Rory is handy. I am not.

When you see this, you know you've got a lot of work ahead of you: Daylight Savings hit this Sunday, so the weather around here is getting warmer and the days are a bit longer. We also just had a three day weekend to boot! To celebrate, we've started working on our garden, and have gotten quite a bit done! Its even starting to look (gasp) landscaped. Or, at least, the garden beds are there so that it WILL look lanscaped when we finally get around to putting in the plants. Rory bought a heapload of sleepers at Bunnings and created garden beds in the front and back yards. The layout below shows where we put in the new beds... they're the bits of blue. So, Rory spent the weekend sawing away at sleepers, drilling them in place, tilling the soil, and hauling the 5 cubic metres of dirt we got delivered. I helped a bit, but frankly all that drilling and manual labour is a bit out of my skill set. I'm more a running-to-the-hardware-store and making-lunch-for-the-workers sorta gal. But I do that really well. Except that when I went to the hardware store to get more sleepers, nobody was there to help me load them up and I banged myself in the head with one of them. I'm such a handy person. He created (as you can see from my rather ugly graphic) 5 beds in the front and 5 beds in the back. These three are going to be my veggie patch: (Picture coming soon. As soon as I find my camera charger, charge my camera, take more pictures and put them up. So maybe not so soon.) This one is going to be flanked by a fruit tree on either side. Think I might plant some colorful flowers here: (See above) And these are along the fence in the front yard and surrounding a tree in the front yard that used to be kinda lonely:

Obviously, this isn't the picture I had envisioned. I was going to take pictures of the BEDS, not of Alfie. But my camera ran out ofbatteries and I have been unable to find the charger. If you look in the background, however, you can see one of the beds Rory made... this one is surrounding the tree in the front yard.

There are a few more, but I might just wait and post pictures once I've planted something in them. Pictures of empty flower beds are, alas, pictures of dirt. Which, by the way, Alfie loves:

This is where Alfie laid for... well, pretty much for the whole weekend. He was in Doggie Heaven. Ah, to be a dog.

I think he was just the tiniest bit disappointed that we didn't leave the dirt in a huge pile on the front lawn. He played in it for hours on Saturday and then again on Sunday, digging giant, Alfie-sized holes, napping in the cool dirt, and burying assorted playtoys and objects, to be found later by Rory as he carted the dirt. Speaking of carting dirt, I was rather useful, come to remember. Our wheelbarrow's wheel had a most unfortunate puncture that rendered it all but useless for carting dirt, so I went and bought a new one at Bunnings. A self-assembled one. Now, wheelbarrows might look like fairly simple apparatuses, and they might appear fairly straightforward to put together, but, lemme tell ya... looks can be decieving. First, I put the wedges in wrong, so the angle to the wheelbarrow was all wrong and the wheel didn't touch the ground. Then, I did a step out of order, so the kneeguard thing wouldn't go in properly (not that I think that was a crucial component to the wheelbarrow anyway). Finally, I had the whole thing put together. Rory came over, examined it, then grabbed the wrench and started unscrewing with great abandon. Apparently I had put the bolts in the wrong way. As if that really matters.

Putting together the wheelbarrow, phase one. Note the incorrect angle of the handles. I put the wheel on and it didn't touch the ground. Oops. This stupid thing took about an hour to put together! That's another flower bed in the background. Alfie coming to have a look. He was somewhat concerned about the cursing and banging going on... this was about when I realized the wheel problem and had to dismantle. That's our new park bench in the foreground, by the way. I'm going to paint it, but haven't decided what color yet.

Next weekend we start the fun part, where I get to be in charge. The planting. I'm still trying to decide what sorts of things I want in each of the beds... any ideas? Keeping in mind, of course, that THREE of the plants I planted two weeks ago have already made their way to Botanical Heaven. Its been raining constantly since I planted them, but somehow, inexplicably, they're parched. Rory thinks it might have been because they were under the overhang of the house. Seriously, though. Its not that big of an overhang. They really should have been able to figure that one out. So I'm on the lookout for some leave 'em and forget 'em type of plants. As in, really forget about them. But I still want them to smell nice, have flowers I can cut and put in a vase, and attract lots of nifty butterflies and birds. Wishful thinking?