I Get by With a Little Help...

...from my parentals! :)

Chris went down to LA this past weekend. We'd planned to rent the plate compactor again today and pack down the second layer together, but I hatched a devious plan and emailed my parents to ask if anyone might be able to come over on Saturday or Sunday to help me pack the second layer (as it's definitely a 2 person job) as a surprise for Chris when he got home. And 3 cheers for my parents because 3 out of 4 had the time to lend themselves to the job.

CBH met me at HD around 11:30 to help me get the plate compactor loaded into the truck. Once we got home it was time to broom out the pack to try and get it level and even

Then it was time to get the plate compactor out

While CBH ran it around the backyard I sprayed the water and tried to get the big chunks of rock broken up


After we went over everything for about 45 minutes we noticed some really uneven areas (there was a pretty steep slope near the shed). We filled a few wheelbarrow loads full of pack and brought them into the back in the areas we felt needed to be built up a bit more to try and make things even.

Around this same time my dad and Wendy came over and it was definitely nice to have so many hands helping out the project. When it was time to get the plate compactor going again having 4 people there made the jobs a bit less hectic. CBH ran the plate compactor, I used the broom to spread things out and break up the heavy rock areas, Wendy misted everything and helped break up and spread out the rocks too, and my dad went to get buckets of just dust from the pile of pack in the front to fill in areas that were mostly rocks


We finished up the second round pretty close to the 4 hour rental mark, so my dad and CBH loaded the plate compactor into the truck and helped me drop it off at HD (that mo-fo is heavy).

I think we did a pretty good job with the second layer of pack. Things look more even (though a lot of work still needs to be done to get that last layer of pack really level), and I think we have a good mix of rocks and dust to create a really strong layer



And Chris' reaction to the surprise compacting we did? He walked in the front door and said, "Did you compact the second layer babe? How did you do that?" (knowing it is not a one person job by any means). To which I gleefully giggled and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, why don't we look outside." And we dashed to the side yard and Chris marveled at our excellent job :) and laughed when I told him my parents came over to help out. He was surprised by my deviousness :)