Saturday, October 4, 2014

Some sidewalk maintenance

As part of neighbourhood reconstruction, the city tore out the sidewalk and poured a new one. That disturbed the cobbles in our walk. The new sidewalk is also about a quarter-inch higher than the old, which messed up the grading of our walk (although a quarter inch is better than the eight-inch difference one block west!). 


So today I renewed my man card (and got Jess three credits towards her own card) by pulling up six feet of cobble, regrading and laying it down again. This went reasonably well and Jess seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. She was too young to help when we put the sidewalk in back in 2008; she was much more useful today.

It was also a good chance to once again teach the difference between left and right under some pressure. I'd be worried about her seeming inability to distinguish left and right, but it took her three years to figure out the difference between the front and the back door (at one point, when she was five, we were certain she was just screwing with us). I assume an hour of "No, your other left!" will pay off when it comes to teaching her to drive.


I left the city to restore the part between the sidewalk and the curb (assuming they get around to replacing the curb before the snow flies). In the end, you can hardly tell where the join is and it is nice to have a functional front walk. If only I could do something about the driveway the city pulled out. Three week ago... .


We also raked leaves into the front garden beds, I had a long bike ride and I poked around the yard some. The fall rye is coming in and seemed perkier with the slight increase in temperature.


I expect we'll yank the last of the veggies next weekend. I'm hopeful to get a bit of lyme and bonemeal into the beds tomorrow. Assuming I can bend over after this morning's work! I may also bottle some cider.

1 comment:

  1. Well done! That's one of those horrid jobs that holds very little attraction BUT feels SO GOOD to check off the list. Your rye is further along than mine... I should give mine a water.

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