Cover Shit and Go Hard

Well Well Well....who ever thought I'd be shovelling shit and loving it.

Today was a day absolutely dedicated to laying multiple covers over the mountains of chicken shit that we had delivered and spread in the HUGE kitchen garden at the front of the house which has been smelling up the place to high heaven and creating the most awesome breeding patch for flies of all nature.

So today, we have mowed about an acre of lawn and spread grass clippings all over the garden followed by a thick layer of leaves raked from under all the trees dropping their leaves currently then followed by the carting of about 15 large wheelbarrows of rich dark soil to be spread over that and about 10 wheelbarrows of compost that has been developing over the past month full of cow and horse manure, blood and bone and lime.....mmmmmm a delicious mix.

The result..... a far more pleasing smell around the house and we are also another big step towards filling the garden with enough organic matter to grow a beanstalk into the clouds.

Also today we were pleasantly surprised by George the Excavator Guy who turned up toward the end of the day and offered to pull apart the Everest style mountain of old trees and dead wood that was on one side of the gardens to be ready for Greg the Mulch Man who is coming this week with his massive machine that eats logs as large as a human being (wicked to watch) and then spits out the most fantastic mix of leaves, green material and finely chipped wood. In fact the pile that has been developing since just last week is already steaming in the mornings. I also had a very nice offer from George to borrow his massive 3 tonne truck to go to the local tip where they sell heat treated black, rick, organic mulch for just $13.50 per cubic metre so I think we are going to get 20 cubic metres and not only fill the remainder of the kitchen garden, we will spread the bulk of it around the large tree in the front yard and cover the area there which is about 400 square metres, ready for planting out later on.

Jasper was a delight today as always and he delicately moved spoonfuls of soil for each one of my shovel loads, he brought me and Tomoko drinks while we were working, helped Tomoko to collect leaves and then carried huge bucket loads of them by himself over 40 metres into the gardens. We made a fresh lunch of greens, tomoato and cucumber with tuna and corn balls rolled in breadcrumbs and cooked in hot oil making sure the balls were small enough to get the crispiness that I love.

Although the day has not ended ... I am now out of a deep hot bath which has helped to remind me how tired I am......Tomoko is feeling much the same but having sweat all day and used almost every muscle in our bodies it feels damn good.

Now off to make some pumpkin soup with some crusty bread and sit by the fire.... yum.