Aug 23 2025:

Yes..Let’s call it that !

Now that I’ve got my strength back…( Long story ) It’s time to get a few things done before winter.  It’s only two projects.  This ended up being the first. The second one is get my shed in order with a new door and some power.  This first one came from the desire to get rid of the wood sidewalk…

Yes that one you see looking so nice in the real estate photo.  NO!  It’s not nice the paint was coming off and some of the boards were loose. So for the sake of low maintenance WE prefer a concrete sidewalk.  And that grew into a plan to increase the size of our parking area.  So I removed the wood walkway. Stacked the pieces up for future considerations.  The park management had already removed the pear tree that would have been in the way.

I hired a small tractor to remove the sod and the excess dirt..  And away I went, starting with a border of landscape ties.  As you can see I aimed for the bottom of the porch stairs. That gave us twelve feet of parking up beside the home.

And wider by the road.  There was a depression in the yard there too..  And I have the dirt to fill that.  I got tired of walking on the dirt left from the wood walkway… So I started on laying the sidewalk pads. Here’s the before photo..

And this is after starting the walkway.

A bit narrower than the wood walkway but it’s all we need.  Also easier to trim the grass.  Twelve more slabs to go..

Most of the eleven yards of what’s called road mix. This stuff will pack down like cement.  You can see I’m also filling the low part with screened dirt. I’m surprising myself with how quickly I’m moving the pile.

I’ve got the space between the home and the paved parking pad all done. So I’m starting to fill the corner of the home and the first porch. Lot’s of shovel and wheel barrow work later..  And I’ve used what I needed from the pile.

I bought a whole truck load.. ( was cheaper)  And look at the big pile left over..  No worries the park has a Skid steer and we will move in to the storage compound.  Look at this nice parking area close to the house.

AND.. I got the new sidewalk in place too !

Much better to walk on this.. Planted grass along the edge too..  Only thing left to do is rent a tamper and get the road mix like concrete..   Done.. Only took a few hours with the tamper and we are done..  Here’s the final two photos of this project.

Could pull in further ..  But this was an early morning photo op..  Quite the change for this part of the yard.

Now we have lot’s of parking.  Now I can move my truck out from under the tree where the birds eat the berries and crap on it.   Now I will turn my attention to the next project and start a post for that..

Making my shed useful..