Off Grid

We were in Kingston the other day and got caught in the construction on John Counter.  I noticed while there that the clean up was not that thorough and because of this a lot of flat pieces were left over tilting and sloppy along the new rock face.  Because I am looking for flat smooth stone, I decided that I would grab a few of those bits.

Later in the day when the traffic slowed we pulled in with the car.  My (already) ripped dollar store oilcloth was pre-prepared and lining the trunk so when I collected ten good sized pieces of Kingston Limestone and simply laid them in the pre-lined trunk.  Our poor car is used so often as a truck that we started calling it that.

When I got them home I realized that this stone is very different in colour from the shades up on the Tiny House Ontario Escarpment.  Kingston limestone is very light in colour but it is nice to have some variation so I am not unhappy about this.  Great news, is that now have enough that the West side path is laid out close to the way that I want it to be.

I have looked at several You Tube videos on how to install this so that it is more permanent, I am leaning toward Portland cement both because Rudigrrr Wolf eats small rocks (gravel) but also, I think that something a bit more permanent is the way to go.  Fortunately, my cousin Kenny made the hole for THO large enough that we have about 3-5 feet around the house that is already prepared for whatever we want to do.  Two years ago, the hole was dug down to the bedrock below, filled with 3/8 gravel and tamped down, so it is firm, packed and ready to go.

Hj, who is from Germany, finds the whole rock laying process a bit silly.  He thinks it is a weird 1970’s flashback thing because this is the only time that flagstone was popular in his homeland.  Flagstone for me is something entirely different.  I think it has a very strong connection to Canadian historical building and find it to be really romantic in appearance; flagstone paths are like a story book, or a Christmas card for me.  So, you see, we have very different ideas on the subject.  We could argue about it, because it is a lot of work to do this, but THO is my creative project and thus we are going forward on my path.  Now, you have learned some more good things about my husband that you might not know.  He is both easy-going and great at carrying rocks.

Because I wish to make it permanent, but do not have the masonry skills to do this (with speed), I will need to do this one stone at a time.  This also means that I will have to prepare the Portland cement on site a little batch at a time.  We have a rain barrel totally full of water now so this should be enough to to the job.  If not, we are blessed with excellent neighbours who have been allowing us to use their water, I am hoping that this will apply not just to drinking water, but also that they will allow us to use their water for mixing cement.

The photo below is of the North Side of THO.  In a large section of the gravel I intend on putting a circular flagstone patio.  There will be some low walls that will serve as a bench.  There will be a cob oven as well.  There will be four entrances on this patio, one from the driveway, one into the dog garden and the stone stairs that are already installed is the other.  The last is obviously the door into THO.  That is the plan.

I am thinking about something sort of similar to this but far more open for the cob oven and bench wall.  I don’t want a back on the bench at all, just a short wall with seating in both directions.  I would like to be able to have gatherings at THO with more people, so the patio should serve as seating for 20.  I intend for this stone patio to be about 200 square feet in size plus the surrounding bench.