Morning: mowing in and around Rhodo-project (western entrance):

I often feel like a little boskabouter. Miniature scale landscaping. Kabouter tracks. Sometimes I feel more like a motorized kabouter. With the Husqvarna. When I can make really wide tracks I would be glad to have a small mower. Like the one at the Jachthuis at De Laan Estate. Or the one at Eastwoodhill.
When I’m using the Shindaiwo I feel like a mowing machine. Could use the Bücher mower here.
But we’re still going on.
I did:
1 hr. mowing with Husqv. outside the project.
1.5 hr. inside
1 hr. mowing with Shind. outside the project, rushes along the lake, to the west, around Alders and Liquidambar formosana var. monticola 1954 008 # 1535 (another kneeling tree; make good photo’s!)
0.5 hr. mowing with Husqv. around that spot.

Still need to mowe the front within the fence.
- – - -
In the afternoon I started mowing some thistles along the track in the paddock called Swamp, between the two “bridges”.
I took a full load on the trailer of old rushes, sedges, etc. from the Rhodo-project and outside it at the western entrance.

I brought this to the compost and garden rubbish station behind the homestead.

I worked on the compost all day.

Morning:

1 wheelbarrow of “suspected material” to (garden-)rubbish tip.

5 wheelbarrow of earth from garden-rubbish tip to compost.

Sorted out the different stacks of branches around the compost.

Did some cutting on the shrubs around the compost (especially Chimonanthes praecox 1950 014 #724 (needs to get labelled btw!.

Afternoon:

5 more wheelbarrows from garden-rubbish to compost.

Worked a bit in Isobel’s garden.

Creeping jasmine must be cut out of the hedge at the back!

Brought a wheelbarrow of garden-rubbish to the compost-bin.

Checked the second compost-bin. It does well. It gets really hot inside. Good structure. Good colour. Turned a part of the first heap around and dumped good stuff into the second bin. First bin is doing well. It gets hot and I saw some worms!

Carried 5 wheelbarrows of compost from the rubbish dump to the compost-bin. Four in 1st bin, one into the second.

Wheelbarrow has a flat tyre!

Broadband connection down from about noon.

Yesterday Steven lighted the Garden Rubbish Tip. It was his own idea. No one asked him for that. No one wanted it. But it happened. Just after Rory, Sheryl, Diane, Amy and Steven finished the garden pond. We took it for granted and after the first operations to rescue the sides of the tip I started cleaning up the whole tip. Get everything from the sides to the (slowly burning) middle. We got help from a few showers. Not so good for the fresh concrete in the pond, but good for controlled burning of the tip. 3 hours + 1 of Wilma.

Late in the evening we got a third shower. Again a rather heavy one. But the fire was still burning this morning, so we cleaned it further. Especially in the afternoon.

But first our morning:

Wilma and I both mowing and raking in the Rhodo-project and the little piece of land in front of it.

Wilma with the light Husqvarna. She did the stretches that we had already done before: 50 m2 in the front and 75 m2 in the Rhodo-project.

I worked with the heavy Shindaiwo. Cleaned some 20 m2 in the Rhodo-project and some 20m2 of blackberry in the front. We raked not (yet) everything we mowed, but we got help from Diane and Pet, her mum.

In the meantime we discussed some future plans. We especially agreed on continuing the working relation for next year. Exact arrangements still have to be made, but I will be back at Hackfalls Arboretum from October 2008 to March 2009, and Wilma will accompany me again for a couple of months. Diane is alright if we try to get new volunteers on the project. The shearer’s quarter is available (when there is no shearing, of course). Same for Isobel’s cottage. Perhaps some members of the family will want to use it for a short time.

2 x 4 hours.

In the afternoon Wilma cut down the grape behind the homestead garden. Freed the Feijoa. The grape weeped. After about an hour I put a cup under the dripping stem. It was completely filled up a few hours later and then it was still dripping. The rubbish tip was still burning and I went on cleaning it up. Diane had added some garden rubbish to it. I carried 10 + 5 wheelbarrows of good compost out of the Garden Rubbish Tip into the compost bins. 10 in the third bin and 5 in the first. At almost nine o’clock in the evening in the middle of the tip there was still a niece fire going on. You could now walk all around the fire, but inside the tip, with the wheelbarrow.

2 x 3 hours.