Mischiefs' Folly

Discussion in 'Members' Systems' started by mischief, Sep 26, 2013.

  1. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    I love you guys!

    I finally stopped humming and har'ing, pulled out the ladder and cut off the other two Avocadoes and have them sitting in my fruit bowl waiting fot them to ripen up. Also harvested the first five of the lemons off the baby lemon tree. I counted the fruit and leaves. There are 41 leaves and were 11 fruit , all on exactly 2 feet of tree.

    I found a home for the rooster and have offered them a couple of hens to go with him cos they dont have any and I dont want him to get lonely. They seemed quite keen to have 'broody mum' and her daughter who is still laying....now just one more to home. the 'hen' has grown legs in a rather roosterly fashion but isnt actually crowing and doesnt have a magnificent tail yet either, but by the legs, I'm prety sure he's a he and not a she. That will be a 75% rooster clutch to date. I'm not going to try to raise my own hens any more, I keep having to find home for boys instead.
    I do like that I have raised the genetic diversity of hen-hood though.
    In ecxchange, I got a bag of half a doz mutton neck chops. Her dad does his own mutton and recently culled an ol' ewe.
    They arew currently simmering in my le creseut(SP?) pot on the firebox, along with bought kumara and home grown maori potatoes, alittle salt n pepper, sprinkling of home grown mustard seed and dried mixed herbs.

    I have had the fire ticking over since the middle of April and have for the most part cooked my dinner on this since early May.
    I did manage to finally get spicy potato wedges to fry up on it by putting a cover over the pan they were roasting in and found that the wok lid worked great for covering the pizza so it cooked to perfection.
    Next day pizza, reheated very well just by letting it heat up on my old griddle. Nice toasty bottom.

    I popped in to see the mechanic today to find out what the story was with my truck. The motor they got shipped up from the south Island was the wrong sort/size..., but found a new block for it in the next town so all going well I should be back in my own girl come friday.(big sigh), now to sort out the bus (shaking head) and the bloody plumber who has been telling me for 4 week that they will be here either tomorrow afternoon or the end of the week.Might need to invest in new plumber.
     
  2. helenlee

    helenlee Junior Member

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    I have had the fire ticking over since the middle of April and have for the most part cooked my dinner on this since early May.
    I did manage to finally get spicy potato wedges to fry up on it by putting a cover over the pan they were roasting in and found that the wok lid worked great for covering the pizza so it cooked to perfection.
    Next day pizza, reheated very well just by letting it heat up on my old griddle. Nice toasty bottom.


    I've been doing this stuff too : ) It's nice to be able to make the heat work double purpose for you. An upturned baking dish on top of the stove makes a great little oven : ) I would absolutely love some Staub cast iron cook ware - I have ruined the melamine? [are they melamine???] handles on some of my saucepans & stockpots by putting them on the stove top, but short of winning the lotto, I don't think that's going to happen : )

    Fingers crossed Friday sees you with your truck up & running again. It's scary how complicated life gets when one is without ones own transport : /

    Us guys are pretty fond of you too : )
     
  3. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    I started reading your blog this morning, mischief, and I get to the good part, Helen, and no pictures? Guess I'll just finish and go back to my Carolina site. ECO; What happened to your hand?

    Benjy
     
  4. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    I get a bit sore in the knuckles after gardening - normally it is gone after a good nights sleep - but it has been sore and swollen now for 3 weeks - right where I rest it on the corner of the lap top too! Have resorted to drugs…. Which keeps me moving but doesn't cure anything. I'm starting to wonder if it relates to letting caffeine and alcohol back into my strict dietary regime - so I'm back off them and waiting to see if it helps.
     
  5. helenlee

    helenlee Junior Member

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    My current research completely supports your theory eco : ) ; ) I've had my daughter here for a few months, & have completely fallen off the food wagon :( I'd gotten to the point of having only one spoon of sugar a day (in porridge) & only occasional wheat flour. Since she's been here I've completely succumbed to temptation & am now eating at least one piece of cake every day in addition to random other white four products. I also drank a couple of vodkas on a few consecutive nights, after months of zero alcohol. Painful joints, swollen hands, & a general feeling of less than stellar health is the result.
    I'm fine when I'm by myself, but with Miss J here my resistance is easily worn away. Looks like I need to drag my will power out of the closet & get back on the right track.
    Benjy - take my word for it, the effect with the masking tape is the opposite of the effect cheesecake photos are designed to produce :)
     
  6. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    Oh, that's a brilliant fix with the noodle on the bucket! :)
     
  7. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Using your noodle?!
     
  8. Benjy136

    Benjy136 Junior Member

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    I used my noodle yesterday morning.....about 1:00 AM ............OK..Got up and prepped the coffee maker, as I needed to get going a little early. Alright.. I was just trying to add a little humor (very little?) to the moment. My noodle doesn't get used a lot lately. In my present condition, Willie's afraid I might hurt something.

    I think what you're doing, Mischief, is absolutely GREAT. I haven't taken advantage of the lay of the land in my garden the way I'd like, and if my condition doesn't improve soon, I won't be able to. I was letting some "weeds" grow in my garden and when this mess hit me I couldn't "work" them as I'd planned. It seems they invited all their friends in for a "Knock-down-and drag-out" party. My peppers, tomatoes, cukes, squash, strawberries, corn and onions suffered the most, while my potatoes, covered as they are with a heavy mulch, are doing fine. I just don't have the strength to get them all dug and have to take in about a couple dozen per day with Willie's help.

    It will be the first of next month before the first specialist sees me and I find out for sure what this "mess" is and how to treat it instead of just the painful symptoms, which isn't working out too well for me.

    I'm with you about the sugar and wheat flour contributing to health problems. I noticed the increased "discomfort" when I let my guard down and relished some processed crap, telling myself "I deserved a few "pleasures". The next morning those "pleasures" begged me to take another pain pill before it was time. Our internal combustion engine was not designed to run on 90% ethanol. When we know better, Why do we still attempt it? That McBurger, chicken nuggets and soft-serve I treated my palate to two days ago is not quite through messing up my carburetor.. If I've had the will power to quit smoking cold turkey, one would think I could turn down these other "pleasures" and stick to the high octane fuel and the performance it ensures.

    I love the way you are working things out as new problems arise in your project. Who was it that said "Problems are only opportunities in disguise"? Someone must have said it.

    Gotta go now. I'll see y'all on the other site later on.
    Benjy
     
  9. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Benjy.

    (That's who said it - its official now!)
     
  10. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Hi Helenlee,
    I got my le creuset pot by 'spending' my flybuys points. Dont know if you the equivalent over there, but I have got alot of good stuff with these including my wizz stik- meant I didnt need to replace my broken blender.
    All of my cast iron pots and pans were found at second hand shops.
    The new Dutch oven was on such a good special, but also on sale at second hand shop. A friend just happened to pop in to browse and got one, put the word out via texts and we all converged on the poor place and emptied them out.

    The truck wasnt ready on friday, the motor was still being rebuilt when I went in, so had to use their one again.
    They did say it was in better nick than my old one had been and were being particularly careful about putting it all back together, it should be ready tuesday or wednesday.

    um yeh, its pretty scary how life gets sometimes, full stop.
    After I had got the truck back the first time, I thought it would be a good idea to get my bus fixed too,(by somebody else) who does alot of buses and trucks.
    He was a friend of my partner that died afew years ago, but I have found out that doesnt stop them from going weird on you.
    I'm abit slow on the up take sometimes and have finally realised to my disgust that he actually thought I would rather give nooky than pay to get the job done,....bleugh!!
    Un/fortunately, he is out of town at the moment, so I have abit of time to work out how to get it towed back to my place, when he gets back and I can access the bus which is parked up in his workshop.
    I'm taking a male mate with me to sort him out, which is probably good for him, cause otherwise I am likely to beat the shit out of him.
     
  11. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Oh, I hope things pick up for you soon, that doesnt sound like fun at all.
    Waiting for specialists, is in its own league of personal torture. Hope all goes well for you.

    I think this whole 'let the weeds be', is somewhat over-rated and death to things like onions which just dont like them at all.
    They combined with the loose chooks have meant alot of things I let go to seed never came up. They are obviously not as hardy as weeds and far too tasty to hens.

    I agree with Oscar Wilde....."giving up smoking is easy, I've done hundreds of times".....
     
  12. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    The sort of friend that lets you know there's cast iron cookware at the second hand shop is the sort you want to keep! The sort that offers you free work for sex? Should go at the bottom of your next hugelkulture mound….
     
  13. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    The bus got moved yesterday.Thank god for that!
    I was driving home after work and suddenly remembered that my other boss's mate lived in the same lane as the nursery and had heavy equipment moving vehicles. (I had been tearing my hair out calling all the local tow truck companies all week.)
    So, I pulled in to see him, thinking, this is going to be like asking a whale to move an ant. Same day service, wonderful. Now the bus is parked up at the diesel mechanic that recently opened up .........right opposite from where I live, so I can walk across the road to start fixing up the inside abit while I wait for them to get through the other jobs they have in the workshop.

    Friends, yes....
    My bestest friend, actually more like a big sister, told me that I should not hide what happened because people need waking up to the fact that this sort of thing is going on.
    So, inspite of feeling really embarrassed about the whole thing, I did tell people I knew, not really caring whether or not they actually believed me. It was enough that she believed me and that I believed me.
    She had been stalked by a stranger for what she thought was 3 years, only to find out from the police, when he finally did something they could act upon, that it had been going on for 5 years. Luckily, her situation was resolved.
    Unfortunately, there are too many women out there who live in abject terror and far too many women die through absolutely no fault of their own.
    Message to everyone: If you hear that someone, female or even male, is being harassed by someone, please dont shrug it off or laugh. There might be something you could do that would help and it could save a life.
    I dont think mine was at risk, but if I had crumbled and not acted in a proactive way, this could have got way out of control.
    Today when I turned up for work, one of the other ladies was wearing a white ribbon on her vest. When I asked her what it was for, she smiled and said it was to promote awareness of violence towards women. I said, that after everything I had just been through, I was going to get me one of those too and she told me she had put it on today for me...I almost cried.
    Right then, enough of the dark side of life.


    My work truck is back in action, I picked that up tonight on my way home. It sounds and feels different which makes me feel alittle edgy.
    I think I really should take it for a long slow cruise round the country lanes to run it in tomorrow.So nice to have it back.

    When I got home the plumber had finished the last little bit that needed doing. He specially made a leaf guard for me because all the bought ones were the wrong size.It needs alittle tweaking, but looks pretty good.
    With the dark clouds forming up, hopefully we will see how it works getting the rainfall into the tank.

    The two avocados I had ripening on the table turned soft and were eaten today with much delight. Just lovely. Nice and soft and buttery just like they are supposed to be.
    Thats another milestone for me. I eye up the babies still on the tree and long for the day when they are ready. Guacamole here I come!

    I found the baby rooster a home with the dad of one of the girls I work with at the nursery. They came over to pick him up on sunday. I had caught two hens to go with him but somehow one of them got out, along with the rooster. He, I caught quite easily, thanks to the see through mesh gates. Instead of trying to run away, he kept trying to bash his way through it. The old hen was alittle wiser and there was just no way she was going to get caught again, but at least he had somebody to keep him company.
    He's living with grandma, on her farm in their chook pen, til my friend and her dad build theirs. They think he looks beautiful and were surprised at how big he was, I think they were expecting a bantam rooster.
    I did suggest that it would be a good idea to look around for some meat birds rather than just egg layers, so hopefully they will be able to find some. I might keep an eye out myself.

    Tomorrow, is our last day at the nursery and we traditionally have a shared lunch, Thats when everyone bring a plate along and we all have alittle of everything.
    I just made an curried egg salad using my home laid eggs,(and a pickled egg, because they decided not to give me any today).
    I'm actually hoping that nobody else likes it, its so yummy, I wanted to have it for my dinner.
    After lunch, we re going to have a little ceremony for one of our supervisors that passed away this year. She had been with the nursery for 20 years and was wonderful to work for. Everyone, including the (young-esh) boss called her Auntie.
    Blue gang-thats my one, all chipped in to pay for a plaque to be made up and the nursery has given us two native trees-we specififcally asked that they NOT be Pine trees. These re going to be planted in the garden next to the lunch room with the plaque laid next to them to celebrate a wonderful woman.
     
  14. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Sounds like some ducks are starting to line up nicely for you mischief. Hopefully the heavens open and fill your tank and fatten up your avo's!
     
  15. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    i guess i missed something here as i didn't read anything about stalking or violence. very glad you are ok and getting things taken care of.
     
  16. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Thanks Eco. We've got some lovely dark clouds forming up again and there is still alot of winter to go. I am looking forward to the day when I can tick off not having to use town water to water the garden.(I'll have to save up a bit more to get the house hooked up though).

    Songbird,
    Hi, your comment is the norm, unfortunately.
    It doesnt upset me because I realise that most people just dont understand.
    The police and counsellors are aware that that there is a cycle this sort of people go through. The longer it continues, the worse it gets and if there is already an existing personal contact, it can get worse quicker.

    Mt friend was photographed in her own back yard for two years before she even realised that she was being watched. After five years of being traumatized by him, he tried to run her off the road when he saw her driving her son in laws racey car.He thought she had a boyfriend and got mad about it.

    That was enough finally for the police to see him with a search warrant and found the early photos.
    Because he admitted he had been doing it and promised to stop, they didnt take it further, mainly because the court cases further traumatize the victim and dont always see justice done.
    For a whole year he has left her alone, however, last week the hang up phone calls started again.

    So while its easy to roll your eyes thinking so what, no violence, cant be that bad and at this stage for me, it isnt, but if I did nothing, said nothing, it had the potential of being worse than my friends situation. It took years for her stalker to physically manhandle her, it took this guy less than one month to behave inappropriately.
    Recently, we had a woman shot by a man who had been stalking her for 2 1/2 years. They have not made that public mainly because they did not want others to follow suit. They did contact other victims that they had been made aware of and told them to up their personal security right after this and why.

    After helping my friend deal with her situation, it didnt take me too long to see similarities enough to want to nip this in its early stages.
    If anybody is being harassed in anyway by any one, they need to take action to get it stopped before it escalates out of control.

    Overly dramatic? Perhaps, but people need to be made aware that this sort of thing is going on and that it starts with little awkward moments that just make you feel uncomfortable. If its just a once or twice thing then there probably isnt anything to worry about, if there are more than a couple, (which there were),you need to start paying attention and working out the best way to deal with it so it stops.

    I dont care if I look like a melodramatic fool, if this helps someone else wake up and do something to get their life back again.
    ........................................


    Had a lovely shared lunch at work, but I only got a small spoonful of my curried egg salad. I'm going to have to make a HUGE bowl of it next year.
    I've got a bit of after season work which is great, just means all I am going to be able to do for now is trawl through my Kings seeds catalogue and work out the game plan for the next growing season.

    My brother has been collecting the long type pallets that his work get things delivered on, so by the time we are ready to build the horizontal hives, we should have enough- I seem to have inspired him to have a go at the bee keeping thing too. Should be fun
     
  17. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    sorry, i misread something completely. i was not putting down or making any excuse for piss-poor behaviors or expectations. i just simply missed something you wrote.
     
  18. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    Dont worry yourself about it, as I said, it didnt upset me because I realise people just dont know. For alot that do, especially the older generation/s, its way outside their comfort zone and there is still the thought process that these things should be kept quiet/not their business.
    It wasn't all that long ago that if anything untoward happened to a female, the first response was..."well what did you do to deserve that then?" even from the police and hospital workers..
    We can give thanks to those who took their case to court even knowing that their own life would be microscopically examined rather than that of the perpetrator.
    Cases like the medical interne who was kidnapped from the Auckland hospital, made people wake up to the fact that it was not what women were doing or wearing that was to blame and attitudes have changed.
    Abuses of any sort are thankfully no longer acceptable.

    I did not give all the details of what happened for the same reason TV programmes no longer do the re-enactments of crimes. Here at least, it was discovered that the gangs were videoing these and using them for training purposes so as not to get caught.
    I understand that this made it more difficult to understand why I thought it important enough to write about.
    Also, if this situation did continue and I did have to go to court where it was found that I had given details that could have identified the person, due to our laws, I would then have been found to have violated his privacy and be in trouble.

    One last thing, before I leave it alone is that it is NOT just females who get harassed/assaulted and/or stalked, its men too,by women.
    One of my male friends recently changed jobs and has had to put up with a female co-work grabbing him, which is freaking him out. He didnt keep quiet about it either and asked for help to sort it out.
    If anyone thinks they have problem like this, try the firm diplomatic approach first, if it continues, get help, you are not imagining it.
     
  19. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    We had our first really hard frost for winter yesterday. I was worried that my baby avo's would all turn black and fall off, but when I checked them this afternoon, they still look okay.
    I noticed in the supermarket that avocadoes were on sale and popped over to check out what sort they were and if they looked anything like the ones I harvested. These were Haas and no they didnt, so I am assuming mine are a fuerte cross, til I find out otherwise.
    Today after work, I'm running around in a tee shirt and sweating cos its so hot.
    My old feijoa tree is still flowering and has baby fruit on it and I was visited by a honey bee...at 4pm...(shaking head). Somethings not right here.
    I noticed that the Christmas plum down by the letterbox has started to form its flower buds too, thats going to be way to early again. I wish I knew how to stop it cos I havent had any plums from this for the last two years. I'm sure its because its flowering too early to be pollinated properly.

    I was hoping that the winter work had finished for the year but I have another weeks worth to go, shouldnt complain really, but I was looking forward to getting over to a mates place and helping them coppice their hazelnut grove. Its very over grown and apparently has slowed down its nut production.
    They were telling me I could use the branches for firewood, but when I saw how long and straight they were, I could see these will be very handy elsewhere.
    Some of them are at least 25 feet high......hmmmm

    The seating along the fence in the parking area still needs a 'roof' for some lovely climber to sprawl over. I did have to move the clematis from there cos it was just not liking it and replaced it with one of the rooted cabbage tree cutting I took ages ago from my big tree that was getting somewhat crowded.
    Actually, I'm not too sure its a good idea to plant any climber there any more. My neighbours have started building their pizza oven right next to the fence, so it might get alittle hot. I'm wondering if it would be wiser to strategically place a fire extinguisher there instead.
    I'm a bit peeved that they have done this, cos it was my telling them about where I was going to put one that got them all excited about the idea and now they have almost finished theirs and I havent even started on mine yet.

    I'm eyeing up the chooks forage yards to see which could do with something for climbers to grow over to make shady spots for the girls.They are all 4 metres wide, so these branches should span the distance easily.
    Then theres the vegies garden itself, that I have needed decent stakes for for ages. Hazel wood is supposed to be quite long lasting...ah maybe, at last.....!
    My creative juices are starting to flow again, envisioning funky trellises. I think they might be alittle too thick in diametre to have a go at making a .....oh bother, cant remember the name of them now, sort of like fencing panels made from woven, split hazel branches.

    The Rosemary cuttings mum started for me are looking good. These are going to be planted out along the top of the rock wall down by the road. Good bee plant and will eventually cover the whole thing, meaning less weeding for me.

    I've just about got the shopping list for kings seeds worked out, mainly for perennial bee plants this year to go around the fruit trees and a friend has just let me know that they have taken a dozen cutting from the black raspberry plant I gave them. That was the one that was growing right where the tank went in and it was easier to pop it on the back of the truck when I took all that top soil over to her than to find some where suitable to re plant it myself.
    It obviously liked the move cos she got a couple of kilos of gorgeous fruit of it in autumn.

    The old woodshed is close to getting emptied. That didnt take as long as I thought it would, so I will be dipping into the new stuff soon.
    I can now see the back wall that needs work thanks to the neighbour on that side leveling the ground and burying the bottom of the shed with gravel. It isnt as bad as I thought it would be, but still work that will have to be done ASAP before it starts to rot out the studs. The concrete block wall doesnt actually look like it needs much done to it at all, The isnt any mortar between the blocks any more, but it is still quite straight. Might need to get an expert opinion on that one. I dont know much about block wall.
     
  20. mischief

    mischief Senior Member

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    I had a lovely day in the garden today after a restful sleep-in and breakfast in bed.
    The door to the tool shed got taken off, turned upside down and re-screwed on the other side. So now it opens the right way and no longer blocks the path when the door is open.
    The step up to the toolshed got made with left over timber from my woodshed project and topped with some of the decking timber that didnt get used for the chooks water tank floor. I was quite surprised by how quickly it got put together. Definitely helps to measure twice before you even think of cutting.

    I decided it was time to confront the chooks main gate that I botched up and tied in place, so that got untied, hauled over to the terrace where I had a solid flat surface to work on.
    After sitting down with a cuppa and thinking about it, looking at it lying there, I realised that all I had to do was take the bracing off, re-nail them so they went the other way and add a block at the top so the hinge was in line with the bottom one.
    I loosely pre-screwed the hinges in place and hauled it back over to the scratch yard.
    A bit of left over retaining wall was just long enough to get nailed across the bottom of the entrance. That should keep the girls from digging their way out and stops the gate from swinging into the garden.
    I found putting a 4x2 under the gate helped me get the height off the ground right, then it was just a matter of screwing onto the post. My trusty ol' level made sure it was level (across the width of the gate) but unfortunately, I forgot to check the up and down bit and didnt notice that the post actually bends towards the back yard, so of course the top of the gate leans as well.
    It wasnt til I went back with some oil to deal with the horrible noise the top hinge made every time I opened it, that I noticed that the top leans into the yard. I'm not too sure I can put up with that, but didnt feel like taking it off and starting all over again. We'll see. It would probably mean having to undo the top hinge, loosen the bottom one, put some packing between the top hinge and the post and tightening everything up again. Getting the right depth of packing could be problematic though so I'm going to try living with it first.
    Because the scratch yard sloped from the garden down to the chook house, putting the bit of timber in front of the gate meant I could use that as the edge of a step and lowering the level of the soil behind it in the scratch yard making it not so steep an incline.

    The back steps that I had started on but hadnt finished were next.
    Because the Splitting stump for the firewood hasnt arrived yet, I have just set the next two steps in place without mortaring them in permanently. They are now a lot more stable to walk on and dont wobble at all, so they should be ok for now.

    The bricks making up the planter box outside the tool shed got tweaked abit more til it looked fab.I'm not going to mortar anything in permanently cos I know me and know that if its not right, I'll have to do it again. So I'm going to make sure all the edges of all the paths/beds are just how they should be before I start with the mortar.
    I put some bits of 4x2's around the inside of this before I filled it up with compost. The apple tree should be arriving soon, so I will be able to plant that out and not have to worry about hurting its roots later on when I do all the mortaring of all the edges.(going to have to take photos so you can see what the hell I am talking about).

    My favourite bit of the yard is still the curved steps that go up around the water tank.
    I realised that it wouldnt work having lavendar planted on both sides of it,so the ones next to the tank stay but the cuttings I put in on the other side of the steps have been pulled out and replaced so far with my one thyme plant. I've heaped some soil over the middle of it so it starts to produce roots along its stems and when they are growing well,I will carefully cut them off and plant them out.
     

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