Way back in April, I laid the new lava-rock path to the front door. It was raining, and I wanted to wait for the sand to dry so that I could make sure that the stones were settled and not just riding atop grout-consistency wet sand.
It’s 74 days later, and we have not had two dry days in a row. Yesterday was the first dry, sunny day that I can remember, and today dawned sunny but then the rain came. When the sun came out later in the day, I decided that I didn’t want to wait any longer.
I started at the bottom of the steps to the front door. I lifted the two big stones at the start, which had drifted down toward the porch because they were on a downward slope. I built up the sand base so they’d be level and not slide anymore. Then I lifted each stone that was significantly higher or lower than its neighbors or wasn’t stilling flat. I adjusted its sand base so that it was level with the stones around it. Then I filled in all the gaps with the still-wet, grout-like sand. I also broke up some of the remaining stone fragments to fill in some of the gaps where four stones come together.
It looks better and will be easier to walk on, as we won’t have to be careful not to slip into the gaps or trip over an uneven stone. Now I just have to hope it stays level when (if?) it dries out.
—2p
The soundtrack for this adventure was the Grateful Dead, Easy Wind.