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“No! Fidget can’t play with my ball! I don’t care that I’m asleep, he can’t have it! He’s got his stupid bell if he wants something to play with. This is MINE!”

It’s to go with the baby hare he’s currently chomping down on! Yes, the cat who would lick a mouse to death seems to have taken quite a liking to hare. Which is good! So I’m letting him chow down a bit more before trying to come up with somewhere to dispose of the corpse that he won’t find in 10 minutes.

It’s the second one he’s munched on now. We thought last time that the driveway man must have killed it with his digger or something. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe between them the cats did catch it. I hope so!

If past experience is anything to go by though, the problem with letting him eat hare is that his little tummy gurgles and gurgles all day, and I’m not to recall what his little bottom does. Let’s just say I don’t think he’ll be sleeping on my lap this afternoon!

I decided this post doesn’t need a photo…

Q: What’s worse than kitty breath?
A: A kitty with garlic breath!

And the main reason that’s bad is because Fidget got that breath from chewing on the leaves of our garlic plants in the garden. To the point where one clove was dragged right out, and some others were looking in danger of having no green bits left! And telling him “no, don’t do that!” every time he went back for another mouthful had about as much impact as yelling at an avalanche. So a bit of quick thinking later we rigged up a few little cages out of chicken-wire to hopefully protect them and some of the other seedlings from kitty love.

To be fair to Fidget, Pinot can be just as destructive in the garden, but she just walks over things, or in the case of the glass cloches, right through them. Sometimes chasing a mouse. But the cages seem to be working so far. At least until a kitty decides that sitting right on top of one looks like a good place to catch some rays.

In other garden news, spring is definitely here now. The daffs installed for us while we were away have started to flower again. And this time we’re here to enjoy them every time we go check the mail. Good job I knocked back that bit of grass with the weed-eater a couple of months ago so we can see them!

Tulips have poked up too in the hospital bed we made for them. Peas have sprouted and are slowly growing higher. Broad beans are reaching upward faster and faster. We have quite a collection of chilli, capsicum, tomato and eggplant seedlings taking over the kitchen table (anyone want a spare one or two?) which we’re trying to keep in some sort of order so we can work out just what’s what…

I’ll not bore you with the full current planting list. I’ll save some for later!

No one here but us today. Bliss! As much as we’ve appreciated getting things done, it’s been great to have a day of peace and quiet again.

To celebrate, we planted a couple of random trees out the front. Or the back. Depends how you look at it, I guess. Another try at getting a Golden Elm to grow (the previous one has finally bitten the dust, I think, thanks to a mean hare), and partnered that with a dwarf Claret Ash. Fingers crossed they make it!

Today most of the gravel piles that have littered the landscape have been shuttled into piles in the driveway excavation. Most of them. Some of the others have been shifted down the back of the paddocks to fill in a bit of a depression or two. Good job we’ve got that hole to fill in, or I’ve no idea where else we’d put it. Anyone want any ungraded shingle?!

But now the whole area is pretty much back to being a flat piece of land again it looks bigger. We’ll have to work out what to put in it pretty soon. We’ve been kind of putting off making too many decisions before all the clearing was done so we could see what it looks like. Now we can we’re still at a loss!

Next stage is to flatten out all the driveway piles. Should be tomorrow, but it’s meant to be a bit nasty weather-wise. Then I’m going to have to hire a pedestrian roller and give it all a roll. What fun! For the first 10 minutes.

In other news, the plasterer and painter have finished up now, and the problem walls are looking a lot better than when we started. Hopefully good enough! We’ll see when they all dry properly and we get some sun back. So at least things inside can get back to normal, which will go down well with both us and the kitties.

Trying out a new bread recipe today. Ciabatta bread. Only I think I might have made just a bit much! Four loaves. Slightly more than we need for tonight’s dinner, I suspect! Good job I used the big oven.

But I’m sure we’ll give it a go and munch through as much as we can. We finished the first loaf in about 5 minutes. It’s somehow not quite ciabatta as we know it, but it’s damn nice!

This is possibly starting to remind you of the deck saga. It is for me! But at least this time we can see a huge change each day. In part 4, the rest of the area was cleaned up yesterday, including the spreading around of the huge mound of scrapings that we’ve been starting at from the first day of real work on the site when the foundation area was levelled out.

Unfortunately that mound was the kitties favourite place to play. And our source of soil to sieve for the vege gardens. I have no idea what any of us are going to do now, but we better find a replacement soon!

It’s really weird to stare out and not see it though. I get a small surprise every time I look up.

So basically all the lawn area has been levelled out, and focus shifts back to the driveway, where all the piles of shingle can be spread around. Assuming the weather stays nice, that’ll happen today. Stay tuned.