As you can see, Hal got the patio smoothed out and the gravel added. We already had a big pile of gravel over by the barn which was nice. Then he dumped a few dozen bucket loads of topsoil around it which I smoothed out as best I could with an iron rake. Then I added grass seed which started sprouting a couple days ago, eventually I'll take a photo of that when it fills in. It's not the best landscaping job in the world but hopefully it will get us through winter and mud season next spring without it washing away.
