Gumboots day

It is definitely a gumboots day today. It has been raining solidly since the early hours of this morning, and everywhere I look there is water. My chook feedhouse has an ankle deep moat around it and poor Mavis and Madge are looking decidedly bedraggled.
I started ten days off work on Wednesday, and got stuck into the vegie garden in a big way. I now have my leafy vegetable bed mulched, and some seedlings planted. I am dividing one of the larger beds up into three with recycled brick paths to make it easier to work, and for crop rotation. I have dug out where the paths are to go so they are level with the existing paths, and now I just have to wait till it dries out enough so I can put them in.
Here's a photo of the garden in progress - forgive the wobbly pic please :)

Not that long ago, the whole garden looked like those two far beds (the ones behind the cat) - full of weeds - so I am pretty chuffed with myself. It's really brought me a huge sense of accomplishment even to get this far, and to grow things is something that makes me smile.
Yesterday I went into town and went to Bunnings to get some weed mat to put under the paths. Yes, of course that is all I got! Jeez, no trust....
Ok, maybe I got a few more things than that...
Here's what I got at Bunnings:
- Weed mat
- Large bag of seed raising mix
- Large bag of pet and bird friendly snail bait
- 3 standard roses (on sale for $10 each)
- 9 bare rooted strawberry plants
- 2 kg of seed potatoes
- A butane stove for cheese making
- A seedling tray
- Three packets of seeds (Chives, bronze shades sunflowers, and red and white strawberries)
I'm very excited about the strawberries - I think they might be alpine strawberries, but I'm not sure. The sunflowers will be planted on the west end of my root crop bed to shade the vegies from the worst of the afternoon sun. And the chives are going under the roses.
I went for a walk in my gumboots and rain gear earlier, and it is crazy the amount of water that is everywhere. Back in the days before the dams, the river would have covered the floor of the valley by now, and everyone would be bracing themselves for the worst to come when the snow melted off the mountains. Even now, the water sits in every hollow, ghosts of the billabongs that would have dominated the landscape at this time of year.
One of the bulls stands in solitary splendor on his own little island in the bull paddock. He has some trees to stand under, some cows to talk to over the fence, and the corner of a shed to scratch on, so he is happy.
In spinning news, I have put a Majacraft Rose spinning wheel on layby from Ewe Give Me The Knits at Tongala, and after Monday, I will be almost a third of the way to paying it off! I have been wanting one of these wheels since I tried it at Bendigo '09, and I decided to treat myself to one as a birthday/Christmas/getting-through-the-breakup-without-knifing-anyone present. I have a picture of the Rose stuck up next to my computer so I can look at it often.
My friend Sue suggested I post some pictures of where I work, so I'll finish off this post with a picture from each of my two 'offices'.