Oh Brother!  Here he is!  My new little brother!  I've heard them talking about it, but imagine my surprise when they came home with a puppy!  He's a 7 week old English springer spaniel.  He only weighs 10 lbs now.  I can run and roll him just like the chickens!!

His name is Oscar.  He's a foodie too!  He goes nuts at meal time--makes me look good.

After all that work building up the patio, covering it with gravel, and compacting it, we had to dig out 13 holes for concrete piers that will hold the posts for the porch roof supports.  They were dug down to the subsoil fill, i.e, rocks, compacted, then filled back in with gravel to be about 12" deep.  Dad used a "jumping jack" to compact the bottom.