The Good Life, pt 2

Just before it got into Mozzie Hour, I snapped this shot of how far we got. Turning over the soil is going to be a mammoth task (I've done some in the section closest to the camera - where the ground looks a little ochre coloured). There are heaps of clay+rock patches that make it impossible to get the shovel into the soil more than a centimetre or two. You can see that in my next pic....
Despite that looking like it's just resting lighting in the top soil, I stood on that shovel with my full (substantial 'big-boned') weight and all I did was nearly fall headfirst into the dirt. About a cm of dirt and then its the stuborn blend of clumpy clay packed with pebbles & rocks. I've found a way to negotiate it with the fork, but it involves sweat-intensive labour, and sneaking underneath the clumpiest parts, levering them up and then crumbling the clumps by fork & hand tossing the larger rocks to one side (which you can see in the top photo, along the bench is a growing collection of garden variety rocks.

A Good Life

Do you remember that 70's British show about a couple who decided to escape the "rat-race" and live sustainable?

We had Earth Hour last night. I sat in my sister's backyard with candles (which probably weren't made in any environmentally friendly fashion) and ate our BBQ'd food. It was lovely.

However my sweaty contribution to sustainable living started earlier in the day when I decided started in on one stretch of backyard lawn that Mum & I had decided should be converted to a 24/7 organic, help yourself, food place.



Our plan is to dig up the existing lawn of weeds (as featured above) and plant a 'green manure' crop of bio-mustard, clover & lucerne. This will help enrich the soil for the vegetables we want to plant in spring.

Digging a little below the 'lawn' I discovered a whole lot of sandstone bits (possibly landfill?) and the soil is a hodgepodge mix of sand and clay and fairly bland topsoil. So I'm thinking we might want to remove some of that and cart in some richer stuff to turn through the existing mix.

Because I'm being pedantic about loving the earth, we're avoiding chemical solutions to removing the 'lawn'. I'm currently shovelling it up, shaking the soil out and tossing it into the green-waste bin. Tedious, and my legs are letting me know that they are noticing the squat-shovel-lift routine. But, well worth it!


This is my other contribution to global waste reduction. No more Mountain Spring Water plastic bottles for me!

Idiomatically Speaking...

I feel as though perhaps one of my sisters have shared their germs with me. But I don't really want to blog about how queasy I've been feeling since the bus left the city today.

What I want to blog about is Sunday night, but I'm too tired to do that so I'll settle with showing you pictures that I took on Saturday.

Firstly, (at least I hope it is first) a tiny coffee pot and tea kettle (more pics can be found here


Then a flutter of wings and a pouncing feline (more pics)



And now, with so frightfully few words of substance, (or idioms) I go to my bed to sleep off whatever it is I've got.