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I was staring out the window looking for general inspiration when right past the window traipsed these guys…

A not so quick trip around the net later I decided they must be pied oystercatchers looking for a place to nest. First time I’ve seen any around here. And if they’ve got any sense they’ll move on, as apparently they nest in shallow depressions in the dirt. Just perfect for little kitties to invite themselves over.

(Apologies for the horribly washed-out pic!)

After a very early start for me shovelling some of the AP20 into the entrance path while Tony levelled out the last of the drive, I finally got to sit back and watch the lawn area start to be more defined as he then started to rip it all up. The noticeable boundary between the old ground and the newly dumped dirt faded away into a freshly ploughed field.

He was done by lunchtime and tootled off. We won’t see him again for five weeks, while the soil all relaxes again, and all the weed seeds that have been disturbed have a good old sprout. Mind you, there are currently a huge number of birds out there having a good old munch on something or other that’s been dragged up. Hopefully it’s all the weed seeds. Or maybe grass grubs. But it seems like it’s definitely an early Christmas for them!

My job over the five week hiatus is to collect up all the stones that are over a fist size so the stone-burier can do its job and push the others down. It’s actually not as bad as I feared. Some areas are pretty clear already. Even Tony was surprised by how few boulders appeared.

We still need to finish off the entrance too (just a bit short of the AP20 in the end), but at least now there’s a path leading to the door that isn’t made of mud.

So all you visitors, park on the drive and come to the front door now.

And stay the hell off my lawn!

I guess I’ll have to find something else to keep you lot entertained now…

Ok, so technically there wasn’t actually anything to do with the new lawn area today, but we’ve reached a bit of a milestone. As of now there are no piles of anything around the place. We’re back to a flat(ish) base again! In fact we’re better then we’ve ever been, as with all the driveway and lawn levelling, along with the holes that the extra shingle filled in down the back, we’re now flatter than we’ve ever been, with even more usable land. (Now we just have to work out what to use it for…)

It’s a bit odd to walk around the house and not see anything sticking up and spoiling the views. But I’m sure we’ll get used to it!

And with perfect timing, as soon as Tony had finished dealing with the piles the AP20 arrived to go on the top of the drive which he could then level out. What’s AP20, I hear you ask? Apparently it stands for “All Passing 20mm”. I.e. a gravel and sand and clay type mix, but with nothing over 20mm long. I’m learning all sorts of stuff lately!

So he had a good ¾ of an hour to shove all that around to level it out. We’re still a few cubic meters short, but that should arrive tomorrow morning. Assuming it’s not raining Tony can then shove it all around, then we just have to get the roller back to give it a bit of a settling down. But the rain that’s currently persisting down will be helping with that. (By the by, why is it that it only rains here after I’ve got desperate and watered the most thirsty plants by hand?!)

The driveway’s a nice sideshow, but next on the lawn progress if for the whole lot to be ripped up then cultivated. Crossing fingers for that progress tomorrow!

Dawn finally arrived this morning, and once the toast and coffee had been gobbled down it was time to mount the roller and give the drive a bit of a going over. I was slightly apprehensive about how it would all go, not having driven anything like the roller before, but in the end it was pretty easy. But only once I’d been up and down the drive a couple of times. The first few trips up and down were pretty bumpy (especially with the vibrate function working overtime on the rough piles of gravel), making me wish that I’d left my breakfast to settle a bit more before setting out.

The most interesting and unexpected thing to me was watching the impact one big rock in the gravel had on the rolling for metres afterwards. It’s kind of like the impact that a rock has on the water of a river, but I really didn’t expect to see that sort of pattern in gravel and rocks. Other than that it was just a grind. Up and down, up and down…

But up and down, up and down, round and round, up and down I went for a few hours. Stopping only to let my stomach settle a bit, and to pull out some of the big stones and fill up some of the worst holes. I swear I’ve never reversed as much in my entire life as I did today! (Of course some of that is probably due to riding motorbikes rather than driving cars. Not much call for a reverse gear on a sports bike!)

But it did look enough fun for Bec to give it a go for a while too. I think she even enjoyed it. The grin suggests she did, at least.

On Monday we’re getting another layer spread on it of finer and firmer stuff. That’s going to need packing down too, so we’ll have to give it another blat with a roller sometime soon. But luckily we can’t do that quite yet, my kidneys need a chance to climb down from my ribs first.

Yes indeedy. Life has appeared in the orchard. The first tree to end its winter slumber is the quince. A couple of others look set to go soon too. Let’s just hope all the rest managed to survive the stress of us novices digging them in and will do the same!

In other tree related news, we decided that two trees together are never right, so we’ve added a third to the specimen trees out the front. A hardy maple this time, so we should now get some red in autumn to go with the yellow and purple. Well see. Not in a hurry for autumn to get here just yet!

After a bit of a break where Tony had to go off and do some stuff for much bigger clients than us (can’t blame him, and it didn’t worry us), the driveway got fully refilled with shingle this morning.

Tonight we’ve hopefully got a ride-on roller being dropped off so we can spend an few hours tomorrow morning going up and down, up and down it to pack it all down properly. I just hope I can learn how to drive it without hitting anything important. Like the house!

“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!