Accomplishment!

 Granted, I accomplished this with the liberal use of my own money, but accomplished it none the less.

I got the front step fixed with the help of two nice brothers from Millbury, Juston and Jim, sons of Jim the stone mason. They came with their little digger, trucks and tools, and raised the step so that it meets code again.

Before - the stone is flush with the ground. This made for a long step out of the house, and was called out by the inspector years ago as not up to code. You can tell how much it had suck past the bottom of the flashing at the bottom of the door.

The brothers had to go get their other truck full of gravel, so I got a picture of their cute little digger.

The mice had been tunneling and living under the big flat rock. This area has since been back filled with about 10" of 3/4 gravel. No rodents will find that enjoyable now.

It's hard to see, but it's up now! The step is now about 6" down, instead of about 13" that is was.
I was glad that the guys were very happy to just reuse the same stone.

While they were here with their digger, I asked if they could relocate the rocks that had rolled out of my retaining wall near the shed. They said sure.

Before.

This was an old retaining wall - beyond is the old 3-sided foundation for a barn to the right. It was never dressed or pretty. The rocks just flopped out over time.

The problem was the space was so narrow with the shed right there, they couldn't get a good angle to lift them. Instead they just broke them up and re-stacked the pieces.

After! I can walk through now!

 

That's a pretty big thing I'm able to cross off my list. It wasn't inexpensive, but it was all done in one day and I will never have to do it again.

One thing I will have to do again and again every 3 years or so, is seal the driveway. The last time I had it sealed,  they didn't do a very good job cleaning it first, and the seal coat is completely gone in areas only 2 years later. I borrowed my dad's power washer and scrubbed the whole driveway. Naturally, the day they were supposed to come seal the driveway it rained, so that's been put off until next Saturday. We need the rain, but not next Saturday.

The little power washer that could. It did a nice job.
Then I took a torch and burned out all the grass I could find clinging to the cracks.

 

My garden is doing ok, but isn't a fan of this unrelenting heat. The zinnias like it.

I'm already rethinking the garden for next year.
Step #1 - metal rabbit fence all the way around (right now it's only metal on two sides). The little buggers chewed right through the plastic even thought the raised beds make it so the fence starts almost 10" off the ground. That's ok, because -
Step #2 - Get 2 16' livestock panels to trellis on. I can reuse the rabbit fence that is up as a trellis right now for the sides of the garden instead.
Step #3 - figure out row covers. I'm down to 2 sad cucumber plants and 4 sad zucchini plants because of bacterial wilt. It didn't matter how many sticky yellow traps I used, or how many yellow and black striped squash beetles I squished. It's really disappointing to see the plants start to die back and there's nothing you can do about it.
Step #4 - clear better access to the back side of the garden. This will probably mean removing some lilacs, but they are mostly suckers and haven't really bloomed in years. Maybe thinning them out would make them happier.

In other news, the bathroom is still un-started. I'm leaving for a vacation for a couple of weeks, So I can't imagine anything substantial is going to happen. Honestly, the only thing I'm comfortable with him doing while I'm gone is the basement stuff. The cat has a sitter that comes in 2x a day, but I don't want these strangers tromping in and out with her under foot, potentially getting out or hurt. So, still a whole lot of nothing.

More projects.

Since June 9th or so, I've been fighting with the Zombie Lawnmower. I thought  had to all worked out, but then it spit out the self-propel belt at me. I replaced that with some help, and thought I had it fixed, and now the blade won't engage. I think I'm going to haul it home and see if my dad has any ideas. I think maybe I have the wrong size belt, but I'm not sure.

Anyway - Maybe a little vacation will help realign my perspective. :)