Drink in hand!

Well after a big first half of the day gardening, then doing cleaning up till right on party start time, there were certainly a few kindly welcomed vodkas appreciated! Apparently it was quite a sight standing around watching the boys getting the outdoor heater cranking! Lots of garden tours were the initial part of the evening and quite a few people came, but not at the same time.

I received some lovely gifts, with a can of condensed milk being a real highlight of the mix. Thanks to Maz and Andrew for the fruit, Robyn and Dave for the pav and of course Amanda and Joel for the yummy birthday cake! I had a great night, but it was a little difficult to get around and talk to everyone, though everyone looked to have a good time. Until next year...

Birthday Bolt!

Ordinarily, I would liked to have slept in on my birthday, but instead Rich and I began the day shovelling mulch in the backyard. Actually Rich worked hard to complete the drip system and I started with the shovelling, then moved onto the front yard plants, whilst I was waiting to get into the large garden bed. We were totally against the clock, cause we knew we still had a mountain of house work ahead of us for my birthday BBQ. That should end all of the large wads of soil in the back now!!

Plant City!

Monday night before Melbourne Cup Day, Rich and I got started on the plant purchasing. We bought 19 that night, as well as some stuff for the new drip system. The next morning we toddled down to Bunnings to begin the day's play and start up the spending campaign! We ended up buying 71 plants from four places, which included 7 for front yard to replace this year's earlier plant stealing fiasco!

We made a great start on the planting early, but had to go off and do a couple of laps of the 1000 steps! Maz, Andrew and I met up with the beautiful, but shingle ridden Shelley to get fit. Shelley copped an eye-full of some desperado in the car park doing something that should not be mentioned. On the way there, we learnt the fate of the Mebourne Cup, where I managed to pick up a first and a third in my work sweep!! Loving that. Got back home, where Rich was still going strong putting in the drip system. I got straight back out and got al but the front plants in. All in all what a busy little public holiday!

Friends will be friends!

I couldn't talk up enough the amount of help that Maz and Andrew gave us on the 1st November! These two are working machines and I love there 'Have a go' attitude. When Andrew the day before showed an exceptionally keen interest in wanting to shovel soil, it was rather hard to knock him back. I guess the clincher was when he said "I love soil, I'm good at digging!" I could have thought of many much better ways to spend my Saturday arvo, but it was soooo appreciated!

So the first truck rolled up with 4 meters of local soil, which Rich and I started until the troops arrived. Four people, four barrows, four shovels and four keen people, made an amazing difference to the day's progress. In fact, we ended up getting another 4 meters of top soil and got it in! Rich needed to eat at one point, so I called the work off to allow people time to rest. It didn't seem fair that a home owner be inside loving life, whilst myself and the guests kept working.

A little birdy (namingly Marian) mentioned that Andrew was keen to get back out. I wish he had've spoken up, it would have saved me some work! Just kidding! But again thanks to these two champions, who will be receiving pay back work in their garden when their potential building project gets off the ground next year.

Adding more elements!

Although there are no photos to prove this blog entry, after to speaking to many people, we ended up adding 2 meters of scoria to our garden beds. It is a surprisingly light material that is quite easy to shovel and lift.

Making a difference.

There was yet again a lot of movement in the backyard in late October. Rich and I started building a retaining wall in scorching hot sun on Sunday 19th October in preparations for mum and dad's visit on the 25th October. My god that was another busy and very productive weekend. The concrete rolled up Saturday morning at 7:10am. It came a little early, but at least we were up and raring to go. By 10:30am that morning the concrete was in and the retaining wall was finished.

This was what I had hope to get achieved by the end of the day, but with the professionals at hand to work was completed in no time. I was requested to put an order in for some soil, whilst the boys started on some boxing. Mum even cranked out a few barrows of the dirt from the last side of the garden, which is yet to be started! It was Caufield Cup Day and bloody hot. Our new tradition of heading to the pub was once again welcomed by all. It was a little hard to motivate the troops to come back out to shovel in the heat, but once again we did it! 6 cubic meters of heavy local soil to start up the fill of our massive new garden beds.