Gratis

J: Yesterday I had a FREE Saturday again. No plans to be anywhere but home and it went great.

First: I took the Christmas lights down and put the last Christmas box away.

Second: I cleaned up the willow tree cuttings that littered the driveway. We have a corkscrew willow that is very pretty when trimmed well and leafed out. Each year it puts out new long leafy branches so it has to be pruned or the branches die en masse. I pruned it a week ago but never got the chance to cleanup and never delegated that chore.

Third: I mowed the lawn. A neighbor was nice enough to stop and comment on how nice the lawn looks after all the effort that has gone into it. There are very few lawns in our part of town.

Fourth: With the lawn mowed I moved to the back of the house and started laying out the new pathway. It has been covered with white rock that has slowly slid to one side due to the slope of the path. I had an idea to make some steps/retainers for the rock so it won't slide. I'm not much of a landscape designer so I don't know what we will do with everything else around it. But here is a picture of the progress so far.
The 4x4s are leftovers (gratis!) from other projects and from pallets from work. I had to do a little digging to make them sit level. The bottom set of boards is level with the patio. The next step up sits on the bottom step and will continue on in this fashion. The voids will get filled in with gravel. Iron form stakes hold the 4x4s in place. They are pound in level with the top of the boards. I've got a bazillion of them laying around so I am glad to use them. They are also being used for grow boxes in the garden. I skewed the front edge of the steps a little bit to make them a little unordinary.

Needless to say the project is not yet finished. I ran out of 4x4s but will remedy that his week.

While I worked on the path Ruth was setting up the new watering system for the garden. You can see the pipe and sleeve under the new pathway. It's almost ready. Tomorrow we will plant our starts for FHE! We will use old ice cream buckets for mini green houses. We will have to weigh them down at night so the wind doesn't blow them away. But, excepting for Ruth, I've always leaned to the more practical than attractive!

After lunch I got the grill going at a low temperature and threw a rack of pork ribs on the grill. Kept the temperature from 200-250 for five hours. Lunch was late so the meat wasn't ready for dinner (we all sampled it though and WOW! was it good) but we ate it for dinner on Sunday with corn-on-the-cob! I like to season the meat with a custom mixture of spices including ground sea salt, season salt, coarse ground pepper and garlic salt. I don't measure any of it. Just mix up enough and rub it in good. Costco sells a bottle of sea salt with a grinder in the bottle cap. Everybody loved dinner!