Rocks, local Malcolm Island rocks! We love them! We spend lots of time on the local beaches along Kaleva Road and Rough Bay collecting the most amazing rocks of different sizes, shapes and colours ever created. We have about half a dozen project ideas for those rocks and boulders and a few piles around our property designated as hearth rocks, driveway rocks, pond rocks, and way too many path rocks.
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| These particular ones are fist size or bigger. Such a variety! |
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| A sample of the variety of rocks. Some are as large as a watermelon. |
Since the weather's been so nice, we've been spending lots of time outside working on our landscaping. Last year we were too focused on getting the foundation in, walls up, etc. and moving earth into a huge pile to get it out of the way.
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| The pile of dirt excavated to make room for the foundation. For months this was our view from the trailer. |
Then in September 2018 Jim's landscaping vision took focus, beginning with moving dirt, making terraces and thinking of what sort of foliage we wanted to cultivate and what to cut back.
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| Seems like a long time ago!We've incorporated native plants, foraging on our Sunday drives around Malcolm Island. Sometimes we drove to Mitchel Bay at the far end of the island to check out different beaches and forests. |
Meanwhile...
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| Even on our Sunday day 'off' we still manage to look for various rocks and stones. What a great hobby for us. |
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| Mitchel Bay, Malcolm Island |
Whenever we went driving we took shovels and buckets along and carefully dug up indigenous plants, like salal, from obscure areas of forest where no one will ever even know they were gone.
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| The view never gets tired. |
In January 2019 we had great weather for cultivating land. Jim loves creating our outdoor space. Here he's working without a sweatshirt in January. Of course, the cold snap came a week later.
Now we're waiting to see what other trees and plants take and what don't.
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| May 2019. Without a deer fence (yet) we're limited to what we can put in so the deer leave it alone. |
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| Each rock was hauled up from one of the beaches. |
Good friends in Victoria gave us four deer resistant plants. Only a couple were sampled a bit by the deer but they're recovering. So far we've also had pretty good success with salal but it's a slow growing plant and will take years to reach a decent height. Thimble berries and salmon berries are flowering now. Some of these leaves were as big as a dinner plate. Hope the berries are big too.
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| Happy Thimble berries dappled in morning sun. |
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| One of two elderberry trees we have on the property. |
We're encouraging more huckleberry bushes since we've opened up the lot and much more sunlight gets in than ever before. You've got to start somewhere!
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| We uncovered a rare old growth tree stump at the lower edge of our property. It now holds a special place in our hearts. |
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It has become a nurse tree, providing nutrients
for new plants and trees to take hold. |
Now we were also working on creating great soil for future raised garden beds. We brought a load of sea soil back from Campbell River then friends gave us another load of dirt. Since Jim had a bit of a fall on Easter Sunday he's been nursing an injured left wrist. So...he was limited to light duty and using one hand for heavy stuff. So yours truly was been moving dirt from the top of the property to the bottom of the property and also building up our pile of good soil. Weight bearing exercise! Unfortunately I won't be feeding the goats anymore since we've also started composting and mixing it with the new soil.
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| Jim and I pulled rocks and stones out of the soil before I shovelled it into the wheelbarrow. |
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| The wheelbarrow has beautiful black top soil in it, just below the level you can see. It was heavy load after load! |
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| Because of our natural slope, it was as hard pursing the empty wheelbarrow back up as taking a load of soil down. |
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| The pile of good dirt grows! Truck is almost empty. |
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Done! Truck empty! Next!!
Jim calls me Amazon Woman. I'm feeling it! |
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| Our new fire pit on our own property. Life is good! |
Amazon Woman out!
Enjoy the outdoor weather, wherever you are!
Jim and Tricia Bowen
tandjbowen13@gmail.com
