Women's Business

Well I foolishly told Steve about my days work in the garden and we immediately got into the same argument about it being a waste of time and it wouldn't work and it would all fall down. Luckily it is dark by the time he comes home from work and he hasn't bothered to go and have a look at my feeble efforts before he goes off to work in the mornings, so today as soon as 7.30 am had come and gone and I knew I'd have no work and have the day to myself, I got Steve out the door then rang my friend Karen. After asking that loaded question "what are you up to today" and getting the hoped for response of "nothing really" put to her the idea of spending a day digging holes and pouring quick set cement and sweetened the whole thing with a promised trip to Bunnings, she was hooked :)

We spent a good hour or so wandering in circles in Bunnings as they have moved EVERYTHING and hidden the things we were looking for. Finally we had the car loaded up with poles, cement, brackets, screws, nails, a big planter, grow your own mushrooms and a few veggie plants. We surveyed our work area and formed a plan of action then had a bit of a sit in the sun with a good cup of coffee.

First came hole digging which proved to be a real task as the soil here isn't really soil at all after the first 5 - 6 inches, it's bright red thick clay, you can literally see a line where the top soil ends and the clay begins. Another hazard were tree roots as the holes were right next to an old stump. Now being girls we dug the easier of the two holes first, the one away from the wall, slightly in the wrong place but that was easily rectified. You can see the 6ft plus crow bar we are using smash our way through tree roots and clay. I must admit Karen did most of the crow bar swinging, but she seemed to be enjoying it :)

Then we started on the second hole and realised our mistake when I nearly fell down the first one, but we're smart cookies and won't make the same mistake again. This hole was almost impossible to dig out as it was more tree root than anything else, but we persevered and got a hole deep enough for the pole and a goodly amount of cement. A good belting with a sledge hammer helped drive it that bit deeper and we were confident we had done enough, so in went the cement then we left it to set while we had a late and much needed lunch.
The cement in the back hole wasn't setting real fast as there was a bit too much water in there, so we used the brackets and screws to start attaching the second lot of front logs. This was were I thought my original plan might have a flaw and wasn't sure if I could get them attached securely enough, but the brackets worked a treat and their as strong as they need to be, no stronger than necessary, capable of holding together a veggie garden without having to endure earthquakes and other natural disasters as required by your average (or not) engineer.

By 3 we had the first two front logs on but decided the cement would need to be left over night before we started driving in the nails to hold the ends on so we called it a day. I've sat my veggie plants on top of the earth pile so they are in situ. Hopefully the phone won't ring tomorrow and we can spend another day and get it finished. Tonight I have got to try and get some straps out of Steve's 4WD without him knowing as I'm not going through the whole it won't work speech again until I've proved him wrong - so we can buy a few more logs for the front as a couple are a bit dodgy
So end of day two and I am confident it will all work, sorry bad pic but late afternoon shadows. Having bought two lovely new poles, I am going to keep them long and have something hanging from them, not sure what yet, but I'm sure I'll find just the right thing. During all this hard work, I even managed to knock up a batch of Chelsea buns, with the help of the bread maker of course, which we had with a cuppa after lunch. Karen always works better if fed at regular intervals:) You can bet your bottom dollar that the phone will ring tomorow as I would love to get this finished before the weekend and Steve will see it in daylight, how good will it be if it's all done and standing with my cabbages all planted out. Ok better go and get out of these muddy jeans before my days exploits are exposed to the doubting one.