Path in Progress

We are making progress. Today I saw a big flock of robins. The snow is melting, and the garden is there pretty much the way we left it in the fall. Plants still need to be cut back, all of the weedy bad guys are lurking waiting for a new season's tug of war. Soon that battle will begin. Right now it's too cold and wet.

But today I stopped to notice the newest stone path. Winter halted construction, but there it is, just waiting to begin again. The process of sifting the stones from the beds and placing them in a path or a wall, or the muddy driveway is something my husband loves to do. It's really a delight to watch him work with stone. He has a magical way of using a potato rake to sort the stones by size. It looks so easy. You would think anyone can do it, but I've tried, and he does something imperceptible, and special.

Every stone has its place. The big flat one are put aside for a wall, oddly shaped and round ones are used somewhere for fill, the smaller stones go into the paths. Flat ones are laid up along the edge to keep the dirt in its place. The rest are dumped in the center and raked to the make the surface smooth. I delight in these stone paths. You can go out and pick strawberries in the rain, and never get your feet muddy. Mmm... strawberries!