Since I started clearing the bark away things have come to a screaming halt. I have already decided that I will get the bark moved rather than move it myself, however, it will cost me extra because of the rocks. That being so I will move the rocks. Friday i had eye tests and lots of drops so I was unable to function out in the sunlight for most of the day. By the time I was able to go out, it was too late. Saturday I was in Adelaide, but I will get started tomorrow morning. Just as well it’s a public holiday so I won’t get called into work. I don’t have to dispose of the rocks at this time, just moved them out of the front garden so the backhoe can have a clear sweep through. The job should not take any longer than 45 minutes – and that’s being generous. However, it would take me the best part of a week to do- longer if I also get called in to work. Once it’s cleared I will be happy and I can take my time getting it altogether again. The rocks have been removed so I’m just waiting on the workman to come and clear the area.
Yesterday afternoon I started clearing the bark away and within an hour so so I had filled the trailer. What surprised me was the small amount of space cleared in relation to filling a 6×4 trailer. With dump fees at $15 per trailer load, this is going to be quite expensive. I am now considering the wisdom of doing the clearing myself and wonder if it will be just as cheap to get someone with a backhoe to come and do it for me. That being so, I have arranged for this to be done. So what’s the deal about the bark? Well, it’s not just bark that has fallen from trees, this is pine bark chips that have been used as a ground cover. It’s cheap, no maintenance and looks good until the weather takes its toll and leaches all the colour out of it. Then it turns black and looks really dirty. It’s not something I would consider using. In a small area it’s managable but this is in a good sized area and I think it really detracts from the house. I’ll edge the area off with treated Pine Logs and use a particular wood chip that has been treated not to lose its colour. It looks attractive and is created as a decorative feature. However at $90 per cubic metre it is not cheap. In the back section I will have the area slightly raised and plant Roses and in the centre, the bird bath. I think it will look quite good when it is finished.
The rain continues to pound down in the Eastern States and the north of our State. The area under water continues to increase but at the moment, despite the chaos, only one person has been killed. . In the north of this state there may have to be food drops to people and communities cut off. Why such a difference in temperature and weather patterns – South Australia is larger than Texas. Sorry about that but there you are! At the moment it’s mild here but not as warm as it should be. Something I have been painfully aware of is that we seem to have an almost constant wind. I am surrounded by trees and I spend a morning sweeping up leaves and twigs only for the place to be just as bad the next day. Same when take the dogs out in the evening – there is always a wind. Summer’s end and I’m wearing a jacket already. Where does all the water from Queensland, the Northern Territory and the top parts of New South Wales and South Australia go and why do we not do floods over here? Most of it rushes down into the Lake Eyre Basin. The Lake Eyre basin is an area larger than France, Germany and Italy combined and for Lake eyre to o overflow would take a miracle of Biblical Proportions – really. However having said that it is believed that the flow from the Mississippi could fill Lake Eyre in about three weeks and about three days for the Amazon.
I realise that none of this has anything to do with my rebuilding the garden but with all the rain last week and the strange weather I have not really been able to do much outside other than attend to the weeds that the rain has allowed to spring up. But provided it starts to clear up and dry out, I will get back into it again – unless my services are needed and I get called into work.
Friday afternoon and the sun came out. It ended up being quite warm so everything has a chance to dry out – well at least here, not so for other places. We don’t do floods here – a few puddles, but no floods. Other places, particularly in New South Wales, are in serious trouble with dams about to overflow – and it’s still raining. This is not “normal” for this area – not for late summer early Autumn By the time the sun did come out and the day cleared up it was too late to get changed and go outside. I also had a pile of work to do for herself, who was hosting a Ladies Meeting at the church on Friday evening. We had about 75 attending the meeting, which was good. Today, Saturday, started off quite nice then started raining again although it didn’t last very long. When we start the new week on Monday I will have to wait and see if I get called in to work. If I don’t and it stays dry, I’ll move some of the rocks and see how much of the black bark I can get into the trailer. Amazing, great chunks of the country are under water and I’m talking about gardens and trailers. I really don’t have room to plant a lot of things and a herb garden and the shade house are just about my limit. Do I mean the place is small – no I don’t. The place is a fair size but designed as entertainment rather than “garden”. And NO, I do not intend to turn the front garden into a vegetable garden – I have no intention of going all ‘Good Life” :o) The photograph is the Warragamba Dam to the west of the city of Sydney. Not good.
Exciting – Wet Wednesday morphed into damp Thursday with everything still soggy and wet. The upper areas of the State are flooded and the rain is set to continue bringing more problems for an already flooded area. I think the sun came out today but I must have blinked and missed it. Summer officially ended yesterday – and wouldn’t you know it. Still we are not too bad in South Australia only just over one third of the state is flooded. In New South Wales about 75% of the State is flooded and Queensland is not off the hook just yet. Amazing, really – for all our modern technology a few days of rain and everything grinds to a halt and half the country floods. And here we are, Morphed yet again into Wet Friday. Still can’t get any work done outside. This is not usual at all..
From about the middle to the end of last week the temperature was in the high 30c low 40c and hot outside so I did little work other than keep up the watering to the plants in the evening. This week I have been called in to work for the first two days and today – although I am not working and at home – it’s chucking down, and has been all night. Not a lot going on really.
Amazing the end of summer already. Apart from a few blasts of heat ( like this current blast) it has been a fairly mild summer. There have been a few days of extreme temperature when the mercury has reached the low 40c but all-in-all it has been fairly mild. Although, having said that, the mildness has been the companion of a constant wind, Unlike the northern hemisphere, in this part of the world a North Wind is a hot wind off the desert and right at the moment with the temperature at 41c. we have a North Wind. Here it’s not the heat that drags you down,it’s the wind that sometimes goes with it – like now. Needless to say, I am not really in the mood to go out in this heat and start swinging a socking great sledgehammer to break top the cement and start to remove the old washing line system. I’m not really keen to do much at the moment other than get up close and personal with an air-conditioner. Once a cool change comes through, I’ll
One of my Plants - this one was given to me as a gift.
see about making a start again. Although having said that I did do some work. I removed the big bird-bath from the front of the house and brought it round to the back. Probably in the next day or so I’ll clean it up and have it ready for going back once I finish the front of the house. The think was badly leaking so I had it resealed and painted a light blue. The birds seem to like it, but then, I suppose they like anything that has water in it. In warm, but not hot days, I still take my laptop outside and I still have breakfast with the dogs, but when it’s too hot, we bring the dogs inside.
Once herself rises I am going to head off to Port Augusta – about 48 miles east of here. I want to visit a particular shop then nip into their Garden Centre on the way out of the city. I don’t expect to find much, but it’s a different place to go and look at. I have increased the herb garden by adding Radishes and Oregano, so we’ll see what happens there. All the flowers in the shade house are alive and well, so perhaps the black thumb is not quite as black as it once was. One can only hope. On the other hand, my Poinsettia is not well. I don’t rightly know what’s going on there but I will keep trying.
I didn’t get what I wanted in Port Augusta and I did visit the Augusta Garden Centre on the way back out. I didn’t get anything there either but I liked the idea they have of selling the red chips in bags as well as in bulk. I suppose some would say it was a wasted trip but I don’t see it like that – it was a lovely day for a drive, 34c, the roads were clear an I had a good drive there and back and an enjoyable few hours away from Whyalla – that has to be good. At the moment I am stuck until I get assistance to move the rocks from the front so I can get the trailer in and get the black bark lifted. I would do some digging, but at 41c. it’s a tad warm too warm to be swinging a socking great sledgehammer..
Over the weekend my son and I drove to Adelaide (478 klms) and went out to Ikea and Bunnings. John bought some nice chests of drawers and I bought a walnut bench for my office. From Ikea we drove to Bunnings and I bought the 12 meters of green outdoor carpet that I wanted for the washing line area as well as a new timber doghouse. I also discovered that the new clothes line will not fit into the old system so it looks as if I am going to have to dig the old section out of the ground and cement a new one in its place. This could take a while. Anyway driving to Adelaide was not an indulgence and I had to go to Adelaide for a conference on Saturday morning, so we thought we might as well take the trailer and kill two birds with one stone – so to speak. There is a service station and food place about halfway between Whyalla and Adelaide. It’s called The Tin Man and it’s sort of an unofficial meeting place. On Saturday as John and I drove home we stopped at the Tin Man for fuel. I was just paying for the fuel when my other son walked in. He and his friends were going down to Adelaide for a concert and the friends wanted to know if this was an arranged family reunion :o) Yes, all round it was an interesting weekend. I built the new house for Chienna last night and she seems to be accepting that although I think the little man has his eyes on it.
The previous owner had a thing about rocks – big rocks. Not the teeny weeny things you casually flip from the ground into the trailer. No, this is the kind of rock that takes really serious effort to move. To continue with the upgrade of the front garden I need to have these rocks moved – preferable to the dump because I cannot think I would want to use them anywhere. Perhaps when the bark was new and blonde and the world was young the rocks looked good in their current positions, now they are just pointless. I spoke to some landscaping people today and they told me that the black bark, apart from being unsightly, is pretty evil stuff that is loved by a multitude of creepy crawlies, so it’s probably just as well that I am getting rid of it. However, I think things might start to slow down because I have a feeling that my R & R won’t last all that much longer.
Last post I told you about the dogs and decided to put in a photograph of “My Back Yard” rather than a photograph of the Terrorist. The Terrorists is a rescue dog. I had been looking for a Maltese and a friend at the RSPCA telephoned me to let me know that they had a Maltese in the cage. I went down to look at him and although he was in a bit of a mess, there was just something about him that I really liked and when I approached him, he licked me. I took him home for a “trial” period of ten days, extended that, then bought him. Of course, by that time we had cleaned him up and had him groomed.. My good lady went over to Spotlight and bought material as well as a pattern and made him a coat. It was cold and we had to have most of his own coat removed. After paying the RSPCA I had him at the vet to be desexed and microchipped. Chienna sits under the pergola and very rarely moves too far away from the door. The Terrorist has a dog-house out in the garage and as soon as he has his smachako in the morning, he takes off to his den. Once I moved the doghouse out into the sun. He looked at it then went into the garage and lay down on the ground where the doghouse used to be. I got the hint and move his house back into the garage.
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