Between Mother's Day, my birthday, and dodging rainy days, it's been almost a week since I've made any progress on the firepit area.

There was one small spot that needed weeds removed before I moved on to the main event. They come up pretty easy, like rolling up sod, because of the plastic that was originally under the pool.

Tinker always has to investigate what I'm doing and sometimes offers her assistance, which in this case, was wallowing in the dirt I just loosened. I tried to get a video, but I couldn't switch modes fast enough to catch her at it. She's just tucking her shoulder under, prior to dropping for the wallow in this pic. Maybe next time...

Far corner is cleared in preparation for the next step.

STARTING RECONSTRUCTION! WOOHOO!

The fabric is very dense, but easy to work with. I went a little bonkers on the pins to hold the fabric in place - 120 count! I may not use them all, but I sure as heck don't want to run short. We're going to be walking on this, so it needs to be secure.

The buckets came in handy for holding things down as I got started. Putting in the pins is a bit of a challenge, because there was a rock border at the base of the pool. Those rocks are still there and in some places, the pins just won't work.

It went pretty fast once I got the first length in place. I had to fiddle with the pin placement to get the fabric taut on the second length, but that only took a few minutes. I spent more time than that chasing Tink out of my way.

I did a third half-length coming off the firepit base. I contemplated digging out the tiles the firepit sits on, but honestly, the less digging on this project the better. (There will be enough of that by the time I'm done.)

I'm just going to tuck the fabric up alongside the edges of the tiles and call it good. When the mulch goes down, it'll will look tidier.

To finish off today's reconstruction efforts, I also placed some of the buckets in their new spots. These three are going to have brussels sprouts. I stuck tomato cages in for extra support when they get tall.

The three on the far corner will be pole beans. I already had two 'double-decker' cages on hand, so that worked out well. Another cage and some duct tape will have the middle one just as tall as the other two.

There are two ready-to-go buckets left that will be used for tomato and pepper plants. That leaves a dozen that need to be prepped for planting. Hubby is talking about at least two more for additional varieties of tomato and peppers. I haven't given much thought to what else to throw in the mix. Maybe once I've got the mulch in place, I'll have had enough time to figure it out.