Garden bed, day 5

It's just about there. I am having so much fun banging in nails that I have probably spent twice as long on it as necessary. I really like the way the notes go up the scale as you bang in a nail. Donk, donk, donk, donk, donk.

My beautifully ugly retaining wall

Put in the earplugs gang, I'm about to blow my own trumpet. I love my retaining wall! And it's not even finished. You will only realise how accomplished I feel if you have seen my soft graphic designer's hands, or seen me accidentally gash myself using a screwdriver. I simply cannot do this tooly stuff. And yet, there it is.

Sure, its not retaining anything yet. I don't even know what to plant in it. But it feels solid, it's used up a bunch of old timber we've had lying around, and I feel good having just barreled into it with the tools and materials I had, and solved problems that came up as I went along.

My buddy and frequent blog commenter Nobody gave me some sage advice and my dad did a bit of digging, but part from that, its all my own preposterous work.

Michael measures wall with giant calipers

I know, fantastic, right?

I am a "tools all over the place" type of tradesman.

Situation report: its very wet and very green

Disappearing the back fence

Stuck on black paper circles. I can tell you its very therapeutic to walk around putting "holes" in things. Try it.

Holes cut, and fence painted dark green. Also the beginnings of grassy camouflage pattern.


A bit more grassy camouflage. Still definitely a fence. I will continue to work towards a fenceless look. Maybe we should consider a moat, or even a ha-ha. They are due for a revival.

Up to the front door in nineteen easy steps

Our landscape man Rob has finished our beautiful steps. There are a couple of hmm, idiosyncracies, but we are very happy with them and the difference to the front yard is amazing.