The area around our coops has always been a muddy mess. Way down on our list of to-do’s was to fix it. Then, within an hour or so, it moved to the top of that list.

We had cement poured for our back yard patio and there ended up being quite a bit leftover. We weren’t prepared for another section of cement being poured, but it was going to get poured somewhere. So, Farmer John threw together a quickie form of mix/match wood pieces in front of our Chicken Hut turned goat home and a cement pad was poured.

PATIO SECTION 1

The beginning of this project was a last minute cement pad. We had the cement dyed brown for our patio, which is why this pad is brown.

I was thrilled! During the rainy months the entire area is a mud pit. In the cold weather, ice sits on top of the mud. I slip every time. I haven’t fallen yet, but I kept waiting for it to happen.

PATIO SECTION 2

The second section I worked on was to the right of the newly poured cement pad. This area is in front of another chicken hut.

It was a bit tricky making sure there weren’t tripping hazards. This chicken hut sits lower than the other one. Any cement pieces obviously had to be lower than the door. So this section has a bit of a slope on one side.

It is a mosaic of pieces. Somebody nearby had cut up an old cement pad of their own and were getting rid of the chunks. We grabbed the ones we could. They are thick and crazy heavy. I loved them, though, once I got them installed. They are really sturdy.

I had a few leftover pieces from when I completed our cement path, so I added those here.

The final pieces were bricks we had laying around.

I didn’t get too perfect with installation. Since the pieces varied in thickness, the most difficult part was getting the pieces to be level on top. Once all the pieces were layed, I filled in the gaps with play sand.

PATIO SECTION 3

This section in front of our chicken tractors took the longest to install. I dug out the grassy bits and poured sand over the entire area.

I used a variety of new bricks, old bricks and hand poured cement stones.

Once I got all the pieces organized and layed in place, I filled in the gaps with sand. These bricks and stones aren’t quite as sturdy as I would like, but it’s not a heavily traveled area so it should be fine.

Wouldn’t ya know, just a week after I had it complete a damn mole came through and pushed up a number of the bricks. Blah.

AND, DONE!

Once I had all the sections complete we had a load of gravel delivered and made the entire area level-ish.

It’s a wonky patio and perfectly us. Ok, let’s be honest, it’s perfectly me. Farmer John just puts up with my wonkiness.

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The summer of 2009 was spent installing a cement path in our bird village. I could complete 2 forms worth each day while Farm Girl napped. By summer’s end I had a 4′ wide path meandering between the bird village and our little meadow. At the time the path didn’t have a good place to end. So, it just stopped on the backside of the meadow. My idea was that one day we would have a deck or patio at the back of our house and I would continue the path to wherever worked best to go with the deck/patio.

It took 7 years, but we now have that patio. Next up was completing the path – which we just did a couple weekends ago. Woo hoo!

My Method

Let me preface this post by saying nothing about my method is perfect. The path itself is not absolutely level. It’s level enough. The path is not perfectly straight. It’s straight enough. It’s slightly wonky and rustic, which fits right in with the rest of our yard.

Materials

This section of path is 4′ wide by 20′ long. Here are the list of items we used:
• 20 – 80 lb bags of concrete
• 2 – 50 lb bags of play sand
• 1 – Shovel
• 1 – Broom
• 1 – Walkmaker Form (we used the Country Stone Pattern)
• 1 – Trowel
• 1 – Finishing Trowel (or board at least 2′ long)
• 1 – Mini Cement Mixer (or Wheelbarrow)
• 1 – Gloves (cement is horrible on your hands)

Prepping the Area

Using a flat bladed shovel I “leveled” the path-to-be area. Because the cement will creep into low spots I didn’t worry about making the entire area perfectly level. I made sure the path would be at an equal height where it met the patio and also where it connected to the original path. Other than that I just eye-balled and dug out a gradual slope between the two places.

Making the Path

I mixed all the cement for the original path by hand. It got the job done and I love the path. But, I wasn’t stupid enough to do it again that way.

This time Farmer John rented a mini cement mixer. Together, we completed this section of path in an afternoon – as opposed to it taking me all summer.

I don’t know the ratio of cement mix to water we used. Farmer John just added water as needed. When I mixed the cement by hand I added more water then he did in the mixer, but it’s really just personal preference.

I would line the form up so the top was level with its neighboring cobblestones. Sometimes this meant digging out or adding a little dirt to get the form level. It’s not a difficult task, but it can be time consuming.

After Farmer John poured the mixed cement onto the form we used a trowel to push it into the different spaces, making sure to push the cement into all the corners. We have a finishing trowel to level the cement… but an old board was closer so we used that instead.

When moving along the path, we rotated the form a quarter turn to vary the directions of the cobblestones.

We repeated these steps for hours. Align the form, mix cement, pour cement, squish cement around to fill in all the cavities, level cement. Repeat section after section. I knew the process was slow. However, the turtle speed drove Farmer John bonkers.

Combining the Two Paths

It did get a bit tricky where the old and new path came together. I knew there would be a space at the beginning or end of the path where the Walkmaker form wouldn’t fit perfectly. I chose to start this new section at the patio end of the path so any space where it didn’t line up could be better hidden among the already unperfect cobblestones as opposed to the straight edged patio.

Sure enough when we got to the old section of path there wasn’t room for the form to fit, yet there was a big gap that was going to need filled. My solution for the majority of the gap was to use the form just as I had with the rest of the path – except I had to move the form away from the path so it could lay flat. After the cement dried a bit, I picked the pieces up and moved them to the path. It worked fine. It was just a little more difficult digging out the ground to make sure the top of the cobblestones lined up so there weren’t major tripping hazards.

Even after moving the individual pieces there were still small gaps to fill. I made cardboard forms to fit in those areas and filled them with cement. It’s not perfect, but I am probably the only person who knows about the inconsistency.

Finishing the Path

After the cement dries (I waited 2 days), the final step is filling in between the cobblestones with sand. I dumped 2 bags of sand on the path, then used a broom to push the sand in all the crevices.

And, Done!

The photo on the right shows the problem with completing this project 7 years later. There is a definite difference between the cement recently poured and the original path. Oh well. I’m so happy to have the path complete, it hardly bothers me.

The Original Path

I started out making the path one form (2′) wide, but soon realized it should be wider. So, the path is two forms (4′) wide.

I purposely added curves to the path. I used a similar method to what I mentioned above when I combined the old and new paths. However, now that I’m done I notice on the Quikrete site they show an alternative (probably better) way to create a curve.

In the original path I tried stamping words into some of the cobblestones. It only worked so-so. So, I didn’t bother adding words to the new section.

I repeated the Walkmaker form over 50 times to create the first section of path. It was worth it.

This original path was one of the first hardscaping projects I started when we moved here. It feels fabulous for it to be complete!

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• The cement path that was begun 7 years ago is now complete. So, so excited about that!

• While we were mixing cement for the path we also poured cement to secure 2×4’s for our soon-to-be-installed patio lights.

• The spring flowers have been extremely lovely this year. I’m loving it. And, so are the bugs. The amount of insects out and about is crazy. I don’t remember this many out so early.

• The violet-green swallows are here. I enjoy watching them fly around searching for a lunch of insects.

• The dirty, crummy task I did this week was clean out duck sludge from the pond in the front yard. It was disgusting, but absolutely needed done.

• Mo, our one eyed Easter Egger rooster, has been living with the goats. He got inside their fence and can’t figure how to (or doesn’t want to) get out. It’s actually a good spot for him. He can mind his own business without the other young roosters bothering him.

• I can only guess that the barley seed I got is bad. I’ve tried starting it a number of times and it just won’t grow. Such a bummer. I was hoping this would save us money – instead I just wasted money on bad seed. Blah. I’ll try barley again. But, not yet – I’m irritated.

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Over the next month or two I’m really hoping to get a lot done outside. This weekend is supposed to be nice. Hopefully, I can get a good start on a number of projects.

• We have rabbits around, but we rarely see them and I have never been able to get a photo of one. The other morning I finally got a photo. It’s a horrible photo, but it is my first one of a wild rabbit in our backyard.

• A couple swallows have returned. I love seeing them dart around.

• There are a ton of insects flying around, so there should be plenty of food for the swallows.

• Daffodils are blooming, the heather is in bloom, the flowering cherry tree is just starting to show off its beautiful pink flowers. This is why we all enjoy spring. The colors are marvelous.

• Seedlings are still spread about our house, garage, and greenhouse.

• The fodder, though, is still not my friend.

• I cleaned out the flower bed disguised as a meadow and sprinkled in a few seeds. I should get a wildflower mix and sprinkle those in, too.

• I have 2 cement paths I’m hoping to work on over the next few days since it’s supposed to be nice outside. One is finishing up the path through the bird village and connecting it to our newly poured patio. Woop, woop! I’ve been waiting nearly 7 years to finish that path. The other is using cement bricks and chunks to create a landing area in front of our chicken huts and chicken tractors.

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This week’s update isn’t an update on the week, but an update on our to do list. I like lists. Well, it’s not so much the list itself I like, but the crossing things off the list. So gratifying.

Since the photo template I use for our weekly updates has nine spaces, I’ll list only nine things that need done. There are, of course, about a hundred more items that could be added. But, we’ll start with nine.

1. BUILD BRIDGE
   When we added a pond to our bird village the overflow goes right through the walking path. The intention was to build a bridge over this area. We need to do that.
2. CLEAN UP PATIO EDGE
   This fall we poured a stamped concrete patio. I love it. However, surrounding the patio doesn’t look too good. We gotta fix that.
3. FIND USE FOR WINE BARRELS *In process
   We have 3 wine barrels that I love. But, I’ve never found a good home for them. It’s time to figure that out.
4. CLEAN SIGNS
   I have made a number of signs. Most of them have been around a couple years and could use a good cleaning – like the one in our bird village that has many bird droppings on it.
5. TACKLE THE BACK YARD
   Making anything of our backyard was on the back burner for a few years because the first major step was putting in a patio – and, that kept not getting done. So, I didn’t spend much time on it. We now have a patio. Woop! Woop! It’s time to get the back yard lookin’ good – without spending a fortune.
6. FINISH CEMENT PATH  DONE! To see it check out this post.
   One of the first things I did when we moved here was put in a cement path using a walk maker form. Farm Girl was just a baby and all summer during her nap I would mix cement and pour two mold’s each day. Eventually I got the path done – well, as done as it could be at the time. Now that the patio is in, I can finish the path.
7. CLEAN UP MEADOW  DONE!
   Last year’s perennials need trimmed in our little meadow. Also, the meadow has never looked the way I was hoping it would. I need to look into ways to remedy this.
8. BUILD PATH IN FRONT OF COOPS  *In process
   We had extra concrete when we had our patio poured. So, we quickly through together a form and poured the extra in front of one of the chicken huts. It doesn’t look fabulous, but I love that it’s not muddy in front of the coop. I’d like to add a mosaic of concrete in front of the other chicken hut and chicken tractors.
9. ADD FILTER & PUMP TO POND
   When we put in the pond in our front yard it was a last minute thing, quickly thrown together. We had a pump, filter and water wheel – but, no electricity. We now have electricity near the pond, so we need to get all those things moving.

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I remember years and years ago watching Martha Stewart make hypertufa on TV. I loved the idea & knew one day I’d have to try it myself.

And, I have. A number of times. My preferred masterpieces are mushrooms, but the possibilities are endless as to what you could create.

The process of making hypertufa yard art is a bit time consuming, but fairly simple and so worth it. I’ve had some of my pieces for 5 years now and they have held up to all the elements – kids, critters, freezing temps & snow.

CREATING HYPERTUFA YARD ART

This photo is from my very first hypertufa batch back in 2010. I used all sorts of different containers for the mushroom pieces. Usually I used some kind of bowl shape for the head of the mushroom and a cup for the stem. I was really nervous about the hypertufa sticking to the bowl molds, so I lined them with garbage bags we had lying around. Cooking spray would have also worked. However, looking back, I’d use the bags again because I like the texture it gave the mushrooms.

The nails sticking out of the hypertufa in the cups were meant to stick in the ground to hold the mushrooms in place. Really, they’re just a joke. Itty bitty nails do not help support the mushrooms. Rebar works much better.

After making all the pieces, I covered them with plastic and let them sit for a day or two.

A different batch looked like this. Same idea as the first, but I added chunks of rebar to the stems. This worked better than the nails, but longer pieces of rebar work even better.

I also rounded the bottoms of the mushroom heads.

ATTACHING THE MUSHROOM PIECES

After letting the pieces sit for a day or two to cure a little, I take them out of their molds.

I attach the head part to a stem piece by mixing more hypertufa and using it as glue. I tend to make this mix more cement style than hypertufa, meaning less peat moss and vermiculite.

CURING

After putting the mushroom pieces together, I mist them and cover them in plastic. And then comes the hard part. Waiting. Hypertufa needs to cure for about a month. Occasionally, I give the mushrooms a mist. But, that’s it. They are pretty much left alone in our garage until the month is up.

MUSHROOM VARIETIES

My mushrooms are all similar, however I do try to add a hint of variety.

I have tried adding liquid cement coloring to the mix for colored mushrooms. I don’t love it. I don’t hate. It worked perfectly fine. I’m just not a fan of the particular color.

Notice the longer rebar. This is the ideal length to keep the mushrooms in place.

Yet another variety. These were made the same way as my other mushrooms. But, on the day I made hypertufa to glue the pieces together I also added hypertufa mix around the head and stem for a slightly different look.

To give the mushrooms an aged appearance, I read you can make a moss/yogurt smoothie and apply it to your hypertufa to help promote moss growth. I was feeling lazy, so I didn’t bother blending it. I just mixed some moss in with the yogurt. I probably should have taken the time to do it correctly.

In my web research I found that adding beer can also promote moss growth. I had a beer in the fridge, so I dumped it on a mushroom. If I didn’t have Farmer John convinced that I was a kook before, I sure did when he walked by seeing me dump a beer on cement – on purpose.

July 2015 Update: Neither of these moss enhancing tricks worked for me. Boo!

Using outdoor paint, a few mushrooms received a makeover. I love their bright colors. However, Farmer John refers to them as my psychedelic mushrooms.

MORE WITH HYPERTUFA

The fun thing about hypertufa is making whatever you can come up with. Primarily I make mushrooms, but occasionally I make some sort of container.

Some birds and bugs like slices of fruits. So, I added a hypertufa plate on top of a flatter topped mushroom.

I have also made planters. This particular one was made from the bottom part of a plastic clam shell container. The succulents have been in there for years and continue to thrive.

I love the wonky cement faces I see in gardens. They have such character. So, I tried making my own. They’re not the best work I’ve ever done, but honestly I’m not sure how I would have done it differently. They were a bit of a challenge for me.

To make the faces I smooshed hypertufa mix around the black potting container, then added and subtracted hypertufa as needed for eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

I had planned to take out the plastic pots after the hypertufa cured. But, they don’t seem to want to come out. So, I guess they’ll stay.

A mushroom, wonky face container and pallet sign living together in our Bird Village.

Have you given hypertufa a try? What is your favorite item to create?

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Years ago, when I made my first hypertufa & cement projects, I built a bench. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a bench. I’ve always thought it was boring, but didn’t know how to fix it.

At some point I decided to try mosaic. I had never mosaiced anything & this bench was a good place to learn. It’s not as if I could really make the bench look worse than it already did, so I gave mosaic a try.

BENCH BEGINNING

WORK IN PROGRESS

I came up with a design for the mosaic & ordered tiles from Mosaic Art Supply.

Next, I drew the design on the cement using pencil & layed out the basic areas of each color.

Section by section, I applied mortar and placed the tiles. This was my first ever mosaic. So, I’m not sure I mortared the tiles in the best order. But, it seemed to work.

COMPLETED MOSAIC BENCH SEAT

Here is the finished bench seat complete with grout. I feel like I need to clean up around the edges a bit, but overall I’m happy with the way it turned out.

I can now say I have created a mosaic. And, I have leftover tiles, so I will get to mosaic again. Oh, the possibilities.

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A few years ago I made a cement leaf & since then have been wanting to do it again. I finally did it.

I love this craft for a couple reasons. First is just because it’s something different than my typical paper & sewing crafts. Also because it doesn’t have to be perfect. The imperfections make it fun & arty.

The one I made 3 years ago looks as good today as it did when I made it. I’m hoping to have the same luck with these ones.

• Equal parts Portland Cement & Sand
• Mix in enough water to make it a thick brownie batter consistency

Painting the Leaf:
• I used an outdoor acrylic paint for my leaves.
• First, I painted the leaf the color I wanted the veins to be. I used a paint brush, making sure to get paint in all the cracks & crevices.
• Next, I used a large sponge to paint the leaf a green color, trying not to get the green in the veins.
• Last, also using the sponge, I randomly added other colors to give the leaf a more natural feel.

Finished Products:

Now, where to put them?

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After making hypertufa mushrooms and cement leaves I had one bag of concrete left. I chose to turn that bag of concrete into a bench.

THE BENCH SEAT

We mixed the concrete with water and poured it into an under-the-bed sized storage bin.

Farmer John bent 4 pieces of rebar and placed them in the setting concrete.

Then, it sat for a couple weeks.

THE LEGS & PUTTING IT TOGETHER

We used store bought cement blocks for the legs. We filled them with concrete and set the bench seat on top, making sure the rebar went inside the concrete filled holes in the cement blocks.

Then it sat, undisturbed, for a couple weeks.

The finished bench is heavy & I hope we never need to move it.

This is not a work of art, it was meant to be functional. Years later, though, I did give it an upgrade and mosaiced the bench seat.

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