At the moment here in Townsville our the Ross River dam (our main dam) is at only about 22% capacity. We have been under minor water restrictions for as long as I have lived here, only able to water three days a week, which isn’t really much of a restriction. With Townsville’s current water usage, and the usual increase that comes in October and November, we will reach “level 4” water restrictions soon, which means we can only water at night.

I don’t understand why is daytime watering not already banned?

I find it quite surprising how many people water their lawns during the middle of the day under the hot North Queensland sun! We have some neighbours behind us that seem to water their lawn almost every day, despite the water restrictions, and in the middle of the day so most of the water evaporates and isn’t even absorbed by the lawn.

Every web-site that I have read tonight points out that the best watering time are after dusk or before the sun is up, with most preferring the early morning water. Apparently about 40% of the average household water usage is outside usage, and a lot of water can be saved by following even simple water conservation ideas in the garden.

Here are a few links to some sites that can help you with your own water conservation plan for your garden, and can help you to grow a stronger and healthier lawn:

• Waterworks: Outdoor Water Conservation
• PWP Web: Water Conservation Resources
• City of Toronto: Water Efficiency
• Townsville City Council – Citywater – Watersmart: Saving Water Outdoors

Tamara and I have not had much luck with pot plants. Actually we have had ZERO luck with pot plants. Every single one that we have owned has died. These include the two that we received at Caleb and Jessica’s welcome ceremonies (thankfully we have had better luck with the kids…).

This page lists a few different plants that seem to be hard to kill.

If you have no time to fuss with houseplants, you’ll appreciate a species that forgives you if you forget to water exactly on schedule. Here are some of the least-thirsty indoor plants — they can last about two weeks between waterings.

The plants listed seem to be pretty good at resisting us forgetting to water them. You can read the full article at Sunset Garden: Forgiving Houseplants.

Now all we need to do is find some kid proof plants (other than cacti, which could hurt the kids, which we don’t really want to do).

Source: Lifehacker – Hard to Kill Plants

As we have been getting closer to finally knowing what to do with the development of our own house (will tell you more later) my thoughts have sometimes wandered to the back corners of our yard and the tree or cubby house that I want to build for Caleb down the track.

I found what I thought was a pretty good plan from Mitre 10. I wrote about it in a previous article, An Amazing Tree House.

I must admit now that what I had previously thought of as a good tree house is not actually all that impressive. In an article on the New York Magazine web site they have some pretty impressive looking tree houses. They are professionally designed and cost upwards of $100,000 USD! Below is an image from their article and a link to the page:

http://www.nymag.com/guides/summer/17432/index.html

I must admit that I am impressed, but I don’t think that I will be changing my own plans for Caleb’s own cubby house…

After almost a month of pestering and chasing our tree lopper and trying to coordinate with our neighbour they finally showed up last week with the cherry picker to chop down the tree. Because we have a very narrow lot the cherry picker had to access our yard through the neighbours yard.

Cherry Picker at Work

The main reason why they took so long is because their communication skills were extremely poor.

On the first day they were supposed to cut the tree down they apparently showed up and their was a padlock on our neighbour’s yard. Instead of coming to talk to us or talk to our neighbour, they just left. I had to call them the next day to figure out why.

Then the cherry picker broke down on two other occasions.

On the fourth attempt they were supposed to get back to us about if the skip in our neighbours yard had to be moved for the cherry picker to fit. When they never got back to us we assumed that meant that there was enough room for the cherry picker, but when they showed up they decided they couldn’t fit and just drove away.

Messy Yard after Cherry Picker Cutting

Last week they finally arrived and cut down most of the tree, but the cherry picker couldn’t reach all of it, so now we are waiting for them to find a climber to cut down the rest of the tree. I hope that we won’t be waiting too long, but at least now the neighbour can move ahead with putting up their shed.

It looks like I might have to do something about the back yard grass now after the logs fell on it. It is extremely bumpy and uneven now. I think that I might have to cut back the grass and roll it back and then put down dirt or sand to smooth it out.

Does anyone out there have experience with doing something similar? Any other advice for what to do?