Day two

Tuesday, 25 January 2011


The mulchmen arrived around 9am and wasted no time - within fifteen minutes they'd nabbed an enormous downed pine in the claws of their bobcat and shoved it pretty much straight into their mulching truck, trunk first. Impressive. We wandered up hoping to clarify a couple of things but the boss was very busy bobcatting and seemed fairly disinterested in stopping to chat with those who don't know about trees, ie the clients. I just hope the maple survives the mulching frenzy.


Living a few doors down from the site certainly has its benefits, but also means you spend a lot of time sticking your head up the street and wondering what that noise is. I'm sure all the tradies will be thrilled by our proximity (and it's just as well Mat will be in Penrith most days, else there may be a restraining order from the fellas). The head mulcher has a mouth like a wharfie - I hope the Kingsford-Smiths across the back fence (yes, I'm sure they must be related) have ABC Classical turned up loud this morning.


Warwick reckons neighbour Peter was happy as Larry about the concreter carving out half his driveway yesterday and that it'll all be fixed up in no time (apparently Peter and his dad even snaffled a few downed bits of maple for firewood, which was more than we managed to do). This is a surprise - can you imagine building in Sydney and accidentally ripping out a massive amount of soil from the length of a neighbour's driveway? We'd be strung up from the nearest Foxtel cable (oh hang on, are they underground?). But maybe this is how things are in the country... In any case, Peter's now not planning to move in properly to his neighbouring deceased estate (of which The Block was once the adjoining, overgrown garden) until we 'finish the noisy stuff' - and maybe he reckons the re-made driveway will be an improvement on the last. I guess he was also pretty happy that someone else was ripping out those ugly rhododendrons that were serving as a surrogate fence between our blocks.


Just waiting for head mulchman to return with his super-destumping machine now to take out the last seven or so stumps around the yard, so it will one day be bump-free and ready for our very flash (council-required) landscaping plans to be initiated...sometime in the next half century...

Da-nah!

End of day two sees us with a large pile of pushed around soil with a lot less fallen greenery on top of it, and a pile of mulch. Perhaps a little like France in WWI (minus the mulch). Mat reckons The Block looks bigger now, if a bit sadder. Tomorrow we rest: Australia Day. Bonzer, mates!