After 14 months of procrastination my tyre retaining wall is finally started - yay! It was a stunning day with a heavy frost to start; blue skies and sunshine soon had the mercury rising. Despite the fine weather, I was apprehensive about starting such a big challenge but I decided that any attempt couldn't be worse than stacks of tyres outside the garage. So, here goes...
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| Starting my tyre wall project - 10.40am |
My neighbour suggested laying some tyres down the slope and that's helped me visualise where I needed to start. I think I'm supposed to start at the lower end but without an eye for levels I decided to start in the middle so it's easier to juggle tyre widths.
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| 10.50am: Turf, dig a patch that's level right to left but slopes slightly front to back |
It soon became apparent that my straight line wasn't parallel to the poles where I want the tyre wall to go so I put in a string line - no doubt I'll learn a lot of short cuts by the time I've finished. It wasn't hard to choose the placement of the first tyre; a manuka stump would need digging out if I didn't put the tyre to its side. By lunchtime I had three tyres down - all level and sloping slightly backwards.
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| Lunchtime - slow and steady with lots of thinking inbetween |
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| Lunchtime on a beautiful winter's day - temperature range 2-21°C |
The ngirungiru (tomtit) wasn't far away as turfing exposed lots of grubs and worms. Just after lunch he brought a friend; a wee female who joined him on the wheelbarrow and hopped close to me when I didn't have my camera - and flew away when I did! She's a muddier brown colour with orange feet but just as curious. Great to see that he's got a mate and lovely to hear them call to each other throughout the afternoon.
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| 2.50pm: four tyres down, 3 of them filled with soil |
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| 4pm: five tyres levelled, turves spread in the foreground to even out the bumps |
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| 4pm: another view, nice and level despite the difference in tyres |
So far, so good - the varying heights and diameters of the tyres and the slope of the ground have had me scratching my head a number of times. I was tempted to leave the tyres unfilled so they were easier to move if I had to, but the soil's easier to work if it's not left sitting in a pile. I'm hoping my work rate will speed up as I get more adept at judging levels and choosing the right tyre from the 96 I have.
I dug up a Pam's potato chip wrapper - I wonder how old it is? Will have to check at work next week as I can't recall seeing this packaging for a while.
