Is it Spring yet?

It isn't rainy and it isn't frozen, so we spent the afternoon outside! The children played in the mud and loved every minute of it! I cleaned out the animal cages and tackled a little weeding in the front. It was such bliss! The smell of the wet earth, buds starting to grow on all the twigs, green shoots popping up through the soil, and the satisfaction of a clean garden space. Phil is tackling one of the many projects we have planned! When we first moved here, the retaining wall (blue concrete wall) and half the hillside was covered with ivy and the rest was a steep grassy slope. We have slowly plugged away at retaining the hillside and making it into usable farm space. There was a lot of runoff, erosion, and mud this year and so we are going to retain the rest of the slope in terraces. Phil is working on the stairway as we speak (it is 8:00 p.m.). We found cheap used retaining wall blocks that someone will deliver to us for free. What a huge savings and there should be enough to finish all our projects! Happy Birthday and Christmas to me! (This is how I am spending my gift money LOL! I love my urban farm projects!) I love the way our yard is shaped with the terraces, retaining walls, rock walls, and big elevation shifts. We would have saved thousands if we had a flat yard but I love the interest in the many layers and the opportunities that we have to grow things vertically.

Here are the before (well, half way through) pictures:


Imagine all the way from the blue wall half way to the duck greenhouse covered in ivy.  Imagine no concrete block wall, stairway, or fence along the (blue) wall.  Imagine the rest as a very steep hill covered with grass and weeds and boulders.

The blocks will eventually curve into the stairway.



New stairs going in. This picture is taken in the dark.
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