From grass to stone

Posted on by Felipe Zapata
done
Work all done in one freaking week. Grass gone, maguey too.

MY PROJECT of removing grass and installing stone and concrete has finished its first phase, its first 25 percent. More to come next year.

The guys loaded up their pickup truck with leftovers and trash this morning, and headed off down the street 7,000 pesos richer than when they began last Monday. The cost of materials was 7,735 pesos, plus I tipped them 600 pesos due to rapid efficient work and their endless good humor.

At today’s exchange rate, that’s about 800 U.S. dollars for everything.

Here’s how the project looked along the way:

before
The beginning: ugly grass and ornery maguey, top left.
guys
Grass piled up, and maguey’s still rooted but sans angry fronds!
middle
Stones arrive. Grass piled up, uprooted maguey base sits on its side.

11 thoughts on “From grass to stone”

    1. Peggy: Indeed it does look great. As for trees, alas, that nopal is a tree now, and birds like it, especially trashers, oddly enough. Trashers hang out in there a lot, amid the millions of spikes, doing whatever thrashers do. Thrashing, I guess. Other birds don’t much mess with the nopal. Just thrashers.

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  4. I’m still rooting for gravel…haha.

    Saludos,

    Kim G
    Redding, Ca
    Where there are a few gravel-loving kindred spirits. But not many.

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    1. Kim: Gravel? Are you out of your ever-loving? No gravel here. No crunch, crunch, crunch, as I walk. How can you sneak up on anyone over gravel? Answer: You can’t.

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  5. Looks very familiar, sort of like our yard. We’re getting there to where all is hardscape except for the big trees where we spread mulch in large areas around them because water needs to get to their roots.

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    1. Carole: Hardscape. Never heard that one, but it makes sense, and I like it. Yes, I’ll be putting mulch around the bases of the few plants that remain on our new … hardscape.

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