our new addition to the landscape and it's first visitor

ever since we moved into our house 6 years ago, i have wanted a patio in the back yard. some place where we could put a table and chairs and have dinner outside or a place where we could sit outside and have our morning coffee and read the paper. the costs of building one can be high, having someone else do it are even higher so we put the idea on the back burner until we could afford it or figure out how to do it ourselves in an affordable manner.

last summer, my friend patti mentioned a place where she was getting stone for free to build a patio and i knew we had found our solution. luckily for us, she was willing to share the source and we made at least half a dozen trips to pick up large slabs of stone to build our patio. we had originally tried to make the stones with a mold and cement but the stones were cracking into pieces because the mold was too shallow. if you ever try to use those molds for stepping stones, be forewarned-they are not meant to be stepped on, just for decorative purposes only. we learned this the hard way since none of the packaging tells you not to actually step on them.

the stones we gathered are actually manufactured from cement by a stone company that then cuts them into various shapes for builders to use in many different applications. they also have broken pieces in addition to the scraps from cutting the stones and all of these are available to the public for free-you just have to haul them off yourself. we selected a large variety of broken and cut pieces to make a mosaic. we also gathered a bunch of cinder blocks that were being removed from a building during a renovation and used these for a sort of retaining wall along the most uphill section of the patio.

a closeup of the stones before we filled in the gaps with dirt

starting along one corner, we filled in the gaps with dirt, packing it in as tightly as we could

another view of our progress

the patio all filled in and awaiting its next layer of "mortar"-moss, our yard has lots of it and we decided to patch it in to the dirt to help hold the stones in place. when we started gathering the stones, we decided to do this as cheaply as possible. since we hadn't paid for any of the stones, except the gas to drive there, i decided to use the moss in the yard rather than paying for it at the garden center. it will take time to fill in but that is okay with me.

while we were working on filling the gaps, i noticed the dog had something. she was circling something on the lawn so i set off to investigate since she will make an effort to kill what ever little critters she can catch.

when i got up close, i was shocked to see a snapping turtle. we don't even have a creek along our property-this fellow had to travel across multiple yards and at least one street to end up in our yard. this was not a small turtle either, it was at least a foot in length and could have easily snapped off a finger tip!

we immediately knew that we had to take the little guy over to the 7 mile creek and let him/her go. when we took him out of the bucket that we carried him in and placed him on the rock by the stream, he made a dash to the water.

immediately, he was in the water and swimming away. there are lots of little fish in that creek so we know he shouldn't have any trouble finding a meal!

a view down stream from where we let the little guy go. it is pretty down there and he should be happy there. let's hope he stays in the water and doesn't go wandering around the neighborhood again!