side.

Next came the floor boards and some 1x4 trim to finish the edges.

We used a repeating pattern every nine boards to ensure that we used all the boards and didn't have matching boards side by side.  Next steps include building steps off the boardwalk into the back yard, plantings along both sides and a new fence between the boardwalk and back yard.

Cherryholmes

I was lucky enough to again see one of my favorite bands live last night.  If you even vaguely like bluegrass music, Cherryholmes is definitely worth a listen.

How can you not love this face?

Cute Chick!

We have newly hatched fuzzybutts!

Walking

A few pics from a walk along Puncheon Creek Road.  This is my favorite road to walk on.  There is something new and different to see everyday, if you look for it.

Fog in the garden

The garden was looking great this morning after a little rain shower last night.  Yesterday evening we planted cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, sweet banana peppers, eggplant, zuccinni, sweet onions,  and yellow summer squash to go with the cabbage, brocoli, peas, green beans and corn that were already there.

White Oak Sinks

On April 18th, 2010 we took a hike to White Oak Sinks in the Great Smokies National Park.  I didn't really know what to expect because I hadn't hiked the trail before and I didn't choose the trail.

After hiking the 2.2 miles of the School House Gap trail and then about a half mile on an unmarked trail we entered the Sink.  Purple phlox were blooming in great abundance.

Small paths wind their way through the sink taking you to different areas.  A few disrespectful souls ignored these paths and made their own through the flowers.

Scattered amongst the thousands of purple phlox are about 20 or so Shooting Stars.

As we left the Sink we took a side trail to see a disappearing waterfall.  The falls are created by three small streams that we crossed on our way out of the Sink.

Mountain Laurel grows around the top of falls, making the water seem to come from nowhere.

We were lucky enough to see a rainbow at the bottom of the falls.

There is no stream at the base of the falls.  The water descends into a cave.

Catching site of the bridge means that the hike has come to an end.