The Great Wall of Cameron

In my last post I spoke about finding the silver linings amidst this new world of Covid-19 we find ourselves in. For us, a reduction in our working hours has provided us with much more time here at Bountiful, and that had never been in our plans for 2020. Every time I come here I’m grateful for the oasis Bountiful provides in a world of chaos.

In a perfect world this extra time would have been wonderful as we prepared for our son’s wedding. Andrew and Ruth were to have been married here at Bountiful yesterday, but due to the Covid border restrictions, she is stuck in the UK and he is stuck here, with no idea when this might change.

We have pushed on as best we can, and my husband Cameron turned his attention to a project that has long been on his heart – to build a wall alongside our driveway and prepare the soil behind it for the planting of an avenue of Capital Pear trees.

We had hoped to construct the wall using gabian baskets, but the more we looked into it, the less likely it looked we could achieve this in the short term. We made the decision to go instead with the same timber Cam had used to build the wisteria arbor that the wedding was going to take place under. The extra long weekends we were given from work gave him the time to get into the project. I thought it was time to focus on the positive and show you some progress shots.

This is the 'before' shot of our driveway before any excavation work began.

Digger is out and excavation is underway!

Of course, with rain comes mud - and lots of it! Posts going in, despite the wet.

You can see how the wall will curve at the end, and there will be a break for the driveway.

Placing ag pipe along the retaining wall for drainage as this is always a low spot that fills with water.

Always good to have Andy come to lend a hand.

Time to start back-filling! Once completed, this soil will be prepared for the Capital Pear trees.

A good view of the entire curved wall

Looking very swish indeed!

 

We had to relocate the stairs, so Cam built these new ones. My favourite part, I think!

If you've been following my blog for a while, you may remember this photo that was taken when we were in our planning stages, and using the rope to envisage where the road would go.

And here is the updated shot. You can just spy the arbor from behind the water tank. 

We're not sure when the pear trees will go in, it is dependent on funds at the moment. What I am looking forward to is that this area will provide some new garden beds for me to put some thought into. Cameron has done an amazing job, biting off a pretty major chunk of our garden plan and producing what we fondly refer to as our Great Wall of Cameron. A brilliant job!

To be able to construct something so striking at Bountiful has definitely given us the opportunity to focus on something positive amidst so many negatives, particularly the absence of the longed-for wedding. The once choice that hasn't been taken away from us in this season is how we look at what we have and what we don't. So the song for this post is Accentuate the Positive, originally released during the World War Two years, another time when silver linings were sorely needed. This joyful version is performed for your enjoyment by Bing Crosby and Bette Midler. 

Eliminating the negative,

Tracey 👍

With thanks to the YouTube Channel of Don Bradshaw for Accentuate the Positive - Bette Midler & Bing Crosby