My wonder wall (s)

Oh what a cracking day. Blazing sunshine, no wind, warm weather (fleeces were shed all over the garden as it grew hotter and hotter) and a whole day out in the garden.

And best of all it was a Nicolas day; my second this year.  Boy was I looking forward to that all week. He arrived at 9am and we got stuck in straight away. I do have a huge wish list of projects for him. But time was short so we started using the logs to make a low retaining wall in the shade garden.

The path is now very elegant and complete. A low rock wall on one side, and a two stack log wall on the other.

I had trouble photographing it as it was so glaringly bright. Not something you usually experience in the dead of winter. If felt like a glorious spring day.

Next up was the completion of the walnut bed. Scene of disaster and carnage just three days ago.  When I developed this large garden area I knew it needed a low wall to tidy up the whole look,

But finding perfect stones and being able to lever them into place is a trying experience.  I always put it off. And with the flood, the whole area looked so sorry and forlorn.

But in just a few hours it is transformed. These walls are not high, about two feet or so. But the lower stones are half buried in the ground for stability.

We had quite a few left over stones from this exercise, so I thought they would do nicely in the hedge area which also took a battering from the flood.

And boy was I scrambling to keep up with Nicolas’ relentless pace.  We had this little wall done in about twenty minutes.  My job is to fill buckets with small stones and attend to lesser boulders. And keep on piling them next to the master boulder hauler.

A furious raking of the path to get the levels correct, and then it was on to the barrier beside the road. We built up that with soil. And then had a ceremonial planting of a hornbeam tree in the bottom sharp end of the bed.

If you squint you can just see it.  I will plant up the rest as soon as I can.

In fact that has to be my mantra for the next week. Keep on planting.  I have seven fruit trees that need to go in, plus about two dozen more hornbeams (once I buy them).  So much fun. And so much more fun that moaning about all the mess around the rest of the farm.

I have just enough energy to raise a glass of whisky and celebrate the end of a very successful and happy day.