The euphorbia outside the summer house is in full bloom. Like its Oakland cousin, it has clusters of whitish yellow flowers on long stalks. Hopefully it will not grow beyond its expected 2-3 feet in height, and I will encourage it not to do so.
We conducted a survey and inspection of all the back yard sprinklers, replacing sprinkler heads sunken into the middle of the lawn, Mike recommended moving sprinklers out to the new stone border of the lawn to insure enough water for grass seed to germinate and spread. The seed is meant to cover the bare patches I dug out a few weeks ago along that far edge.
We tied off the long irrigation line running along the border of the back lawn and flagstones, and attached it to a new connector. In theory, greater or more consistent pressure should result if water doesn’t travel as far. In theory.
In the afternoon we laid the next level of the retaining wall. The wall itself is level but the ground slopes upwards toward the fence, and the flagstones leading up to the fence are higher than the far edge of the lawn. Hence the retaining wall digging ever deeper into the ground. I shored up the 4x4s at the far end nearest the fence, for additional height. We drilled through both levels and pounded in 2 foot rebar to hold the two levels in place. I even took a turn at handling the 20 pound sledge. For good measure, I reserved and moved up cement footers for buttresses on the covered downhill side of the wall.
We ended the day sitting out on the back lawn watching the sun set, a welcome water break. The irrigation line under the planter box will need a right angle to direct it upwards, so that it is not buried when I back fill with new topsoil. But that’s for another day, or another week.
A Year at the Snake 