When my parents visited for spring break, they (willingly, I hope) took on a great number of tasks, including taking my children so I could breathe and washing my dishes. Ah, luxury.
Dad also made a brick path in our backyard leading to a bicycle-parking pad. Previously, there was a muddy “path” leading up to our sad little lawn moss patch. Now there’s a walkway, built with bricks salvaged from a chimney that was torn out during the remodel. The bricks could be 90 years old, and some bear the charred signs of their former life, containing the heat borne of a wood-chip furnace. The bricks are imperfect and chipped, and I’m really happy that we could reuse them. They’ll undoubtedly return to the earth more quickly than new bricks made especially for pathways. That’s somehow comforting.
The path is perfect for us, and I was quite happy to watch Dad consider it, pour the “decomposed granite” bed, and lay the bricks. No more mud and puddles. The empty spaces between the bricks are places where I haven’t kept up with filling in with gravel where it’s settled.
Newly confident after helping Dad a bit, I even tried my hand at the ankle-biting hole at the bottom of the stairs. This landing pad is disconcertingly asymmetrical, but I was lazy. No one was ever going to step to the left.
I’m still trying to determine what will happen between these sections of path. Will I just place a few pavers? Make some simpler, narrower paver and brick walks? Stay tuned.