By Tony Heath, Project Engineer
This post covers Thursday, September 5th
It finally happened! The day we’ve all been waiting for… we finally straightened that crooked bench! Josh and Justin had to leave early this afternoon for another project, so I asked Mark, who is filling in for Stephanie as our operating engineer, to use the mini back hoe to straighten it out. What a relief!
Before. Photo by Eliana Brown. 
After. Photo by Eliana Brown.
In other news, the Facilities & Services crew spent most of the day laying the stone base and decomposed granite along the sidewalk between the north and south cell of the garden. Tomorrow, they plan to finish spreading the stone base and then begin installing the steel edging, backfilling to stabilize the edging, and placing the decomposed granite.
Josh tamping down the decomposed granite. GIF by Tony Heath.
I also took a couple photos this morning of the concrete impressions from yesterday. The sycamore leaves came out great! The red oak leaves are a little hard to see, but that’s partially due to the mottling of the sidewalk. I think using as big of a leaf as possible will help it stand out more when we do the opposite side.
Sycamore leaf impressions. Photo by Tony Heath. 
Red oak leaf impressions. Photo by Tony Heath.
The last big piece of the puzzle will be coordinating with Facilities & Services Grounds to perform some fine grading in the north cell and help us spread the mulch. We’ll need to rent a sod cutter in order to remove the grass areas just outside the red oak’s tree protection fencing. I expect that with a full crew, it could be accomplished in a single day with some minor finishing work spilling over to the next day.
Looking forward to tomorrow!
redoakraingarden.org 