Landscaping

Dan here ~

Carol and I (ok really me) spend a lot of time in front of the fireplace in the evenings. I sit there, fire crackling and often read or listen to a book because with today’s technology I can sometimes switch back and forth. 

Reading by the fire

After having all the work performed on the house, (read about that here) the only area left was our tiny outside space. 

The retaining wall between the house and the pond was beginning to lean towards the water. 

A normal spring 

Afraid that a high-water spring could cause a catastrophic collapse of the wall we contracted with a landscaper to replace the wall, correct some drainage issues and replace the falling down fireplace. I was able to locate a duplicate of the old fireplace and had all 3700 pounds of it shipped to Maine. When it arrived it was delivered to the landscapers and stored there all summer waiting for the work to be done. Low water and fall arrived and it was finally time to get this last phase completed. The fireplace was removed, lots of stone was brought in to replace the sand that would be behind the new wall. 

Old wall gone, digging for new

Drainage stone being added

New wall going up

The wall went up, block by block ~ my back and shoulders were glad that I was not doing the labor. The original pavers were put back down along with new ones.  The new ones didn't match the old so our landscaper had to get creative ~ looks a bit quilt-y doesn't it?

Pavers complete, fireplace being assembled

Finally the fireplace was set up and a clump of birches planted to replace the one that we had to remove to replace the retaining wall. 

Ta-Da!

 

Looking towards the pond

 Project complete and the fires in the evenings were resumed.

Hopefully, that is the end of the projects, unfortunately projects are like quilts ~ there's always another one!