Laying the Flagstone Floor

Noel and her fiance', Danny, created a beautiful memory by writing 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 in charcoal, on the bottom of the large flagstone that will become the center stone in the wedding gazebo floor. It creates a meaningful and everlasting foundation. A perfect beginning. They will be married standing on this very stone, June 5th, 2010.

Noel and Danny with their scripture stone.


Dan sets the scripture stone.

Noel's Mama helps Danny set and level stones. (That's me.)



The final design.


Beautiful laughter.

Laying Gravel and Sand

We prepared the ground to receive one ton of TN Flagstone for the gazebo floor by digging a large circle about four to six inches deep. We filled this space with about three inches of crushed limestone / gravel. We then covered that with two inches of sand. The large flagstones will be set into the sand.

We smoothed out the gravel and stamped it down.

Then we brought in the two inches of sand. We spread it out and left it loose. No stamping.

Digging up the Ground for the Gazebo Floor

We had to loosen and remove soil six inches deep. The tree roots were a nightmare.


The big shovel thought the tree roots were toothpicks. No problem.

After removing the soil six inches deep, we had to level and stamp the ground. We did this by hand. Oh my.

Staking the ground for the Wedding Gazebo

Robbie, myself and Sophie position the stakes for our oldest daughter's wedding gazebo. Noel and her fiance, Danny, will be married here this summer.

Yep. that's me. I like getting my hands dirty... and my butt.


We had to level a string to help us level the ground.

Sophie became an expert at reading the string level. A perfect job for her.

If you look closely you can see a rough outline for the gazebo. It started out as an eight post gazebo design. We later changed it to a six post design.

There were too many tree roots to dig up the soil by hand, so we brought in the big shovel. Robbie loves to dig in the dirt with the big shovel.

Art Farm Portraits

Clearing the area to build the Wedding Gazebo...

A gathering of the big machines.

They move like a herd.

What I love about this process ~ manipulating the earth, building a design born in our hearts... I love my children building with us. All five of our children ages 6 to 24 (and Noel's fiance of course), have been working side by side with us, and we've all been hitting it really hard. Here are two of my babies making me proud...