Okay, three days of work, and 25 feet of flagstone path (nearly) done. In my usual intelligent way, I made sure to do all the digging during the two days we had a heatwave. Today, with the cooler weather, all I did was pick up flagstones and sand, and lay them all. I ran a bag short of sand, so I still need to finish the last three or four feet.
Laying the flag stones is fun: grab some likely stones and place them, then start going through with smaller stones and scraps to fill in between. Because we’re just setting the stones in sand, I’ve found that the stones need to be packed tight to stay in place. My favorite trick: take one of the regular (12” across or so) stones, put one end up on another rock, and hit it with the hammer or a chisel til it breaks. Repeat til I’ve got a bunch of 2-3” across scraps. Then take two of the larger stones, and wiggle them apart so they’re pressed against other stones. Now, I place a likely-looking scrap between the two, and whap it with a sledgehammer til it fits in place or breaks into a better shape. This approach works surprisingly well, and it’s actually more fun to do the fitting than it is to attractively place the larger stones. It’s also lots of fun to feel the path feel steadier as I go on.
Next step: move on to the next forty feet of path. I’ll need to let a couple blisters on my hands heal. I’ll also need to buy a new mattock, for I managed to bend the head of our current one by hitting all the little rocks in the soil. I suspect all the previous owners of our house dumped all the bad soil, decorative rock, and construction leftovers along the side of the house where the path is going.
