HAPPY AS A PIG IN MUD

This morning all the earthworks around EdgeOfHeaven were completed.  It has taken Kevin and Jason a week to get through a myriad of tasks.  Today, the second driveway was scaped out to let the gate swing both ways - seemingly a simple job.  However on taking away the surface, a large tree stump emerged.  This was painstakingly extracted and the job completed.  It is amazing that water causes so much erosion as we hardly have any rain.  However because the land is so dry and the grass vegetation is so sparse at this time of year, the water just runs off the land with nothing to hold it back.  When this driveway was repaired, water runoff had to be diverted as well so that it didn't go down the newly finished surface.

Then we tackled the main driveway which was seldom used as no one knew where to go.  A line of large rocks have been placed to divert vehicles either towards the back paddock or over to the shed where we encourage parking to take place.  Thirdly the contour back which takes rainfall towards the dam was scraped out and stacked higher and a little rock waterfall was repaired to slow the volume of water as it enters the dam.  Other jobs which were completed in this last week included hundreds of metres of trenching for irrigation pipes and after laying the pipes, all these trenches had to be backfilled.  Finally, an area was dug up to make yet another group of trees, this time in the dam paddock.

So with all the dirt displaced and then replaced all we needed was.....RAIN.  The sky had been cloudy for 2 days and a tiny amount of rain had fallen late Sunday.  But we have had so little rain, it has become a joke to even mention the word.

This afternoon, in the desperate hope that rain would fall, I took the bike and trailer out to the new area to be planted and started preparing holes, inserting agricultural pipe and popping fertilizing pills in next to the pipes.  Then I took the trailer over to some respectable dirt to be used to backfill my holes and collected enough for my 11 trees and went up to the bore to fill up the water bottles to soak my holes with water before planting.

All preparation was completed and I started my planting.  A large black cloud came over (as has happened many times before) and I kept going.  After finishing my second tree, the sky opened with rain and lightning and there I was in a sea of mud, mud, mud - soaking wet with jeans, shirt, gloves and boots covered.  I had two choices - get out of the rain  - or - be as happy as a pig in mud and continue.  I chose the latter and an hour later well after the rain had finished I jumped back on the bike as the sun was setting, a little chilly but entirely overjoyed to finally see rain - and what timing after all the hard work was done in the last week.  The contour bank which was repaired this morning worked extremely well and a small river ran down to the dam.

However the job isn't quite finished yet.  Next Friday the pump will be installed in the bore (where all the trenching originated) and the following week, Edith will return to connect the pipes and install the irrigation monitor, sprinklers on the impending front pasture grass and drippers on all 40 trees.