Stewart Creek Somethings

Back deck heat pump view

I had the nephew out again this week for three days.  I had him finish digging the front ditch.  We do still have a little bit of water, it isn’t much but it is still present.  I have decided to make the back deck a priority.  We finished digging it out and I installed the new rock wall.  Unfortunately, I was being a cheapskate and did not purchase the blocks that you can stack vertically and have a ceramic pin holding them all together in a single vertical wall.  They were $9/each and I could not spend it.  Instead I bought the $1.79 blocks and had to overlap them.  This necessitated some gravel behind the blocks to hold them in place.  I had the entire rock wall done, stood back and looked at my handiwork and realized that the heat pump was going to be an eye sore.  There is no easy way to move the heat pump so that means hiding it in such a way that air can still flow around the heat pump.  I had to tear the wall out again and then move it out of the way to dig some post holes for the decorative wall.  I dug and set the posts and then reinstalled the rock wall.  I did not have any boards for the louvers so that will be a trip to Home Depot.  Heath filled in behind the blocks with gravel.  I built a channel to protect the power and coolant lines. 

Brick wall up, now just need to add gravel and compact.

Buried concrete for clothes line.

We struggled with getting the clothes line out of the ground.  I had to use the tractor to bend the steel angle iron back and forth long enough it caved in and broke.  I knew there was some concrete buried.  I had no idea it was over three feet long and 18 inches thick.  It took quite a while to get out and it was the maximum the tractor could lift.  I accidently cut the fence trying to put it on the other side.  Now I will have to patch the hole.  I had to shorten the water box so it would stick lower than anything else.  That way we don’t stub our toes on it when walking across the pea gravel floor.  I am going to use paver sand with epoxy to pour over the pea gravel to make it a solid surface.  I purchased the two sets of stair risers so I would not have to cut them myself.  I would be happy if I could get it all done this week except the for the pea gravel.