17 January: arbor tops and decorating

Monday, 17 January 2022

At home

While Allan installed the six painted arbor toppers, two per arbor…

….I occupied myself making a paver path and scraping the top layer of leaf mold out of the areas of the swales where water had receded, then adding it to the new garden beds.

Allan brought two big pavers.

Scavenging for soil

To get more soil, I decided that I will do a project soon that I’ve been thinking of for awhile. I am going to connect the deep path swale with the metal path swale across the lawn. The connection will run along where the pile of branches is temporarily stashed, then make a diagonal deep narrow cut across the lawn, narrow enough to not need much bridging:

Metal path

Pile of branches

Swale will cross the lawn

And will join ”the deep path”.

I can do all but the connecting lawn section so that I still have a way to wheelbarrow soil to the new willow grove beds for now. Depending on how deep it is, I might even be able to use sideways H blocks for stepping stones. It all depends on how many tree roots I run into. The dug up sod can be used to raise the lowest bit of lawn, and the sandy soil will go out to the new beds. That’s the plan, will see how it plays out.

Allan used some 2x4s to make a walkway to get out into the frog swale and retrieve four pieces of driftwood that we had put out there for decoration, at the line that tax sifter says is the edge of our property. We don’t have the money to argue with the survey that put our property at least ten feet further in. Our undeveloped lot was recently assessed and taxes increased based on its large size and it will be so until 2023 when I can ask it be lowered because it is theoretically not as big as tax sifter says (80×117).

Below, the two vertical posts behind Allan are where tax sifter says our south line is. His photos show that we would own the swale if tax sifter were correct (but the port manager told us “Taxsifter is WRONG!”). Of course, we wish we owned the swale so we could protect the frogland.

…to the left, the short vertical posts mark the taxsifter boundary

Per tax sifter, all that should be ours.

Looking over the part of the swale that taxsifter says Alicia owns! We left a marker out there.

I needed the posts to do a different thing, a visual reminder not to fall sideways into the deepest part of the bridged swale.

We did some decorating with the white buoy rope, after I wodged some trunks and broken posts under the willow arch to hold it up. If developers come along the very outside of what they claim is our property line, they may aggressively cut the willows that go through the fence, and I don’t want the arch to fall down…their surveyors already knocked down one arch, which is what got me going on this whole fence project.

I am very fond of this willow arch.

I just love the walk through the three arbors. The brilliant idea came just because I was too lazy to dig out all the fence posts. First arch, viewed from a Bogsy wood path:

Go through and turn left:

Second arch:

Turn left to third arch:

Now you are back in the bogsy wood, through the arch with summer dry metal paths to the left (stepping ”stones” are metal water vault tops, underwater in winter)…

…and the way back sit spot is to the right.

But one more thing before calling the fence and arbors done: I kind of think the east gate to the gear shed is too see-through. We have three small metal table tops that Allan will attach to them tomorrow by adding a crosspiece, perhaps. I’d wire them on, but if the wire rusted, they might drop on someone’s foot.

Another imminent project for me: I am going to move a big oval grey heavy plastic water tub out to the willow grove to add some frog habitat. I was struggling to pull rooted water plants and dip water out of it today when I remembered….it has a drain plug. It is now emptying overnight! It’s not a tub that I keep fill to the brim like a decorative pond, so getting water to it won’t be such a hard task.

opening the drain was not easy

In the evening, Allan showed me a photo he took of some insect eggs (?) on one of the old fence posts. They look like plastic, but he swears they are the real deal and he’s not spoofing me. I am going to ask on an insect identification group.

Tomorrow: Not a day of rest…a dump run, getting some dirt and rubble from Susie, and then some rest.