Late Fee

We failed to return the power tamper to Home Depot by 8pm tonight. Also, I made Robert stop using it at 9pm out of fear the neighbors would hate us and call the cops. We plan to return the power tamper tomorrow morning after a few more hours of use. We will make the late fee worth it, I suppose. (It's a $50 late fee, thank you very much.)

Here is a picture of Robert using said tamper. For those of you who don't own a copy of Home Depot's "Patios and Walkways 1-2-3" here's what we did. We started by compacting 2 inches of gravel, then another 2 inches of crushed gravel on top of that.

The power tamper is loud and emits carbon dioxide. So, it should not be used in an enclosed car (according to the "warnings and precautions" section of the instructions.)

After the gravel is sufficiently compacted, we installed edging and started to lay our pavers. Here is a view from my upstairs bathroom.

Another trip to Home Depot, I thought to "rent" a concrete cutter. As it turned out, one was purchased. But look at the results. All those little spaces filled in with nicely cut-to-fit pavers. Divine!

The concrete cutting tool is also very loud and while it does not emit carbon dioxide, it does puff out an alarming amount of concrete dust. It is also a tool I've forbidden Robert to use after 9pm.

You might notice that the path seems to end without purpose. I noticed that too. I'm not sure what to do about it.

Anyway, the next step will be to sweep sand in all the cracks, then use the power tamper to make the sand settle and add even more sand.

And lest you think that in 14 hours we got just one pathway complete, there is a second, longer path on the other side of the yard that is so close to being done. I just didn't take pictures of it. Maybe next time.