On Even Ground

It has finally begun, after all these long months we now have a level shed site, and therefore an official start on the shed construction.

Early Saturday morning I was finishing up packing a load to take out there when DW informed me that she'd just taken a call from our neighbour to let us know he'd be doing the work that very day once I made it out there. I rushed through the rest of the packing (without forgetting anything this time, last time I forgot the thermos, it was still sitting on the bench when morning coffee time arrived...) and made it over there in good time. After unpacking the load of stuff he arrived and we set about deciding on the best approach. Shortly after that the bulldozer roared to life and he was off and ripping.

After ripping, the first loads of dirt are pushed around.

Thankfully there were only a couple of patches of stone in the spot we'd selected. In other areas there are great reefs of stone sticking out of the earth, and finding one of those would have brought the project to a standstill. There were a number of adjustments made through the day, but before sunset it was done.

All done! The water level featured in an earlier post came in very handy.

I'll need to let the earth settle for a couple of weeks, so weekend after this next one I should be able to begin laying the shed out and digging the holes for the footings. Once they're dug it's time to grab the cement mixer, get a load of concrete mix and start filling the holes. When they've cured the rest of the project should go up quickly.

I'd been keeping myself occupied during the day working on the southern fence for the new orchard, and managed to get the netting up before dark. I'm going to save doing the barbed wire on all of the runs until last, seeing as it's the most exciting part of fencing.... not! Only one side to go on that project and we've got a fenced off orchard out there. Combine that with a tank on the shed and we can start planting this autumn (if not a couple beforehand).

The new orchard's southern fence.

On the home front there was great excitement in the house this morning at the sound of cheeping chicks. We'd tried incubating our own eggs a month ago, but nothing came of it, seems we have yet another dud rooster. We got a few eggs of some mixed bantam breed and put those in, and this morning we have six new chicks!!

The vegetable garden is powering along, as are the seedlings in the glasshouse, and there's only a few trees that haven't flowered yet. Sadly most of the almonds on the older tree are gone already. The parrots have a habit of nibbling all the flowers off and dropping them on the ground. If only they had the forethought to hold off nibbling early then they could come back later and get the fully grown almonds. Seems it's not only humans who don't have the sense to think about the future :-P