 Finishing the Steps. Michael had his own chance to finish some concrete. Here he is smoothing off the extra concrete on the steps. Later he borrowed an edging tool from Joe to round the edges of each step. |
 The First Big Rock. Here is Michael digging out one of several very large (300+ pounds) rocks in the pathway where the french drain was going to be installed. |
 A Big Rock. None of these rocks were easy to get out of the ground. |
 A Field of Rocks. By the time Michael finished digging the trench, he had a field of rocks. |
 Pipe and Rocks. A fifty foot trench becomes quite a project when the path is full of rocks. |
 Next Door Downspout. This is our neighbor's downspout. Like our old one, it drains right onto the sidewalk, which is a real nuisance when it turns to ice in the winter. |
 Our New Drain. This was the purpose of all the work: to lay a pipe to take water from the downspout and away from the house. The fact that Michael had to tunnel under the sidewalk was just another aspect of a very labor intensive project. |
 A Pipe in the Ditch. A "french drain" (a 4" pipe with two sets of holes along their length to improve drainage) was laid from our downspout to the ditch at the corner of our property. Note the new mailbox post. The old mailbox post has been removed, and the drainage ditch that ended at the corner of the property has been extended to the lowest corner of the new driveway; otherwise, we would have had a small lake at the bottom of the drive. |
 Levelling the Pipe. Note the level on the wheelbarrow. The front yard is almost flat, so getting enough of a slope on every piece of pipe was a little tricky. |
 Pipe and Rocks. After levelling the pipe, many of the smaller rocks were used to line the pipe. |
 Covering with Gravel. Gravel was laid in over the pipe. The whole front yard was once covered with gravel (we joked about having a five car driveway), and a lot of this gravel was scraped off to save for future uses, such as this one. |
 Raking. A lot of the yard work was accomplished using a rake. The hat was a good thing too: temperatures climbed into the eighties every day while this project was underway. |
 Covered with Gravel. The pipe was completely covered with gravel. |
 The Top of the Driveway. Here's another picture of the gravel-filled trench. The planter boxes were designed by Sheryl, and built using lumber from our old deck. |