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.

Crawleighwood Garden

Today l had the pleasure of visiting a stunning local garden here in the Huon Valley. An absolute labour of love for the couple who own it. So inspirational (and maybe a little deflating to see such a magnificent achievement!....Can I ever achieve ANYTHING even REMOTELY like that????..........) Developed over 20 years it's a genuine lifelong passion for these amazing people. 8 acres of garden and still growing, still spreading out further and further into the paddocks.......Is there hope for me yet and do we REALLY need all that Hay Paddock????? No words needed really. Just beautiful photo after beautiful photo.

Divine colour!

These two paired up to make them look like one plant!

A beautiful daffodil!

And not a wallaby poo in sight!!

Just stunning!!!!

Thought about trying to stick this in my pocket..................

l will be definitely going back!

If not for the plants, to see Jasper...the sweetest begging dog ever!