At some point during the collection and stacking of the stones, a mama Robin flew up and sat upon her nest up on the light fixture by the front door. There she stayed until Katherine opened the door quite a bit later.
Once I got the stones stacked neatly on the steps, I was ready for the next step--which meant defining the edges of the area a little and either pulling or scraping the weeds out.
Due to the atmospherics in the barn, both bags had set up fairly solid (this is a concrete sand mix), so I took that shovel and beat the daylights out of the stuff. I was unable to totally smash it back into sand particles, but I did a good enough job to do what I wanted to with it.
Now...this afternoon I am going to try to finish up weeding the strawberries. I worked on them yesterday and still didn't get finished. I think I should be able to manage it without too much trouble...