Patio

Once the Homestead's new roof and new sewer line were finished, I had a messy spot outside the back-door that I thought might be a good location for a patio. So, I went to Home Depot and looked at their pavers. Let's see, there are a couple of layers that go underneath—leveling gravel and weed-barrier—then there are the pavers, and then there is a special sand to sweep into all the cracks. All for the low, low price of several hundred dollars. (Which is probably worth it because, if you follow the instructions, your patio comes out flat.) After blowing through our entire housing repair budget this summer on the other projects, though, it was too much.

So, I looked around the yard and found a couple of broken pieces of concrete from earlier this summer. There were only four or five chunks, which was hardly a start, but it gave me an idea. I went about a mile up the canyon to an old gravel pit where the locals dump their junk. (They also set up dioramas with real furniture and burned out TVs which they blast into smithereens with shotguns. Good action.) Sure enough, there were numerous broken-up sidewalks that had been dumped in piles near the road. I made three or four trips with the truck and picked through all the broken concrete. I also dug some sand from the wash and put it in some old five-gallon buckets. Voila. A free patio. (But don't look too closely: It ain't exactly flat.)