A long list of projects.

 

With Christmas and New Year over, it’s time to get to work. I have a never-ending monologue running through my mind of all the jobs and projects we have to do around the block.  It’s exciting because I just can’t stand being idle. I think we have many decades’ worth of work to do and I just wake up so pumped and ready for action.  My leather gloves are my new best friends.

 

At the moment we have the following projects on the go:

1. Thistle removal. 

One of the consequences of having trucks and foreign soil brought onto our property is the introduction of weeds.  We have a few types of weeds now, but I’ve been focusing on thistles.  These little bastards look pretty close up, but are NASTY!  They even spike you through leather gloves.  And those lovely, fine, feathery, flower fluff things which, as kids, we loved to catch as they floated on the breeze (We called Santa Clauses and made Christmas wishes on them!!!) are actually dried out thistle florets – a means of seed dispersal for this shitty, bloody weed! 

2. Non-chemical weed destruction. 

The builders, quite naughtily, left a big sheet of black plastic behind after they left. We have however put it to good use. We’re using it to cover up pulled-up weeds in order to kill the little buggers.

3. Bike track/ wheel barrow construction. 

 Moving weeds and rocks (see later) and things around the block is a lot easier since I created what will become part of our mountain biking trail network. Eventually we want to link this up to the track down to Roadie’s Rest (currently under construction also) and the boundary lines and various other trails across the block.

4. Construction of the wood shed.

Firstly I started collecting nice flat stones, then we marked out what will be the shed floor... then levelled it... and started work on the retaining wall... eventually we’ll pave the whole floor with the flat stones... Luckily (?) we have thousands and thousands and thousands of stones all over the property!

5. Whipper-snippering the cleared zone around the house to stop it from growing back up into bush again. (This is really important for bushfire control.)

 

 

 

6. Pruning eucalypts.

In the cleared zone a heap of baby gum trees have sprouted.I don’t want to get rid of them all but we can’t allow them to grow up into massive trees, again for bushfire control. So we’ll see how we go with just trying to keep them small and shrubby by pruning them. It might not work – but it’s worth a crack for now.

 

...And that is just some of the jobs we have on the go... I’d be here all night if made a complete list!