New craft

I just spent a pretty relaxing 4 days in Loxton with Wes (he had his start-of-15-year school reunion). His mum taught me how to mosaic and this bird is my first attempt. I thought I might like to 'mosaic' something after starting work in my garden and finding loads of broken tiles in the dirt. The bird shape (aside from the black eye) is made only of pieces dug out of my backyard. The rest of the tiles were from Helen's stash. I think I'd like to do more, perhaps to cover the new veggie patch wall.

Speaking of the garden, here's a before shot, well, this was after Wes pulled up bricks to make room for the veggie patch on the left there, and after big cardboard boxes had been laying on top of the grass for about 5 months, to get rid of it (only a few small tufts left in this photo).
After pulling up the rest of the grass, we laid down some bluestone slate (which we gathered ourselves from the over burden pile at the quarry) in a windy path which ends in a spiral mound. The remaining slate was placed under the clothesline in a semi-circle. We got some salvaged besser blocks to make a low wall for the veggie patch, and brought in a couple of trailer-loads of soil/compost to help things grow. My dad put up a bamboo blind to keep some of the hot afternoon sun out of the kitchen window.
This is the spiral mound. I now have a plant in the top of it, as well as some native groundcover planted between the stones under the clothesline (the Dichondra is doing the best), and some herbs and an eggplant in the veggie patch. It's all coming along quite well, but there's lots of dirt still to eventually cover! I must say that Wes' sister, Sam, has helped me with the planning and execution of my garden makeover and she is fantastic help! If you're local & want some advice, my advice is to speak to Sam :)