March 24, 2005—Enjoying the Patio

Well, here it is nearly Easter already and you must think we’ve totally forgotten about the website. Not quite, but with our recent meltdown of the major portion of the site, including the main index page, its total rebuilding has taken a back seat to other endeavors—mainly that dreaded four letter word—work. 

Just to tie up loose ends, I thought I would include some photos of the completion of our awesome patio and then some fun we had entertaining on it when the Jenkins were here for their stay in February.  

Marc decided to do a contrasting color for the center inset; after the patio’s completion we also decided to raise all our surrounding walls to a height of six feet for further privacy, so we got the same crew back out to do that.

Jenkins’s visit was just prior to our next steps, so I’ll digress to say we all had fun and really enjoyed their stay with us, despite the fact that we worked nearly every day of their visit. We had some neighbors over for Marc’s beer can chicken on our brand new barbecue and the evening ended surrounding our new firepit telling tall tales.

Next on the agenda is the building of the privacy wall. Marc purchased two pallets of cement block and got them stacked at the end of the patio just so we could play around with the height we want the wall. He borrowed our neighbor’s Bobcat to dig the trench for the footing for the wall which will run straight with a 45 degree turn at each end to create a six foot long side wall. The space between where he is digging for the wall footing and the end of the patio will accommodate our water feature and serve as a planting area for the landscaping I want to place there. Once the cement blocks are in place, we will hire a crew to apply a stucco coat to give it its finished look. Each end will have a column which we intend to face with rock so it should be quite unique when finished. Even with the cement blocks up it is possible to get an idea of the degree of privacy that this wall is going to afford us.

That’s about it for our slow progress at this point. The desert is warming up and work keeps us both happily busy. Real estate is going very well and we continue to enjoy Yuma. It’s the time of year when the snowbirds are starting to flock out of here and we notice it getting quieter with much less traffic daily. By May, we expect to be left totally to our own devices in our area of The Foothills. Our next update will hopefully detail the wall’s erection and completion.