Doug's Sounding Board

We’ve been fighting with our decomposed granite paths almost since they were installed. They were installed with a glue sealant on them to help keep them in place so the dogs wouldn’t track the small particles in. The granite particles make a great abrasive on the wood floors, making them look old after a couple of months. Unfortunately the glue on top of the path doesn’t last long, maybe a couple of weeks before you need to re-apply it which makes it time-consuming and expensive.

We’ve talked about other solutions, one of them being grass for the paths. Julie & Fish just had sod installed and had a lot left over and they offered it to us so Friday we went to work to install it. Breaking up and clearing out the decomposed granite was the slow part, taking probably about 8 hours to remove about 2 cubic yards. After that all the steps were fairly simple (thanks to Julie for providing a list). We didn’t have a sod knife but Dean suggested a serrated knife would do the trick and indeed the bread knife was great and cutting up the sod.

So now we have a patch of grass (assuming it takes) in front of the back door so the dogs will have to run across it (hopefully cleaning their paws from granite) until more can be done.

Thanks to Julie & Fish for the materials and the instructions! Thanks to Dean for assistance in putting down the sod! Thanks to Ward for the digging rod which is a great workout and a great digger!

Saturday we needed a rest so we went with Dean & Marcia to the Gilroy Garlic Festival where I had chocolate garlic ice cream, a garlic sausage sandwich, garlic corn on the cob, garlic fries, deep fried garlic, and garlic chocolate peanut butter cups.

Sunday was more relaxed and got some motivation at the end to finish fixing the front fountain. The water tube that connected the bottom to the top was pushed out by the papyrus plant growing out of control. When I hacked it back some to check out the situation I accidently cut the power cord to the pump. Nicole and Abby hacked away the papyrus some more so I was able to reinstall the tube and install the new pump.

Now we just need to get back to the fence.