brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! 23 degrees this morning and it barely reached freezing today. Brisk wind didn’t make it any warmer, that’s for sure. Still, the Land Design Associates crew was here at 8 a.m. with their woolies on.

With temps this low, they couldn’t do anything involving concrete. Installing the flexible pond liner is a no go too as apparently it gets brittle below freezing. That made it a clean-up day instead.

Fill went in around the backside of the pond walls…

The floor of the pond was raised up some with base, raked to level, tamped down…

Piles of soil were leveled out and the yard was graded back to something manageable. Then the pond and patio area were covered in thermal blankets again to keep the ground pliable…

The stone pavers can’t go onto the patio until the pond liner is in and the coping around the edge of the pond is installed. Soooooo… looks like we’ll have a wait for the temps to rise before much more can be done up top. There is, however, a chance the lower patio may go in tomorrow.

Shall we  consult the Magic Eight Ball to see what it has to say about that?

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Day 5

Day 4

Day 3

Day 2

Day 1

I swear we’re not building a pyramid. Really. Even though our full driveway says otherwise. No room for cars here. It’s full of sand. Cement block. Cement block. Cement block…

Oh, and the granite strips that will eventually create the border of the pond…

This morning the Land Design Associates boys started forming the walls of the pond. Those cement blocks were leveled and stacked and leveled and stacked, etc. Rebar pounded into place…

Remember how they’re out there designing The Island of Patio? Might help to look at the layout again. The pond wraps around two sides of the patio, with steps across the koi pond on both sides…

So they started digging the top part of the L today…

Now you can really begin to understand why I’m calling this The Island of Patio…

Easier to see what it’s going to look like it you view it from the outside edge…

Island! Cue the Hawaiian music. Easy to see why they’re going to need all those cement blocks, eh?

At the rate they’re whipping through this project, this thing might be done next week. omg, a project that might actually be done! Hard to imagine. It hurts my head. Ouch.

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Day 3

Day 2

Day 1

The Land Design Associates crew was hard at work making the magic happen out there today. A quick rundown…

The 5′-long granite steps got hauled up the hill and readied for installation…

Some trimming. Some pounding. And voila! We have a step…

18″ deep to match the width of the stone pavers that will soon go in. It’s gonna be a little crazy having an actual step instead of the tree stump we’ve been using…

Minimal. I dig it. Can you picture it with our future wall of glass? Looks good, right?

Further down the hill, the crew marked out the lower patio and prepped it for pavers…

Back up top, the big patio had more base material added and tamped down…

A massive load of concrete blocks arrived. These will eventually form the walls of the pond. Don’t worry, they’ll be hidden by the rubber pond liner…

The blocks started making their way out back as the boys dug out the pond a little bit more…

Which means truckloads of soil leaving our yard again…

Can you believe the size of this thing?!

The finished pond will only be 2′ deep, so my luxurious giant pool is really just a pipedream…

Giant pit, however — we got that. Yup.

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Day 2

Day 1

As I write this, the rain is blowing past the windows. Sideways. At about 50 mph. Luckily the Land Design Associates crew nailed everything to the ground. Including our cat — where is she? The boys got a lot done before the rain that arrived. Let’s see…

The 5′ long x 18″ wide x 7″ tall granite pieces arrived for the back step…

Cement blocks were trimmed to create a foundation for the granite steps…

Then they got set in place and filled with crushed stone…

The pond got dug out a little bit more….

If you look closer, you can see where the rainwater collection tank’s overflow pipe got cut…

Oopsie. S’okay. We knew that might happen, seeing as its placement runs right below the pond area…

Luckily it’s an easy fix. Not a problem.

Meanwhile, more patio base material arrived…

And the crew turned on the heavy machinery again to start excavating the lower patio…

They got it level and tamped it all down right before the skies let loose…

And then Mother Nature told everyone to go home. Except us. We were already there.

Found the cat.

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Day 1

And so the transformation begins! Monday afternoon, Jim and Connor came and marked out the site with their laser level…

And then it was Tuesday! The day I had to do some letting go. Had to look away as the Land Design Associates crew dug up my Beni Kaze forest grass so it wouldn’t get crushed. Then they leveled a good portion of my carefully prepared bed. Funny how prep takes you days and days of manual rock removal and shoveling in compost, and yet how immediately it all comes undone…

*sigh*  The steel steps had to come out, too. Once that was done, they were able to get the machines up the hill and into the yard…

Gravel was moved out…

So the digging could begin…

Is it a pond?

Or a lap lane?

As you can see, the patio area got leveled,  geotextile reinforcement put down and crushed run and sand tamped down over top in preparation for the stone pavers. All in one day!

These guys aren’t messing around.

As promised in yesterday’s post, today I reveal our patio layout choice. WHOOP-DEE-DOO! Can I get a whuh-whuh… and a drumroll?

THE ISLAND OF PATIO, slightly revised

There’s a lot to love about this design. Lots of pond — more than I envisioned, actually. And the city says we can go 2′ deep without having to fence the yard, so that was a pleasant surprise. We were originally told 12″. Whew! In the upper righthand corner of the patio, you can see a long inset. That’s going to be a planting area cut into the stone where I can tuck something vertical but not too tall. Maybe equisetum hymale (horsetail), like this…

equisetum hymale | silive.com: “Tiny patios are big on setting the mood”

Or maybe a short running bamboo, like this eye-catching Pleioblastus Auricomus?

pleioblastus auricomus | alpinegardensociety.net: “A Northumberland Alpine Gardener's Diary”

Both equisetum and bamboo require a containment barrier — 2′ deep, minimum. No matter what ends up here, I think it’s smart to protect our patio investment. Having to pull plants out from in between the pavers would be a nightmare!

The Land Design Associates crew just arrived and digging begins today. You ready? I’m ready!