Our backyard is a bomb site. We had to get some repairs done to the septic drainage channels. It required machinery and trench digging, and it coincided with two very rainy days.

Previously the road around the house was surfaced with stone and pebbles. That's all been churned over, turned to mud and wheel ruts. As it dries its firming up and I'm filling the holes, but it won't be finished until we get some more stone in and resurface. We have to do that anyway.....the dirt road into the property took a hiding with all the rain and the heavy trucks needed to get in and out for the recent work.

The septic tank problem was one of those unravelling knitted jumper things. We pulled the thread, and it took some work to get it all tidy. When the septic tank was pumped it was suggested we build a cover for it to make it easier to access next time...(in three years, probably). Our tank is a good 50 cm underground, so to get it pumped out requires excavating almost a cubic meter of soil to expose the lid. If we build a cover that's flush with the ground its a lot easier to access.

So that's what i'm doing....building a concrete retaining wall, then covering the tank. When that's all done we can look at scraping off the spilled soil and levelling the back lawn area, and resowing grass. At the moment there are piles of dirt and stone, buried lawn. Its a mess.

The mess is not through negligence or lack of effort, just the sheer volume of material that got moved about. And the weight of the trucks that came in. I struggle to get my car and trailer between the house and the shed. The truck that delivered the new holding tank was as big as a bus, with dual front wheel drive ( that's four turning front wheels...its a crazy thing, but means it can squeeze into tiny spaces).

The other construction job was the second chicken enclosure. The property came with three rock-solid chicken houses, each the size of a small shed. But only one chicken yard. Ours free range anyway, after about 10.00am when the eggs have been laid, but I want to be able to switch yards so they get a rest.

We also intend to have more than one clan of chickens, and I'd prefer to keep them separate...-ish. Once they are all unpenned they will find each other, but I prefer to keep the different groups separately penned.

Eventually we'll use a third pen, but that's not urgent.

At the moment its the septic tank with the strongest call on my time.