Keith’s shifts worked out for a change so we had a full Wednesday contingent today, all five of us! We happened to arrive at the same time, this means we were early and the hacking contingent disappeared to do some steep slope work. Ellie wanted to finish her varnishing so she first went and scrubbed the two tables that were left, funny enough the “Gwen Skinner” table at the lookout needed it the most.
I proceeded to put up the final irrigation pipe in the shade house which meant first the supporting cable and, thanks to some nifty leverage system, I could tighten it by myself. Ellie had taken the camera in the car so I could not take a pic. It all went quite smoothly even though the joints needed some nipple cream to make the pipe go in. Could not test it because Heunis was busy weeding in the nursery.
Chatting to Goodman he undertook that the staff will look after the weeding in the nursery proper while we will do the shade, green and misting house. I can live with that.
After tea everybody wanted to do some relaxing work but for a change I took the role of slave driver and herded everybody to the arboretum for some much needed maintenance as shown in the last post
Cathy, Keith and Ellie got busy in the Cycad patch, Rob found a lot more Bryphyllums than he expected and I cleared Ericas around Jenny’s tree patch after varnishing the arboretum sign. Neil also visited briefly to check up whether we were working.
After lunch Rob and I put up a protective cover for the watering valve and filter for the greenhouse, I put sprays in the new pipe, Ellie varnished the tables and then we worked some more in the arboretum. Before we knew it it was five o\’clock and we had overstayed our welcome.