Starting my first year of high school, I worked helping to beautify our cottage property. Although my parents paid me something, it became a work of passion for me.
The cottage property had a large scooped-out descent to the lake, somewhat treacherous to get to the shore. I planned out a series of patios and a small staircase, as well as a large rock retaining wall. We had a crew with a bulldozer lay some felled tree trunks to form the base of the retaining wall, and also had loads of earth, sand and concrete blocks delivered after I had done the basics, which included back-filling the gully with all sorts of landscape debris. I dragged tree stumps, branches and all sorts of stuff to be buried in the patio.
Once the basic structure was ready, it was a huge job to cover the ugly tree trunks forming the lake-side of the patio wall with a rock wall. Not wanting to bother with concrete (and liking the more natural look) I decided to simply slant the wall and let it support itself. Getting the rocks was a huge job — I took all that I could from the lake, but many more required hauling with a wheelbarrow from all over our property and the surrounding hills. Then it was a matter of placing each rock in a way that it fit securely to form the wall.
I added a rock fire pit for nightly bonfires next to a huge rock slab that couldn’t be moved, a rock and log staircase, and a small concrete block wall to create the two now-level tiers of the sand-filled patio. I also found and transplanted some small pine trees from the back lot to areas where we would appreciate them, and created a small rock-and-moss garden with transplanted wildflowers and moss.
