End of the first day. What a mess!
Next day a flatter area was formed between shed and house:
Ever played with a wacker-packer? Interesting sensation.
A flat path along the back (uphill) side of the house, and a driveway formed. When we bought the property there was little evidence of a driveway, except for extremely hard ground and a scattering of gravel.
Drive down to shed, and levelled area between buildings.
Path. The dirt on the left was clay mud six inches deep, wet by lots of rain and well churned by the bobcat tracks.
Though it looks as though the drive has a kink in it, the flatter area where the bobcat is driving is now a part of our parking space outside our fence line. (We had to have our property surveyed to find out what our boundary lines were; the previous owner had just fenced in a roughly rectangular block, including council property but excluding his own triangle up the top.) Once we'd figured out where our fence line was going, we were able to decide on our driveway. It's now straight up the hill from the photographer, toward the front of the truck tray.
This landscaping was one of the most important aspects of the development of this property. It accomplished several things: it shaped the land into four separate levels, which gardens later made more distinct and unique; it protected the house foundations from excessive movement caused by moisture fluctuation; it made the house begin to look part of the landscape, rather than an interruption to the flow of the hill; and it outlined final use of space by providing areas for rest, for traffic, for transition and for car parking/access. This property would not be half so attractive or useful, if we hadn't done this earth moving.
