Irrigation and tree planting

November 2013 - we laid the irrigation after work for a week which was pretty hard yakka and then spent a weekend getting the trees planted.  Getting the trees delivered and planted had to wait til the ground dried out a bit after a really wet winter.

Sago threw herself into the challenge

 

The trees arrive!

OK, so it has been way too long since I posted, so I am going back to old photos taken and uploading them with captions and a timeframe.  This was a pretty exciting day, with the photo taken just after the oak and hazel trees had been delivered by Al.  November 2013.

Levelling and irrigation

A final levelling of the ground for the trees and grass, and then the trenches were dug for the irrigation.  Pumps were then installed and pipes laid.  Stew has been a busy project manager and has put a lot of graft in too.

A break in the weather

We've had a break in the weather and the lime is finally spread.  Another job done.

Quiet contemplation

Stew thinking about his next move as captured through the kitchen window.  At this stage we have lime spread, irrigation ditches dug and sand spread ready for the grass to grow.

Quinninup Falls

We discovered Quinninup Falls in Wilyabrup in September.  There is an upside to all the rain we've had - the falls were heaving with water and it was a beautiful site as the water cascaded down to the beach.

Would you like lime with that?  
A semi trailer load of lime was delivered in August and it was a pretty tricky manoeuvre to get it onto the block with a couple of narrow turns on the drive.  It was a rare sunny Winter's day and we had a couple of weeks solid rain after this but luckily not too much washed away thanks to Stew's tarp work.

It was lovely to hear the squawks of black cockatoos again today, they've been away most of Winter.  After a feast of gumnuts they were on their way again.

I think this is a great promo for Dunsborough Dingo Hire! Steve's machines have been a semi permanent fixture on the block.

This winter was said to be one of the wettest the south west has experienced in the past 20 years.  We certainly felt it and it was a case of noticing when it wasn't raining.  Stew efficiently got the paddock weed killed and ploughed but then we had weeks of endless rain which left us with a great big bog.  The water took a while to drain away without the grass there any more and we had to patiently wait until we could get machinery back on there.  The trusty ute even got stuck at one point.  Steve from Dunsborough Dingoes managed to remove all but one of the big rocks that were buried.  It's the one in the last photo - it wasn't going anywhere so we've covered it back up and we'll let it stay.  The other big rocks we've had broken up for landscaping.  We'll save those for Fred and Jenn's visit in Summer!

Given Stew and I have now experienced about 9 months of our south west tree change, I thought it was time we start documenting what we're up to, particularly for the folk in the UK now that they are online, yay!

This blog isn't really about attracting an audience, but a handy way to share what we're up to.

This week probably isn't the best time to start talking about our 'living in the country' experiences given our struggles with technology over the past 2 weeks.  Honestly, you'd think we were in Timbuktu given how hard it seems to be to get a decent internet connection.  But we'll soldier on and hope the posts get more positive from here!