We Didn't Do Much But We Did A Lot

 "We didn't do much, but we did a lot" seems to have become our most used saying, of late. It's come to mean in a  roundabout way, that although we only did what we felt like doing, and gave up as soon as we started getting tired (hey, we're old!) we are accomplishing stuff over at the property, little by little, and measurably. Were we twenty years younger, we could do a lot more, but we aren't and so we do what we do, and appreciate that we've been able to do whatever we've done. 

Monday, we went over and hubby moved more mulch and put along the dirt track/driveway to fill in some of the ruts for now. 

Since we have no irrigation down that far, I watered the privacy trees using gallon jugs ... and since I can't walk, I drove Serendipity close to the row and watered with my arm out of the car window.  Where there's a will, as they say. Mark watered the fruit trees using the jugs as well. I had bought soaker hoses but we've had so much "stuff" put away that - as yet - I've not found them all.  When we do, we will have them running down by the fruit trees. We are looking into putting a pump in the creek to water the privacy trees and the (eventual) roses and gardenias up front (currently in buckets and pots, as we have to build up the front area a bit beforehand).

Today, we went over with 2 goals in mind.  To sweep, vacuum and mop some more of the concrete pad in the building, and to move all the plants we've taken over previously, to the front porch area and get them all well watered. We were over there a couple of hours and achieved both. You can definitely see the difference between the areas we've done and what's left to do.  It's a work in progress that will not be completed any time soon.  It wears me out, rolling around using the shopvac, and hurts my shoulder after a while. Hubby does the sweeping, I do the vacuuming, then I wet mop and he dry mops over just to garner some more of the wet mud dust. Cleaning both mops is fun too, whilst trying not to create a mudpit when emptying the mop bucket. Ah joy!

But it's coming together slowly.

I took a picture from behind the privacy trees, looking up towards the building. Yeah it looks wonky as I am NOT a good photographer, and where I was at was on a slope anyway. The row of privacy trees will grow 3-4 feet a year, they say, so in a couple of years, should be at least like a decent hedge.

The weird looking black thing about 1/3 of the way in from the left, is the table with the water barrel on it, and is at the end between the 2 rows of the orchard trees (that you can't really make out in this pic) and that is actually about as far from the building as it is from the row of privacy trees (although it looks like it is right up on it). 

We are going to situate the beehives close by there, so that our bees have access to the blossoms, as well as blooms farther afield. We've decided to put the beehives in a pen to protect them from unwelcome visitors who may visit in the night.  We'll be picking up our bees April 11th, only a week and a half to wait. We learned a lot last year and are better prepared because of what we went through. Nobody had explained to us about the moths, and we lost our bees because of it.  We won't make the same mistake twice.

The journey continues (and I'm thankful we got my gas at $3.41 this morning before it went up again this afternoon). The property is 26 miles away, so it all adds up.  I'm glad Serendipity gets such great mileage. She is a great little car, and i've had her now a whole year!