Warming up for earthworks

Today Cam (the birthday boy - 28 today!) and I marked out the top swale with a lazer level. We put a stake every ten metres or so and a small pile of ground limestone every metre or two at the point where the downside of the swale ditch will meet the uncompacted mound. We were pleased to figure out a way of getting it above a large eucalypt near the house fence. What we'll do is make a concrete pond where the spring flow comes underneath the blackwoods. We also picked up a ute load of fire wood from the dead blackwood we chainsawed up yesterday. Bill bought a mid-sized stihl and it's a ripper. Oh yeah, went up the road to ask Warren and BIll to move the 150 calves off today so we can remove the fence below the tennis court, and old Bill the farmer said that what we were doing made a lot of sense and that if it worked he was going to do the same thing (integrated swales and dams etc) on his farm. After that we shot down to Koorooman nursery and picked up another 100 of both Casuarina cunninghamiana and stricta along with a few promising mulch plants called blanke leaf and strawsonia or something like that. Right, off to mark out another swale!