Paradise paved, but something good to come of it

Those of you who've visited Pomegranate over the years saw the canal out back and may have enjoyed a picnic or two along its banks. Some years ago it was a little verdant paradise, with weeping willows and pines and wild things growing everywhere. Plus we had our duck families, fish, deer, etc. Mollie the shop dog had her favorite spot where she could daintily wade in across a few rocks and sit in the water to cool down (not much of a swimmer, that girl). All pretty amazing for a bitty piece of land within city limits.

But it's all gone now. In February the big machines moved in and spent several months piping the canal and filling in the edges. It's sort of a big dirt road to nowhere now, although they did do a little planting, and blew some grass seed on top.

The good news? We're turning a section of it into a pétanque (aka boules, similar to bocce) court, something we've always wanted to do. We bought clay-like gravel and rented this roller thing shown above to smash it all down. Robert, of course, was happy as a clam fart (borrowing one of my dad's favorite expressions) riding this little monster. What is it with guys and machines, anyway?

Still a bit of work to be done, and we need to get some benches in place, and then it will be a delightful place to come in the evenings and practice your pétanque skills. Actually, we have some gorgeous granite benches in the garden that we want to move to the pétanque court. They weigh a ton... could use a couple strong guys to help load them onto our dolly and roll over to the court. Any volunteers, mes amis?

p.s. tried to link this site (http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Sports/DF_boules.shtml) but it's not showing up. Check it out for good info on petanque/boules. We're learning as we go, too.