Joy of joys, at our last visit our 13,500 litre water tank was over three quarters full and we have had enough rain fall in the last month to fill it up! We bought the largest water tank we could get to physically fit under the gutters of our shed and thought it would take years to fill since we use the water for washing, cleaning and cooling (ourselves) at every visit; instead it has taken just over six months to fill to capacity.

Our gutters are very tight (they sit mostly under the roof edge rather than to the outside) to reduce leaf litter so I wasn't able to get in and clean them before connecting up the tank inlet pipes. This has meant that quite a bit of algae and scum has made its way into the tank and is currently a little floating island of mank.

Separate from mank island is a LARGE dead huntsman spider also in the tank: considering all the inlets and outlets are covered in mosquito mesh the huntsman must have already been in there before they sealed it off. Poor guy! (or girl)

All of this has meant I haven't been able to bring myself to drink the tank water just yet (YES I know, I'm being a big wuss about it). All I need to do is take down my water filter and it will be perfectly fine to drink after that. To be honest, the idea of the spider leg-hairs gross me out WAY more than the algae scum that would be more likely to make me sick!

Next up we have ordered 200 native trees, shrubs and herbs to plant out mid-May. This is the first step in creating the 40 acre permaculture site that is currently in our heads (and hearts and dreams). We are stockpiling cardboard for carpet mulching and have saved about 200 sticks of timber from the tip (taken from our neighbours verge when he'd put it all out with a 'free' sign) for making our own tree guards.

We are contemplating using calico for tree guard material since shadecloth is so expensive. Our local council uses plastic sheeting but I'd rather use something that can be composted once it is used. Does anyone have any suggestions?

The trees will be at risk from mice, rabbits, wind and sun. Shadecloth was my first choice but I can't find it cheap enough to buy in the bulk we need.