Forget Kids – Get a Dog #25

Forget Kids – Get a Dog is now available in all good book stores and on Amazon.

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Living in New Zealand: The UV is Very Intense

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I’m not out long enough in the sun for it to burn me yet (thankfully I have Dad’s skintone and not Mum’s join-the-freckles one), but it’s getting intense enough to feel it if I don’t put a hat on. Thankfully, it isn’t hot enough yet for the midges and mossies.

Forget Kids – Get a Dog #24

Forget Kids – Get a Dog is now available in all good book stores and on Amazon.

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Our dog used to love feeding time for my niece/nephew, when he would wait for all the droppage.

Living in New Zealand: Building a Brick-Lined Gabion Retaining Wall is Another New Skill to Learn

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Having a large garden presents opportunities and associated challenges. I've never putting a retaining wall before: so I hope this works!

I have no idea whether this terracotta pipe is still being used by one of our neighbours!

The made-to-measure gabions from http://gabionworks.co.nz

My hand-dug, hand-levelled trench

I was very relieved when the two wired together boxes fitted!

Though we have over a thousand bricks around the property, it’s not enough to fill the boxes, but it is a chance to get rid of all the old bits of pipe and rubble we have.

Lots of this dirt (mainly loess and some clay) will be bagged to be put inside the gabions, like sandbags, with bricks on the exterior surfaces.

Filling the gabions is challenging (not just the shifting of bricks etc. uphill!). There are very few rocks on the property, apart from the massive volcanic ones that sit below the loess and clay.

I hope I don’t find one of those where I plan to put the shed…