50 Gallons of Bluestone Chips - Firepit Area - June 2023

A few towns over, we have a landscape supply place that is open-to-the-public and offers some of their bulk items like mulch and stone on a 'you fill' basis.  That means that you bring your own buckets and shovel and they sell it to you by the gallon.  NOT by the weight.  Well...I sort of guess that they've priced it 'by weight', but they sell it by the gallon.  They want you to bring in five-gallon buckets as that's the easiest way to go.  

We have a short sideyard path and our firepit ring filled with Bluestone Chips that we installed in Summer 2021 that have worked out well for us in both spots.  But, when I installed them, I used whatever Bluestone chips that we had on hand - I made one order.  So, I spread them a little thin because I wanted to fill in both spots (path + firepit) to make both viable.  

Part of my 2023 to-to list was to keep upgrading the firepit area and in that post, I mentioned adding some new Bluestone chips to the firepit ring would be 'a nice touch'.  Well...good news for that item:  Over the past few weeks, I've gone over to Tamelings and picked up 50 gallons of Bluestone chips (2 trips, 5 buckets each trip = 25 gallons per trip, 50 gallons total) and brought them home.  I can't carry 5 gallons of gravel very far, so after I unloaded my car, I broke them down into smaller buckets and hauled it back there.

In the photo above, you can see the new chips - they're lighter in color, but that's just dust that - once wet - will go away and the stones will darken up to match. 

So far, I've put 50 gallons back there.  It needs (at least) 25 more gallons.  Same with the sideyard path - it needs 50 gallons (25 behind the gate, 25 in front of the gate), too.  We'll get that done on a free afternoon this Summer.