Kangaroo visit

It rained today, and this little guy was looking for some new green shoots to eat in our yard.

What a surprise to see this little beauty, hop past my window as I was talking on the phone!

I love the native wildlife in our area. I saw two crows chasing after a grasshopper in this same spot earlier - and a flock of blue breasted finches decided to perch on the rocks together. The things you notice when you stop to look.

Kookaburra

We found this beautiful little fella looking for lizards as we sat down for our own breakfast. No doubt he was looking for his!

He was just about to take off as we shot this photograph. Another pleasant reminder how close we are living to the native wildlife.

Cut-side retaining wall

We're nearly ready to start erecting the garden shed, but there's a few more walls to go up on the cut-side.

We needed stairs in this one, so what better place to start than on the baby wall first!

I'm standing on the stairs to be. Small wall on the left - whopper wall on the right.

We cut the trench out, ready for the roadbase. This was a very easy wall because it was small.

Cut the tiers in for the different levels.

Extended end of trench slightly, for the ag pipe. It will make more sense in the next picture.

Partially buried ag pipe, beneath the blue-metal, backfill. I'm a few steps ahead of myself though. Let's go back to the first course.

First course goes down on the compacted roadbase. All done by hand. Dave and Sarah were there to help.

Checking it's level, with the spirit level. Gloves are a must have too!

And finally, the finished wall. Well almost finished. The capping stones on top need to have the gaps filled with half-caps. You can also see in this photo, the beginnings of the second mega wall. But more on that in my next entry. It's almost finished too.

Green Tree Frog

We had a vistor on our glass door one night, hunting for moths attracted to the porch light.

He decided to find a less conspicuous place to sit when we came out, but the brickwork isn't the best camouflage for a green tree frog. It amazes me how they can walk up vertical surfaces though.

We get two types of frogs around here frequently: Green tree frogs and Burrowing frogs, which we continually dig-up in the garden. You can get quite a fright when the soil suddenly jumps off your shovel!!

Another garden shed retaining wall

We always knew we'd use the few metres of land between the first wall and our boundary fence, but weren't exactly sure how. So with nearly a whole pallet of blocks left, we set to work on another smaller wall.

Here is where work begins. We managed to manouvre around a native grass to preserve it.Directly in front is the first wall we constructed several weeks ago, and right beside the grass is the beginnings of the trench for wall number two. I thought I would highlight the naitve grass as a navigation point in the pictures to come.

Here is where the first course goes down on the compacted roadbase, and backfilled with blue metal. Although we went through a lot of blue metal to fill the hollow blocks, drainage is improved immensely. See the clump of native grass?

This is the new wall in comparison to the old one. If you can see the 3 wooden stakes in the ground, that is where the wall is destined to follow. We never meant to plan such a sweeping effect, but it's given us a wonderful opportunity to impliment some stairs.

And this is looking between the two walls, where the stairs will be. We have some blocks already set out to mark where they will go, but we've decided on a different colour for the steps. Those bricks will be for wall number 3, which is on the cut side of both these walls. We already have two pallets waiting to be laid

And finally, the finished wall! We went an extra course higher on this one because it was on a lower piece of ground. It all does the job though. We were surpised how fast this particular wall went up. Not surprising considering it was about half the size of the first one.

What you're looking at in the last photo however, is going to be the final resting place of the garden shed. Finally! One more wall to go up before the slab can be laid though.

Can you still see the native grass? We're very happy it survived the construction process. That's what you can do when you're doing it by hand.

Spare tyre

Ever wonder what to do with a spare tyre?

The last remaining tyre from our wall project became our daughter's - but she's more than happy to share it with her Panda cat.

What must go through a cat's head after seeing something they simply have to sit in! Empty cardboard boxes are generally his favourite, but this object obviously had to get the Panda booty treatment too. He likes it!

First day at school

Doesn't she look all grown up in her school uniform. She has been so looking forward to this day!

We had a few teething problems at school. Had no detatchment issues when mum left, but had problems doing what the teachers told her to do. I suppose there are going to be good days and bad ones, but I know our girl always tries her best. Even if she does get it wrong occassionally.

Aren't we all human like that?

Happy first day of prep my little one. We are so proud of you! May you fulfill all your dreams.