Path is In!

 

Hello!  How was your holiday?

Ours was good but fairly quiet.

Last week I told you the path was being replaced.  It is finished--but not without a little drama.  The men working were great and I was glad they had machines to help dig up the concrete.  They were both my husband's age and grew up Pennsylvania Dutch like him.  

So the men dug up the concrete path with a bobcat.  They filled a dump truck and emptied that at the recycling center.  When they returned, they dug to make the path for the concrete.  And then... they found something unexpected.  There was another concrete path under the old one.  "I'm so tired of these shoemakers," the one man exclaimed.  "Just look at this!"

Brad explained this comment to me.  Apparently it's like some construction-ese language.  A shoemaker is doing an inept construction job and should be making shoes (apparently).

The men had to dig up that sidewalk as well and I felt terrible.  "We will pay you extra for this job," I told them.  "None of us could have known that was there."  The house is over a 100 years old and still has a lot of mysteries.

But then the men found a THIRD concrete path under the second one.  More words I didn't understand were thrown around.  "Hoofty" was one of those words and apparently means an imbecile or jackass in Pennsylvania Dutch (again, another translation from Brad).

Happily, the men finally got the job done on Friday.

I'm now filling in soil on the side of the path.  

I do have to tell you though, the day after the concrete was poured, we found foot prints in our new path!  We think these might be from a squirrel.

Wishing you a safe and happy day!