Lovely views

Dave sadly didn't take many photos while he was there but I forgive him: as he said, he was working! (And there's a reason that it's usually me wielding the camera...)

But besides the photos of the fence and house showing their progress, he did get a smattering of scenic views. It's these more than anything which remind me of why we're planning to move there.

View from the hill near olives:





Early morning at the dam:

Dave's visit

Dave got back yesterday, at last. Here's his short summary of what they did each day along with a few photos:

Monday 4th August
rained all way up, got there 2pm, built shelter


(this photo was taken a few days later obviously, given the blue skies!)

Tuesday 5th August
cold morning, started to strip back panels on side wall, forest side



Wednesday 6th August
primer coat on stripped wall, continued stripping. Planted lemon tree, blood orange, almond, pecan.





Thursday 7th August
painted first coat on side wall, built scaffold for work on dam side wall.





Friday 8th August
more painting and stripping, 5,000 gal tank arrived and installed. drove back to Melbourne in the late afternoon.



Saturday 9th August
rest day in Melbourne

Sunday 10th August
drove back to Amherst in the morning, arrived early afternoon. started initial work on olive fence, put 5 posts in



Monday 11th August
more painting and stripping. forest side finished, dam side half stripped. another 10 posts in



Tuesday 12th August
30 posts put in am, primer coat done dam side all other posts in.



Wednesday 13th August
first blue coat on dam side, holes dug for fences round almond and chestnut trees.



Thursday 14th August
second blue coat, started completing fence with first run of wire



Friday 15th August
wiring up fence. finished first run, started top layer.

Saturday 16th August
finished second run of wire (upper) started fences for trees

Sunday 17th August
ran hare fence around olive trees

Talbot market (17th Aug)

Mum went to the Talbot market last weekend and took some photos for me. It looked pretty cold so I don't think they got the usual turnout, but still was quite busy. I'm looking forward to a time when this is where I do my shopping. :-)

house painting update

Dave and Dad have been working hard on painting the old house, with some extra help from my sister Jen who spent 2 days working with them this week. Thanks a lot Jen!

They've made amazing progress. In the end they decided it was best to just get a coat of paint on rather than faff around with replacing and repairing weatherboards. This way they'll at least all be protected until we can next get back to work on them, and it turned out that not that many of the boards need replacing anyway.

I really love how the colour is working out. You can see the ultimate planned colour scheme here. It should look equally good when both green, as here, and in the height of summer when everything is parched and orange.

fences and water tanks

Vida, my stepmum, writes with more news about progress at Amherst, and best of all photos! They've got only one more working day to go after this before they return to Melbourne. Dave then has another 5 days or so to catch up again with his family and friends before finally jetting back to London.





I can't get over how big it is. There are over 50 posts in it apparently. They have just one final thing to do to it, Vida said, which is to put extra wire around the bottom to stop rabbits. They're planning to do that tomorrow.

The tanks too look brilliant. I really like how they're different colours and how they've put rocks around the edge, it almost makes them look like sculptures. We had at one stage been toying with getting metal tanks from the supplier Eric recommended but Dad sourced these instead and seeing them in place, I'm glad he did. They stand out, yes, but I like it.







Email from Vida 16th August:

Hi Lyn

I've just returned from Amherst. As it is Saturday I decided to cook Dave and John some decent food and save their time from cooking. I arrived at about 2p.m. and it was time for lunch. I enjoyed watching them eating the food as if they were eating the most delicious dish. I told John not to eat anything for lunch so they were very hungry. Dave made nice coffee for us.

After lunch I walked around and took some pictures. Dave's parents brought two olive trees so I helped Dave plant them to replace the dead ones and later we loosened the wire enclosure around every olive tree to let them grow wider. Dave has done colossal work building the big enclosure around the olive grove.

When I was there, a man brought the second water tank. I was lucky to be there at that moment so I took the pictures of them. Enjoy the photos.

Love Vida

even more news

From Dad's email 10th August:

Work proceeds well at Amherst. This week we will focus totally on painting and preparation. If the olive tree enclosure doesn't get done it will have to wait for another trip, but I will continue to hope for completion. I am very pleased with the state of repair of the old weatherboards despite the peeling paint. The old paint comes off fairly easily with the grinder. Dave has done most so far because I have had to build the access scaffold for the other side. I will do more of preparation and painting this week however.

Dave has been fairly warm. The chiminea has performed well, especially since I removed the heating plate because of the damper effect it was having, causing too much smoke. I need to make more space for the firebox to vent so will add spacers and see if it has both draw and is close enough to effectively heat water. At least it is a great comfort for Dave to lounge in front of at the end of his working day... I will repair the door of the little van this evening so he can properly close it and make better use of the small gas heater which Dawn provided. My antique kerosine heater has performed really well for my van and adds to the candles to provide adequate heating even when it is below freezing outside.

It was good to come home for a respite as we were very exhausted. Dave has taken a few pictures for you. Dad

Photos of the campsite

Dave is staying on-site at Amherst while he's working up there. It's the middle of winter so absolutely freezing, so Dad built him a great shelter. Dave has the little old caravan that used to belong to my Gran, which Dad restored, and Dad built an annex alongside with a fireplace, so he has somewhere to cook and keep warm. (Dad is staying in his caravan a bit further down the hill).

Here's some photos Mum took when she visited:





It's hard to see but the pots are on top of the chiminea, Dave is using it to cook on. I also love the bricks, Dad laid a little patio floor!


This is the view from the front of the annex. You can see the poles laid out to build the Olive grove fence. (The dog is called Angie, she's my Mum's)

more news on progress

From Mum's email 7th August:

Amherst has more work than they will get done this time, even Dad said so. Dave’s van and annex is lovely, very cosy, good views – I rather wish I could stay there sometime! It has apparently rained quite a bit – more than here anyway. All is green though short grass, dam is fuller than it was but far from full, and the drive is very slidey. I almost did not get up the hill to the house. Jess and Tony went up, staying overnight in Maryborough and going home this afternoon. Big tank coming Friday, 5000 gallons I think they said. Huge, 12ft in diameter? Ir 16?? Hope the truck gets up OK.

I went off for a drive to photograph ruins etc – Asked Dave if he wanted to come for a drive but he wanted to get the work done. I lucked on Talbot museum open (normally only Sun afternoons) and dropped off my family names; ordered pies for lunch; drove about Majorca and Red Lion and got photos of about 8-10 “ruins” and decrepit houses in Talbot etc; went back, ate, and came home. I was back by 5.25pm having missed the worst of peak hour by using the ring road which was slow but not as slow as coming through the city.

Vida is going up Friday evening to get Dave so he is back for the weekend and he will go back with Dad (who is coming back Sat) on Sunday. Everyone seems to be working out how we can spend time with Dave! I have said I will go up to the market next Sunday – not this one – and Dave MAY be there then. Peter has said he will come with me if Dave is up there to talk about what he wants done. He almost took the day off work yesterday but I said it was not a good idea without prior arrangement if he wanted to keep his job.

update from Dave: progress!!

Dave is actually *on the ground* in Amherst for the next 2 weeks. I am SO envious.

He's working with my Dad to get the house stripped back, weatherboards repaired and painted. From his voicemail today:

"The guy called as he couldn't make tonight, so we're going to see him tomorrow instead. (This is the structural engineer Jeff he's talking about).

We had a fair crack at doing the weatherboards today, I got the side on the right hand side of the house as you come out the door half stripped, while your Dad's been doing bits and pieces. We'll get our way through it, it was a really good day today, so hopefully the weather will hold and it'll be fine"

I am just so happy to feel that real life physical actual tangible progress is being made on the house, with more to come. It's just brilliant to be getting properly stuck in - I just regret I can't be there to help. :-(

What a difference a week makes...

... well, actually 2 weeks, during which time there were several days with solid rain.

I've just got back from a very fleeting trip to Australia for a friend's wedding, and managed to squeeze in 2 hours at Amherst en-route to the airport. To my amazement, it was green! It's such a relief to see how quickly it greens up; to have a reminder that it's not always dusty and drab.

The lemongum trees are doing magnificently. You're starting to be able to get the effect of them lining the driveway now.




The dam has filled up quite a bit - the ridge is still visible but closing over at one end.


Unfortunately the orchard isn't doing so well (more on that soon) but just look at the green!


Here's a short clip combining images with some panoramic videos to show more:


Music thanks to Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Dave's visit

Dave was back in Australia for 2 weeks at the beginning of April. He managed to squeeze in an afternoon at Amherst. Here are some photos.

It's dry dry dry, as you can see in this stitched together panorama shot from the far side. Dam is to the far right, house is to the middle right, hobbit hole and caravan is to the middle left.


The dam ridge is the most pronounced we've seen yet.


Dad has started working on the preparations for painting the house, setting up a mobile scaffold he can use to get to the top sections.


Dave got up the scaffold and took some closeup's of the freize pattern. It's in good shape, but I need to work out the colours to paint it.

Mum's visit to Wigandia garden

A short while ago I wrote about Wigandia garden. This is a famous Australian garden, renowned for being extremely drought tolerant, low maintenance and with its own unique style. You can see the garden's website here.

Well, thanks to the garden creator William posting a comment (thanks!) I discovered that the garden was opened to the public for the first time in years over Easter.

Unfortunately I couldn't go myself, what with being on the other side of the world, but I convinced Mum to go in my stead. It was a very long day for her, around 4 hours drive each way(!) but I think she enjoyed it, and she did an amazing job of taking photos and video.

In Mum's words:
"It was all a surprise – I had not expected it to look so good. And his sculptures would be, anywhere else, just a heap of old junk like the rusty decrepit bike thrown on a heap of sort of garden rubbish. It looked just perfect – a guy there (another visitor) and I both commented it would look like waiting for the rubbish collection in our places, but was so exactly right where he had placed it! I think it was one of the volunteers who told me he had given it a LITTLE water to make it really nice for Easter, since about Christmas. that is, probably the bathwater to cover an acre or so! "

I've put the full set of Mum's photos up on Flickr here. As well, to give you a flavour of the garden, below is a short video compilation showing one side, plus a couple of photos.


Music thanks to Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)







Based on the photos, the garden is amazing. The fact that it's so full of life, at the tail end of a long hot summer and drought, is phenomenal. Yes, I imagine it'd be prettier still in late autumn after some rain, but it's easy to make a garden look lovely when it's lush and green - what's hard is what this garden succeeds at - to look wonderful even when it's dry and overbearingly hot. It's also clearly a garden for wildlife, with the various drinking bowls for birds and all the butterflies. Just wonderful. I hope I get a chance to visit it myself in person one day.

exploring the reef & old town

At least for me, it wasn't all work while I was up there. While Dad and Dave dug out the trenches, I went exploring for a few hours with Sam and John.

First up, we went in search of the Amherst quartz reef. It turned out to be within easy hiking distance from our place, only about a mile. We drove there though, following directions and strategically hung streamers on trees. It was the oddest thing... clambering up over it on a hot day felt very "Picnic at hanging rock". We climbed up before walking around it to see the scale of the drop, and it was quite astonishing. More dramatic than I'd expected.



After that we headed towards Talbot, but stopped off along the way to admire the bluestone culverts. There are several of them and they're beautifully made, although crazily out of scale now considering there isn't even a town there anymore. But it shows you the scale of what was dreamt of, back during the goldrush.



Before getting into town we took a detour, attempting to find the old Stoney Creek primary school that apparently had a rock garden made in the shape of Australia from the early 1900's. But, after many dead-ends up dirt tracks we had to give up... gives me something to hunt out next trip. :-)

In Talbot we had a lovely wander around. A new information centre has just been opened in a restored building near the internet centre, so I managed to get loads of leaflets and books on the area. I learned that sleepy little Talbot once had over 100 pubs!



As well there's a lovely quirky secondhand bookstore and a great little place called Red Geranium Cafe that makes some of the best cream cakes I've ever had.



(more photos to come as I've just discovered not all have been uploaded yet)

Overall Talbot was a lovely place, and you could sense it'd come back to life, had a gentle buzzing atmosphere to it that most country towns these days sadly lack. I hope it continues.

Day one - exploring

On our first afternoon we didn't do much work - instead too busy exploring! After the trees (see previous post), the house was next on our list to look around.

Even though only a little work had been done to it, Dad had rearranged things to give the effect of a room at the front. It really started to let you see how it might feel:



There's also the beginnings of the wraparound verandah at the front, which has been a wonderful place to sit during the hot days:



Dad has also managed to take down a lot of the collapsed extension at the back to reveal the original shape of the house:




The dam was looking particularly nice, albeit less full than I would have liked. It's not really low yet though as you can't see the 'humps' in the middle. We saw lots of sheep go down to the dam for a drink which was lovely to watch. We also saw two egrets wading, getting yabbies no doubt.



I'm more relaxed about getting the dam to look like a lake now than I was. Hopefully the waterlilies will take, but even if not provided we can get the big clay bank covered with reeds and other green stuff, the dam will take on the appearance of a lake. It's the dam wall that makes it look muddy (although the darn yabbies have something to do with it too).


To cap off the day, on the way back to our rented Avoca cottage, we explored some new roads too... driving along Lillicur Road up the side of our property all the way up to the Sunraysia Highway. There was a fantastic sunset as we came over a ridge:

Day one - inspecting trees

Today we drove up to Amherst. It was the first time I've visited in nearly 2 years, and the very first time we've ever been there together with no-one else around.

We arrived mid afternoon and spent several happy hours wandering around. Our goal this trip is less to get lots of work done (although we'll still be busy), and more to get a proper feel for the place. We're staying up here for an entire week, so I'm going to try and blog every day about what we get up to. It's so exciting to be actually on site rather than stuck on the other side of the world!

The brilliant news is that the trees we planted last visit are by and large doing really well. We've lost a few, but nowhere near as many as I'd expected.

The mulberries and plums are doing the best out of all the fruit trees:




The peaches are doing OK but are infected with something on their leaves; the persimmons are OK too although a bit twiggy still - I guess they're just later to bud. The almonds are doing well though.






Overall, the lemon gums are doing better than we expected. We've lost about 5, maybe 10, of the 70+ we planted, which isn't too bad. Almost all the ones lost were in the lower part of the driveway, where the frost would have been most pronounced. The ones that had the fullest shade cloth wrapping as protection unsurprising did the best. There are some that look pretty dead with only a few green leaves; Dave reckons they will bounce back though so fingers crossed. Here's a photo of one of the nice bushy ones.



It's amazing to think that two years ago they looked like this.


The olive grove too is going brilliantly. Again a couple of trees are a little the worse for wear, but most have put on new growth and are looking healthy. Because the soil is so poor and there's little water, we are expecting them to take their time in getting big, but the fact that they've all got new leaves shows that they've settled in.

October visit plans

I'm starting to get things organised for our visit to Amherst in October.

I've just found a fairly basic but nice-looking cottage to rent at Avoca Farm Stay that is about 10 minutes drive away. It's got lots of lovely animals including highland cattle that you can meet, the owners seem really friendly, and to top it all off it's got WiFi! We're staying there for a full week, so we can get work done but in a more relaxed way than last time. I can't wait.

Our work plans are scaled back from my last, over-optimistic post. Now we are just going to focus on planting a few more trees and getting the foundation dug/poured for the vegetable garden wall. Anything else will be a bonus.

So far we only have a few things lined up for planting:

Three wollemi pines

See description and photos here


Eight agave americana



"This succulent originates from Mexico and can stand in the hottest sun all day. It grows into a huge plant but can be restricted in a pot for patios etc. Has a distinctive blue colouration. Grows to 3 metres across. Has a huge flower spike after approx 15 years, then dies. Plants on offer are well established plants approximately 25cm high. Grows best in full sun and requires good drainage and infrequent watering. Extremely hardy, especially of hot weather. Propagates from offsets"

More to come I'm sure!

work to do when we visit in October

Dave and I were talking today about what we should aim to do at Amherst when we visit in late October. We figured it was better to decide early enough that we could get whatever equipment & raw materials we needed sorted without last minute panic.

We're hoping to get up there on a Monday and spend a week working, then on the last weekend have a big BBQ where everyone's invited to come (& also help out if they feel so inclined!)

These are our initial ideas of what to do, which are probably hopelessly over-optimistic.


1. Lay out the broad bones of the front garden areas

By front garden areas I mean the vegie garden, orchard, and the area between the dam/driveway & front of the new house. To help in doing this, I was thinking we could get some bright coloured rope and pegs to hold it roughly in position? I thought about spraypaint on the ground but that won't last, and it's no good when you accidentally put it in the wrong place. Using rope won't be perfect, as we'll probably be wanting to put in some terracing, but will at least give an indication.


2. Dig trenches & pour the concrete foundations for the walls for the vegie garden, and build at least one or two prototype 'columns'.

Dave figures that we could just rent one of those digger things again to rip a trench, then pour concrete all around. As it doesn't need to be smoothed out, hopefully would just be a case of mixing roughly and pouring?

The columns we envisage as being hollow brick cubes, square, roughly 50-60cm x 50-60cm, up to about door height, or maybe even a bit higher. We want them to be hollow not only to save bricks, but so that we can fill from the bottom with rubbish/concrete up to about 1m from the top with a pipe inserted for drainage. The remaining bit we want to fill with soil and plant things in it, like climbers.

The reason for planting the climbers up high is to keep their base out of the way of the kangaroos, and then they can hang down and grow sideways rather than climb up. Then even if the kangaroos get to them in the summer months, it'll be OK provided we have climbers that are spring-flowering and can tolerate hard pruning in summer! We can grow other things, like lavendar or other plants kangaroos don't like lower down.

Ultimately we could even build some taller columns in the middle part of the vegie garden, as we're going to need eventally to have a wire roof over the top to stop the cockatoos, and by having the columns taller in the middle and rigging the net between we might get a sort of big top effect? I'm even dreaming and thinking that perhaps one of the inner columns could be a working outdoor fireplace chimney, so that we would have somewhere to burn things off but also keep us warm during winter days, but that might be a bit extravagant!

In between the columns we haven't decided what we'll put yet, and it's not something we're going to worry with for this trip as we figure we'll have more than enough heavy work just to get the concrete & columns. We're toying with the idea of having a kind of adobe wall that we press the local quartz stones into, to give an effect sort of like this:



But rather than being solid all round we want to intersperse it with "windows". Whether they be real windows, with glass, or open windows with wire, we haven't decided yet.


3. Collect stones

As a simple thing that anyone can help with on the weekend we have the "big BBQ", Dave suggested we start to collect stones. Besides a few wheelbarrows and gloves, don't think we'd need anything more for this? If we just collect the ones on the surface, then in a few years the weathering will reveal more and we can get some more. It'd give us a headstart on gathering the stones for the vegie garden wall.


4. Plant a few more trees

We've just now splurged and ordered 3 wollemi pines which are being delivered to Dave's parents house for safe keeping until then.




Besides helping with their conservation - these are the trees that they only recently discovered weren't extinct and they need lots of people to grow to protect them - they look a bit like monkey puzzles, which I really like but unfortunately don't suit our conditions. The wollemi's will need protection like the other trees, plus we might need to get a little creative with the watering setup during the first summer but we'll find a way. They grow about 0.5 - 1m every year up to a height of 20m according to the official site, so even allowing for our bad conditions hopefully they'll be a recognisable tree inside 5 years. They seem pretty hardy too, able to cope with extremes of hot and cold, so once they've gotten through their first year and used to the lack of water, hopefully they'll be OK.

We were also toying with the idea of planting a few figs in the orchard, if we can find some that are drought-hardy. There's a nice article about them here mentioning various varieties, but I've not yet found anywhere online to order from.


5. Plant some succulents or cacti

These seem like they'd be well suited to the conditions and as they take a long time to grow would be good to get a head start. We want ultimately to have various big specimens dotted around. Varieties we're thinking of are:

Agave Americana



Mountain Aloe (a. marlothii)



Cape aloe, also called bitter aloe (a. ferox)



But these are just ones we saw in Gardening Australia articles - I figure there will be others equally nice. It might require a bit of pre-planning to get hold of them but there seem to be quite a few specialist succulent/cacti nurseries in Australia, according to Nurseries Online.


6. Plant a hedge

This may be overly ambitious, and is the thing I'm most inclined to drop off the list, but because hedges take such a long time to establish we thought it might be worth getting a headstart, at least on a small scale. Of course, we don't know exactly where we'd plant it yet, but sure we could figure that out when we're there... eg: maybe the length of the new house and parallel to it a bit further down towards the driveway (ie: well out of the way of where we'd need to make a mess with building)? Or maybe perpendicular to that to start to give some wind protection to whatever we plant behind in a few years? Hmmm

I'm thinking of our first hedge being with Photinia:


It looks a nice colour and seems to grow fast - 2m in 4 years, so even allowing for our dreadful conditions, it might be passable as a hedge within 6 years hopefully. It likes well-drained soil, full sun, is frost tolerant, and says it copes with drier conditions, and a Gardening Australia article said it was a fire retardant.

Whatever we plant, I was thinking we could protect it by wrapping in a big narrow loop of wire, which could remain in place even once the hedge was grown. Provided it was a sturdy enough framework then we could rely on the kangaroos to help with the pruning!


7. Dump truck of manure

Once we've got the vegie garden area laid out, we thought it'd be a good idea to get a dump truck or two full of manure, to literally just spread on the surface as a way to start improving the soil. If we spread it on and then leave it for a few years, presumably the worms will work it into the soil without us having to dig Also, then Mum could always start to plant pumpkins and things if she felt so inclined.

videos from our first visit to the farm

One of the reasons for my sporadic posting to this blog in recent months has been because I've been busy converting videos. I only have so much spare time and for various reasons, I've ended up with the task of digitising family home movies. Sometimes there's crossover though - recently I found some footage from the very first visit I made to Amherst, a few months after we'd bought it.

It would bore you stupid - not to mention make you seasick thanks to my wobbly camera technique - to watch the full thing. But I created a couple of compilations, complete with cheesy music, that will give you a flavour.

To begin, let me introduce our nearest town, Talbot, via a 1 minute drive through the main streets. I think sleepy would be the most appropriate adjective to describe it, but notice that there's some lovely old buildings and a thriving pub! Plus a great farmers market once a month. :-)




But the piece de resistance is the footage from my first visit to the farm. I went with my parents and filmed a huge amount so I could bring it back to London to show Dave. Unfortunately, the filming was incredibly wobbly but to help disguise it I sped it up to 4x speed, pausing every few seconds to let you catch your breath! I expect most people will only be interested in the first few minutes, arriving at the farm, driving up past the dam to the old house and then wandering around it. As you'll see it was extremely derelict when we found it, although that didn't stop my Dad setting up a makeshift camp in one room! The bulk of the film is walking around the land. I've deliberately kept it all in even though it gets a bit repetitive as it's a reminder of the distance... I still can't get over that it takes a good 10 minutes to walk across!

Tree-planting

We've just got back from 3 weeks in Australia during which we spent 5 days in Amherst planting trees! It was a marathon effort and we couldn't have done it without everyone's help, so thanks to everyone who came. (Especially since I
had the flu for several days so was not much use) Saturday and Sunday were the biggest days, and Saturday night we had a BBQ by the stove and gazebo that Dad had built. The evening was finished off with fireworks, but the photos from that didn't work out unfortunately.

Here are a couple of photos




We planted around 120 trees in total - 70-plus lemon gums to line the
driveway, 30 olive trees up on the hill, and 15 fruit/nut trees as the
start of the orchard. We could only plant the most hardy kind of
trees this trip which could largely look after themselves, so we put
in 2 chesnuts, 5 persimmons, 2 apricot, 4 plums (two kinds)and 2
mulberries. I can't wait to seem them grow! It's brilliant also
because now it feels like we've started.

Despite how small the trees are at the moment, each one required a
huge effort to plant. After the hole was dug by the post hole
digger/tractor thing, the sides had to be chipped in so the roots
could spread out. Then we had to add compost, watering pipes, plant
the tree then lots of mulch. Then we hammered in the stakes (3 for
most, 4 for the bigger trees) and cut and tied wire around them to
protect from kangaroos, sheep, etc. Finally the finishing touch was
tying a square of shadecloth to the lid of each enclosure to provide
protection from frost (which usually hits by sinking down from above)
and also the sun this summer. Then the watering system... laying out
the pipes from the water tank, connecting the taps, digging the
trenches to bury the pipes for the parts cars might drive over.

We started on Thursday, marking out where each tree needed to go.
Friday and most of Saturday was drilling holes and driving stakes.
Planting started Saturday afternoon and continued until Monday
morning, as well as starting the wiring and irrigation system. Monday
afternoon and Tuesday morning were spent finishing the wiring and
attaching the shadecloth. So thanks again to everyone who helped, we
owe you bigtime.

preparations for our visit continue

Mum has booked the motel for us to stay in when we're up at Amherst, yay! It's booked from 14th through to 19th October. And Dad has been busy apparently looking for places to hire a dingo tractor/ post hole digger thingy for digging the holes for the trees. He's also apparently heading up again soon to start working on the "surprise" whatever that may be and to repair the dam. I can't wait to be there and to see it again, plus this'll be the first time Dave sees it.