you would think dirt is … well dirt cheap to begin with. and common as. turns out finding some good dirt isn’t easy, especially when it’s needed by the truckload, and we do require quite a bit to make the area around our house look good. it’s tricky business as well, as our friend anna keeps reminding us: you never know what else travels in the dirt you cart in from god knows where, and there are a few diseases spreading throughout tassie that can make plants’ lives really hard (eg phytophthora cinnamomi). it is definitely a risk, and we know that phytophthora is unfortunately endemic in our area.
be that as it may, we want grass around the house, not a stony desert, which means we need to find fresh dirt. the big slope in front of the house may look brown and unassuming now, but we made sure we put a lot of grass seed on it, and with a bit of rain this should turn our nice.
we have now removed the old roads leading directly to the house; we want to avoid the traffic and resulting dust close to the house. this leave the large area just north of the house, which is still covered in gravel, but since trades still come and go we have to leave this part for now. once the house is ready we’ll remove the road base from there and get some more dirt. the wallabies will love it.
the little skid steer did most of the work spreading our precious dirt. it threw a track twice and neede a hand (bucket?) from our little excavator to push it back on.