Earthworks are over!

Right, here's what went down the last few days.

On Saturday Cam and I fixed the new fence on the Eastern boundary. The tension of the wire was pulling about six star pickets out of the ground so we banged in another star picket below each one sideway and wired the existing one onto that. We also made a start on finishing by hand the two small swales in the orchard. I think we've done eight swales in total now. Probably about enough I reckon.

Sunday we finished off the top swale and Cam thinned out the elms above the diversion drain while I marked all the power and telephone cables with coloured bricks for future identification purposes. We also decided to use the newly finished orchard swales as our winter garden bed so I planted out some broccoli using a newspaper sheet mulch to keep the kikuyu roots at bay. I also ordered a shitload more cover crop seeds along with some winter veggies. As the cover crops come up on the mounds we'll just sow more seed into any gaps.

Today the tracked bobcat came and cleaned up the diversion drain, leveled the terrace, and fixed up the driveway (leveled some rough sections and put in a woo-up to divert water sideways). It just left and all the earthworks are now done, finished, even paid for. Fantastic! It looks like it is just about to rain hard too which is a bonus - hopefully in time before the cover crops kark it - we've had a few hot days running now. Jay gave me a go in the bob cat and that was a bit of fun. It feels like being in a moon explorer or something.

Tomorrow morning I've arranged with the dairy farmer to our north, east, and west to pick up a uteload or two of fresh cow poo. We're gonna try glying, or using a layer of fermenting organic matter to seal the second little water catchment below the south eastern spring.


Here are the orhcard swales after they were dug by Jay in the 12-tonner and before Cam and I finished them off by hand. They actually look quite beautiful now.


Here's Jay tidying up the diversion drain.


Here's Jay tidying up the goose pond.


Here's Jay leveling the terrace - now it varies by less than 2cm and slopes very slightly toward the north for drainage. Within the week we hope to once-off rotary hoe it, sow seed potatoes, and mulch it.


Here's Cam working Jay to put a water-diverting woo-up in the driveway.