swale pathways

Swales are ditches along the contours of a slope that catch and store water in soil, rather than let it run off down the hill.

There's now a slightly-sunken perimeter pathway to access all around the front ex-weedy square (FWS) (these abbreviations are so hard to remember). It's lined with newspaper, to prevent weeds from popping out, and covered with cypress leaf mulch from another part of the yard. This is the part that can be trampled on, while the rest of the square bed is for growing.

Not sure if the paths I've dug out actually count as a swale, but I just wanted to use the term. 

The newspaper+sugar cane mulch was blowing away in the gentle wind yesterday, to my small-scale devastation. I had run out of mulch, and the watered-down paper had dried up. I put some cypress leaves to weigh the paper down (and dry out the leaves faster) as a temporary solution, but more mulch is on the way.