Catching Up

I have been a bit quiet since my last post as we have been sick as well as busy. Yes sick again and again, and um yes again! Thankfully that run seems to have broken and the kids are back to their bouncy, energetic and sometimes annoying selves 🙂

We were lucky enough to do a quick trip um to see my daughter, son in law and grandson which was awesome, though not anywhere near long enough!! I did however get lots of snuggles, some grandbaby babywearing in along with going out for dinner before coming home. Thankfully it will be only a few weeks till they need to come down this way, then not too many weeks after that is (ok say it quietly) Christmas….

Unexpectedly I came home with an extra child as Zacc my 21 year old decided to move back in for a while until he finds a place of his own. This of course meant that the day after we got back I had to do a major reshuffle of the house to give him his own room. The little kids got moved down to the other end of the house into my room and Zacc went into their room. This means I am currently sleeping in the loungeroom on a single mattress until Dean moves out his snakes, which thankfully and hopefully should be this weekend, then the tiny little snakeroom shall be my bedroom. Luckily I don’t need a lot of space. 

I got some random jobs done like moving the freezer into my dining room from the laundry so one of the bigger snake tanks that isn’t going, can go there instead; I installed a height adjustable shower head so Zacc can actually fit under the shower; moved the guinea pig cage out form the laundry also to outside. I positioned it along the back house wall under where I have the pandora’s growing up the trellis and chicken wire so they get fresh air, sunshine and shade; tied up the pandora lead shoots so they don’t break off in the wind; tidied up contents of the craft cupboard from my loungeroom floor after the kids raided it; brought in and folded 5 loads of washing; moved my wool and fabric tubs into the dogs area until my room is done and did some random around the house cleaning and sorting.

So, now back to the backyard. Since my ex mowed the back lawn with Kai, it made the long grass along the edges and the fence still out horribly, and yes, it annoyed the crap out of me. Now I don’t have a whipper snipper, well a working one anyway. Maybe it’s best not to mention the 5 or 6 broken ones Dean has in the shed… So not wanting to waste money or borrow one I kept to my cheap or no cost methods and pulled it all out by hand or used the secateurs. Yes my back was really, really sore the next day but it was bloody worth it!! I can’t find a good shot of the horrendous fenceline before as I got carried away with it all rather quickly, but here is an after shot of one area as well as the huge mound of pulled grass!

While we were away I asked Dean if he would mind doing scrap metal run as well as a rubbish dump while the kids weren’t there, which thankfully he did. Finally most of the crap has gone out of the yard except for small bits and pieces which I can slowly through away each week in our normal rubbish bin. He also moved the only cut piece of rainwater tank into the old vege garden for me. This is for the turtle and the blue-tongues to move into.

Today I dismantled the old turtle enclosure and created his new one. The first job involved the kids and I scooping out all of the water from his pond and pouring it onto the veges, fruit trees, flowers and then any random plant in the back yard lol They thought it was awesome as the water was green and stinky! Then I rinsed out the tub and put it in the new tank enclosure, filled in some spots around everything with soil from the old enclosure and added some succulent type plants that have been sitting around in no soil for aaagggges. They will hopefully take off now they are actually in some soil! Then I topped those areas with stones to stop the plants drying out too much as well as to stop sand from falling into the pond. These stones are from an old random cage I had pulled up and threw out that had been full of the stones. I can’t even remember what had originally been in there!! Anyway I think it turned out fantastic! I am going to get a variety of small grasses and plant them in too. I don’t think I will add the blue tongues now as they will be able to climb out I think, in fact I think the turtle might too, particular above his pond area so I might need to put some mesh that can lift up for cleaning over that area.

The old enclosure 

The new enclosure, before and after, though a crappy pic

I pulled up the tin sides of the old enclosure, filled in the old pond hole and moved the kids climbing frame there. Then I moved the ‘c’ channel from along the fenceline near there out to my special “salvage yard area” and pulled out the long grass. I nicely asked Zacc to give me a hand and we shifted the swings (finally!) along the fenceline to open up the yard. We played with the positioning a bit with Kai acting as “test swinger” so we could make sure we could get the swings close enough to the the fence to maximise space without having the kids crash into the fence while swinging 😉 It fits in beautifully with the trampoline in its original position, so now we have some good running and kicking space in the middle of the yard.

The yard before

And the glorious after pics, yes I am very, very pleased with it 🙂

There is an area next to the old vege garden that used to be random nothingness which Dean ended up planting some grass pieces in. The plan was just to start them off, then dig them up to move into the yard later on. Well it has now grown well and truly all over that area so was mowed when he did the rest of the yard. lol Along the back was one of the areas I had pulled all the grass from along the fenceline. I decided to move all my fruit tress and bushes there which I had planted into bigger pots a few weeks ago, until I decide where their forever spot will be. It may end up just being there in bigger pots yet. I will buy some straw to build up around the pots in summer to reduce heat and also water loss. Now I can use the old herb garden where I had them all originally as an extra vege garden. The kids and I will plant the butternut pumpkins, extra zucchini’s and herbs in there over the next few days.

All of our vege and flowers are growing amazingly so I will try and remember to take some pics to show you soon x