The Patio

When mi madre came to visit in February (or was it March? that whole time is a bit of a blur), but when she did, we set straight to work. She was so thrilled by the beautiful 60 degree weather that when I asked her the afternoon of her arrival what she wanted to do, she replied, "Go outside." So I handed her a rake and we headed out back.



We decided that night to put a patio in my backyard!! Whoever said I wasn't spontaneous lied. So after a trip to Home Depot where I yet again discovered that racism exists in Austin and America (Home Depot won't work in my "zip code"), mom and I set out to put in a patio myself. With help from Robert Anderson from church, mom and I rented a tiller...



bought a ton of crushed granite which we shoveled out of Frank's parents' truck into wheelbarrow's (Clarence's) and began to put it into the 3 inch deep 20x20 box in my backyard.



Next came the rocks. Ugh. Heavy. THREE TONS and three trips to the Rock Query (not counting the trip for the granite) and mom and I were really making progress. In fact, on Wednesday, the first day of rock setting, we unloaded half of them and then went to church for Wednesday night activities (yes, I'm a Baptist minister). When we came home we discovered all the rest of the rocks had been unloaded from the truck and placed in the backyard!! Clarence of course.



Every morning mom woke me up around 7 to begin laboring again.

After two days and two and a half tons of hard work mom and I had the patio almost finished! But her flight left Friday and while we had worked our asses off, we hadn't quite finished. But indeed we were quite close!



A couple of weekends later, I found the time and the college students to help me finish with the last half ton. We finished the rock, bought a ton of gravel to pour in between the rocks and put in the lining (?) to create the boundary. And sans Home Depot but with the help of some amazing friends, my patio was finished!!



Merci beaucoup mes amis et ma mere!