A House is Built: A Saturday in May

All week I have been looking forward to today. Hoping first to see my Mark in the wee hours and then get back into the garden. Not so much of Mark, but plenty of garden is how it progressed!
I made a bet with him, he would be asleep in 20 minutes. At 23 minutes I was telling him a story about work and when I asked him if he knew what I was talking about he replied (smugly) "speed racing".

So by the smallest of margins he escaped the punishment which was to be flowers for me.

I sent him to bed and got on with my day.

It was very cold this morning, but by the time I got the first loads of washing on their way, it was warm enough to go out and dig in a T-shirt (and pants and shoes and socks.)

My hand, elbow and shoulder have been a mess this week and I have been wearing a wrist brace. I kept it on while I dug today and it worked very well.
Rather than do what I have done on previous weekends, I mixed the activity up a bit. First I dug two holes, for the deck-level retaining wall.

The photo was taken at the end of today's work but you can see the supported sleeper running at right angles to the deck. By running that out, and filling behind it, I have been able to give the deck a wide flat entrance. Before it was an uncomfortable step that increased towards dangerous.

Beneath the step I have planted a small garden and shifted my Christmas present pots. The idea is that corner of the deck is now clearly 'garden' and I hope people won't fall off onto it!

With the sore arm, I was conscious of not overdoing one activity so I took a break to water the front lawn, clean the front driveway and hang out two more loads of washing.

Looks a bit tragic, but I am confident it will come good

Then it was back to shifting dirt. I filled behind the steps and levelled the area off the deck. By the time that was done, i think I was about half way through the 5 cubic meters of soil that were delivered the day before ANZAC day.

Half a lot of dirt

I will probably take a few more barrow loads to the steps area as the soil compacts, then spread the rest out to make this front garden. if you look carefully in the photos, you will probably see the pittosporems and camellias that I am thinking of planting in this bed. The pittosporums towards the road and the camellias towards my bedroom. Zig zagging along the bed?

Don't hold me to it, I have changed my mind a million times already.

The other side of dirt mountain- Camelias? Pittosporums?


My weight gives the advantage of excellent soil compression when I tromp

The area is almost ready for the last stage and I am so keen to fetch the turf but I have a few reasons to wait:
The plumber is coming on Wednesday to install the sump at the front of the house. Until he is done, there is no point lawning. It will just get messed up while he does his business.
I am getting a large pot for fish to go down in the 'Japanese' garden. It is going to need to be dragged through the yard and the lawn is supposed to be 'no go' for most of winter once it is laid.
I am also thinking of getting a couple of 75litre pot Crab apples for the back yard. Same thing applies. Won't be able to drag them across newly laid turf.
And I don't really trust the building site next door not to wash their cement mixers out and let it run all over my yard or whatever. Today I went next door and heaved their ring lock fence back onto their land instead of it sprawling all over mine.