Although there is still so much to do, we have accomplished a lot in the last year.
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| Vastly different from the boggy mud out the front at handover |
Drainage is still quite a problem. The middle part of our block has an inch or so of water sitting on it constantly, it's so boggy we can't get the mower anywhere near it, even walking across it you sink down dramatically. Once (if!!) it dries out we have decided that we will dig it up to lay some agi pipe which should hopefully help clear some of the water away next winter.
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| Not a great pic, but you can see where I got bogged and gave up. One good thing with the long grass in the middle - it serves as a great camouflage for the huge dirt pile at the top! |
The grass seed we planted all those months ago has finally produced some grass - and lots of weeds, the green looks so much better than the dirt. We can't really plant more grass seed over the bare dirt in other places at this stage due to all the work that is going to happen with the drainage.
We have sorted out the area near the tanks, it was another drainage nightmare, it now has agi pipe and has been covered in stones. Looks really great. We still have to finish shaping the garden bed in front of our bedroom window for more pebble garden, and also get more pebbles to put along the front of the living room and alfresco. Due to our large eaves, we cannot get grass to take in these spots, so thought it best to continue on the stones. We will also make some stepping stones out of leftover bricks across the stones in front of the alfresco.
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| Yay! Some grass took! Stones to go in that attractive bare patch |
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| Freshly washed after completion. Even the walls and tanks got a clean :) We still need to edge it properly and work on the bit that will link it to the front of the Master bedroom |
I have planted a few more small natives in the garden bed near the front path, and also a couple of small bushes on the small hill outside the master window and near the septic, I'm really hoping these take well.
The trees planted along the driveway are all still alive and growing, and majority of those on the back batter are still alive as well. There have also been another half dozen natives pop up on the back batter to add to those already planted.
We got our first 'bill' for power. Although I actually had to pay this time instead of receiving a credit, we are still ahead as the credits we have received in the past covered it. Not too much credit remaining though so hopefully the next bill won't be very high, or will be credit only. The next bill will make it one year with the solar so I'm really eager to find out how much electricity will have cost us for 12 months. We had a great week of weather last week so we turned off our HW booster, it was lovely to get some free HW again even if we had to turn it on again today so only had one week of relying on the sun.
