Our soil here is clay. When clay gets wet, it doesn’t just get muddy, it turns into a slimly slippery sole sucking mess. (Sorry, that was #punintentional.) Walking through the yard after rain usually results in 3 extra pounds of clay sticking to each foot.

When we have chickens, we will be heading out to the coop rain or shine, so I decided we needed a fairly mud-free path to the coop. I dug in bricks as a border, then filled the path with decomposed granite. The fines in the decomposed granite will settle down and make a firm base for the path. To help the compacting and settling of the path, I used this 10″x10″ tamper. This is also a good workout. Starting to think the title of this blog should be “Of Chickens, Craft, and Calories”.

I’ve made the half of the path that leads to the gate. When we know exactly where our coop doors will be, I’ll lay the other half of the path.

Today my favorite tool is the Fiskars 24″ bow saw.

I have been clearing paths in the back woods so we can have nature walks. Last summer I finished the large loop and started on an inner loop, but had two downed trees across the path I wanted to clear. My long handled pruners and my small pull saw were no match for those trunks. So I purchased a bow saw (about $10) and was able to saw through an 8″ log (which is as large as this saw can handle) in about 6 minutes. Not speedy, no, but the location of the log made me hesitant to pull out the chain saw, and it was great exercise!

So now part of the inner loop is no longer a dead end! Hurray!

I am also becoming obsessed with land art so am encouraging the trees to grow in a couple arches over the path. We’ll see how they do.

Here is the first land art installation in the yard. I keep adding sticks as I pass by because art is a living thing. 😉

Today my favorite tool is the Fiskars PowerGear Loppers.

We get many downed branches on the property, and these loppers go through branches better than any other lopper I have owned. These were a gift from my folks (after my Dad tried to use my old loppers!) The power gear really allows me to cut through 2 inch limbs. I can make fairly precision cuts, too, for my land art. 😉 Here is a picture of the first land art installation, along with one of my other favorite tools: the Rubbermaid wheelbarrow.