But wait.....there's more..............

Just one more little bit........for now! The last bastion of mess around the house . All the pickets leaning over where Clips used to stretch as far as he could to eat the peach and apple trees!

The short stretch of Hay paddock and Orchard. Still only half done of course with weather permitting. Wallaby wire still to go on (which l can't do until l have painted it all front and back! ...Which l can't do till the rain goes away!!) Tops need lopping off and proper sized gate to be installed!.

Wow! Starting to look impressive!!!

 

 

Next Fence!

Next project has been the fence in-between the vegie garden and the orchard. As with all our other fences ,it was originally just paddock and separated by ring lock wire fences and overlaid with chicken wire to keep the wallabies out! A nightmare of overgrown grass that grows up between the two into a tangled matted web!

Yuk!

First of course was to pull out all the old wire and whipper snip the grass down to a workable level! 

Then dig the holes and cement the posts in. Always fun as you never know how many rocks you are going to find!

Then the rails..... that's enough for day one!

Looks better already!

Oh and hang the gate in place. A find from our local second-hand shop.

Next day it's the fun and easy bit! Screwing on the palings! Doesn't take long at all.
We won't paint these. Probably just an oil .

I love it! They disappear into the background quite well.

One day when everything grows up it will quite beautiful!......One day!!

 

Done!

All finished. Done in-between bouts of rain, wind and even hail! l refused to stop as l am getting so sick of this rain! It wasn't terribly pleasant as l was wallowing around in the thick clay left over from when l put the posts in. Unavoidable when you have to kneel down to get the bottom screws in!

Not fun! BUT they are all up...................AND they look relatively straight which is always a relief!

 Phew!

I still have the worst bit to go which is to pull out thirty years or more of fencing wire embedded in miles and miles of thick tough grass. It's sooooooo hard to get this out! l usually end up on my hands and knees with a pair of bolt cutters chopping out each individual piece of bloody wire!! It's the back of one of my new flower beds now though so l HAVE to get all the grass out! NOT a job to look forward to!

l am happy with it though The extra 100 pickets down the fence line balances the house way better then before!

THEN??......It's the last leg........post and rail down to the orchard to meet up with the new post and rail across the paddock (still not finished) . Shouldn't take too long though. The posts holes are dug so just the rails to go up AND the painting! Groan! Getting there though!

Next week! 

Goodbye Treeka

Today was the day we knew was coming. The sad day we decided to have the old girl put to sleep.  . She was a beautiful, kind, silly gentle dog. Faithful and loyal to the end. Happiest at home (or in the car!) and loved nothing more then having her tummy scratched. She now lies in the orchard under a growing Maple Tree. We will see her every day and we will never forget her.

Rest in peace old girl.

MORE pickets!!

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, if you have ever wondered what 100 x 1200mm Colonial Pickets, all painted, two coats, ready to go up on a fence look like ......here you go! All drying on a scaffold that (thankfully) didn't collapse and send wet soggy painted pickets crashing down into dust, dirt and hay! (Phew!)

An endless sea of water based white gloss paint!

Very VERY boring! ..............WHY didn't l buy myself a spray gun????? All day it took me! ALLLLLLL day!!!! 

l thought l was well and truly finished and done with painting these wretched things............but gardens DO expand as l have discovered........

So yesterday the rails went on and tomorrow........... (weather permitting!) the pickets get attached! Heavens!..... One of those rails looks terribly crooked in this photo!

Luckily they look straight enough once on the posts!

Looking forward to tomorrow armed with my trusty cordless drill and screws! Let's just hope l can get them all on in a straight line!

 

 

More heavy stuff!

An early start to the day with the arrival of 10 cubic metres of garden mulch for all my new flower beds! Not madly keen on the idea of mulch but it will certainly help my weeding workload until the plants have grown and established themselves a bit. l can see a lot of wheel barrowing in the not too distant future!

Not much help from Pushka who watched from the safety of the back of the ute tray!

Or old Treeka who spent the entire day as usual in her deaf, partially blind little world, fast asleep in the back of the car! Just in case we decide to go somewhere and she won't miss out on a ride!

Mid afternoon we set off to the nearby town of Cygnet, to collect the last lot of bricks needed for our patio.. 320 this time done in two loads. Old mortar on old bricks so these were an absolute breeze to clean! All done and stacked in no time at all . Four pallets each with 400 bricks. 1600 cleaned and ready to go! Now finally ready to be laid!  Yay!!! .................MORE wheel barrowing l can see in the future!!

Will it ever end??

Inspiration!

After visiting those lovely gardens the other week l have been wandering around OUR garden trying to instil some of Pav and Penny's ideas into Candlestick Farm. It finally came to me in a flash of blinding brilliance!! My huge wasted space of orchard! Perfect! All l do is mow it and wait for the trees to grow.!

So out came my trusty curvy bed markers!

And yesterday armed with my spade l carved out the beds! There are already two Silver birches and a Maple in this one so probably this year the beds will just get mulched until l have time to add a bit of undergrowth to them! There are two of them.....the second is smaller and sightly hidden behind the big one. l have pondered and tried soooooo hard to fit in a third but sadly it's just not possible , so am going to have to be content with just two!

l love it! l was happy with it before. l considered it to be our 'parkland'.............now..........even looking like this is way waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better! AND less to mow!

But of course l couldn't help myself  in the planting department.....and  added some Lambs Ears, Forget -Me- Nots and a Foxglove even before l have scalped the turf off!

Very happy! But now l have to get rid of all that grass!

Getting Old...........

Treeka is getting old. She is totally deaf, partially blind and slowly losing weight, losing her appetite and the strength in her hind legs . It won't be too long before we will have to make the sad decision to have her put to sleep as age finally takes over. But at the moment, every morning and every afternoon she takes her daily walk and slowly totters off all the way down our drive to the River. She sniffs around , gazes off into the distance, then slowly makes her way back.

One foot in front of the other. Tottering slightly but still determined and still able to. We are now starting to  make sure all gates to the property are closed in case one day she wanders off and never returns. We watch her daily jaunt from afar to make sure she always gets back on the right track to head for home.

Then it's back to the house to sleep if it's cold, or up onto the veranda to doze the day away in the sunshine.

Poor old girl. She will tell us when it's time.