Van Stadens 2013.04.17

Quite unusual today as we had no set plan of action, usually we know what we want to achieve on a particular day. On the way we got a mayday call from Jenny as both her an Rob did not have keys to the room so it was important that we opened up. This prompted us to stay around at the nursery and while Ellie dug up some more slabs I put another layer of plastic down and I am glad to say that the entire shade house floor is now covered.

After early tea we disappeared to the arboretum and proceeded to prepare for the “pond”, Ellie raking all potential leak hazards away while I had a final check of the plastic and still put some patches on suspicious looking spots. We then put it in place, filled it with water and voila:

It was still the same level when we left and we already saw a robin visiting it so hopefully next time we will see some buck spoor.

We then proceeded with our pet hobby, fixing pipes but I was in too much of a hurry and did not prepare the pipes well enough so when it came to gluing the pipes did not line up and I could not move the join in place. During lunch I got another piece of pipe and this time it worked out ok, we’ll see next time where the next leak will be.

In the meantime Ellie collected some rocks to put around the Sterculia to discourage porcupines from chewing it again and also looked for more thorny creepers to be dug out. I think we will be at that for some time to come because every time when we think we had them all we discover another one. It was quite a job to dig out the stump of a major creeper, I managed just before lunch.

After a leisurely lunch at the Fovs room we returned, Jenny and Rob joined us to water the trees, Rob discovered a Bohemia which also had to be dug out and I removed some more stumps from the beginning of “Rudi’s Ramble”

Lastly we weeded the rockery by the bench which really meant digging up the rocks and make them more visible whilst taking some grass out. It got Ellie’s stamp of approval:

It was good to still have a cup of coffee with the spray on watering the rockery while the cold front approached.