On Track

 

The grass track was supposed to be a fairly straight run from the top gate to the bottom gate. It had additional wiggles where the muddy spots had snagged a wheel. I will not miss digging the van out of muddy trouble, or pushing it. We rarely dared to drive uphill.

The stone track gently curves to follow the land. It will need compacting before we call it a job done- but here we are, driving uphill, downhill, hearing the stone crunch, not quite believing what our ears and eyes are confirming. It’s a silly-hot day, we barely get any work done, and every job we do wanders back to the stone line and rechecks: yep, it’s here. We did dream it, but then we ordered all this stone and now it’s real.

So, what next?

Of course, there’s a list we can refer to, and subdivisions of lists depending on which segment of our project we deem to be the next practical step.

So..?

It’s easy to write lists. The first item usually starts ‘research…’ because we are edging along a tightrope here, a couple of self-taught amateurs, wobbling from dreams to plans, at the whim of so many variables:

wind direction, soil type, budget, sudden frosts, heatwaves, sharknados, tree diseases, the right footwear, velociraptors, burst pipes, socks full of grass seed, number of hand trowels put down in the grass and never found again, how many tons of stone for a track all the way down,

and so forth.

We dreamed it, we planned it, we did it. We learned that achievement can be a shock requiring rest and acclimatisation, that it too is a variable.

When we get home we unpeg and fold the dry washing, make a nice cup of tea.

We watch the cherry tree sway in a welcome breeze.

Happy-faced tree stump admiring the track :-)