Category Archives: Owner Building

The Climate Crisis – what can each of us do?

by . Posted on

It feels overwhelming, doesn’t it?

But we can each do SOMETHING even if we can’t do EVERYTHING. Each individual effort DOES make a difference no matter how small. And change begins gradually, so maybe there is one small step we can take and work towards bigger ones. But sticking our heads in the sand is no longer an option, WE HAVE TO ACT NOW. Here are a few ideas for living a more sustainable life and helping the planet. Pick one and hopefully more that you can do, or are already doing. See if you can aim for others. None of us are perfect. But we can all TRY.

* Buy an insulated 2 litre stainless steel WATER BOTTLE and take water from home with you wherever you
go (I also have a 5 litre insulated water container in the car as I cannot STAND ‘town water’ as we
call it, & when we go away anywhere we take 20 litre drums!

* Can you fit a RAINWATER TANK (of any size) to your house or unit so you can catch rainwater and filter
it for drinking or use it for washing or the garden? In the UK I ran water out of my mum’s 60 litre
rainwater butt into a domestic water filter jug to keep me drinking rainwater while away!

* What provides SHADE on your western side? We have planted trees for the long term and in the short
term have shade sail and trellis growing passionfruit to try and prevent the beating heat of the
afternoon sun. How can you keep that heat from invading your living or roofspace?

* How’s your INSULATION? Good insulation keeps a house warmer in winter and cooler in summer – what’s
in the roofspace & the walls? Talk to a builder.

* Roof WHIRLIGIGS release hot air to mitigate the heating effects of the hot aussie sun –
that might be a partial solution for you.

* Doors, windows and double glazing: Well sealed and fitting doors and windows help keep the heat
where you want it (in or out). Some windows (casement) really work to catch any little breeze while
others seem to do precisely nothing. New windows and doors are VERY expensive so keep an eye on eBay
and other such sites for bargains.

* SOLAR! There are no words to explain the good feeling in your heart and soul knowing that all your
power is coming from the sun. If you are a homeowner this is an investment in your property which
minimises bill stress, provides a reliable source of power even in blackouts (with battery backup)
& helps to minimise emissions. I can’t recommend it highly enough! Talk to www.thesolarexperts.com.au

* How can you MINIMISE YOUR WASTE output? Please never, ever, EVER throw food away.
Get a couple of chooks or worm farm or compost bin or pile but PLEASE don’t throw food into landfill.

* CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION: We all have to change the way we shop. Shop less often & buy better quality
as close as possible to the source. Get to know farmers, farm shops, farmers markets, farming co-
operatives and farmgate honesty boxes – seek them out! Meet the farmers, buy meat in bulk, eat
seasonal, fresh from the fields food.

* Buy a FREEZER. Yes, I know they use power but you will cook more and store some in the freezer for
days you can’t be bothered (& will eat better as a result), you can buy good meat and fish in bulk,
make pesto from your basil plants & passata from your tomatoes. You can freeze bananas for smoothies
and good bread from your favourite bakery. A freezer becomes a treasure chest, full of delights –
your very own takeaway store.

* Make a PANTRY space & buy bulk where possible. Using huge supermarket conglomerates as your pantry
and making daily trips for supplies means you are spending more than you need to and supporting big
businesses screwing farmers to the wall rather than purchasing judiciously from growers and provedores

* Bike, walk, train & bus where possible.
We are all so addicted to being coccooned in our own private tin cans, and some of us don’t have a
choice because there are no public transport options in rural areas. But just as those fumes will
kill us if we stand behind a vehicle in an enclosed space, so they are killing the planet.

* BUY AN EV! I wish . . . ! Well, save for one!

* Refuse PLASTIC – plastic bags, plastic wrapping, plastic toys, food containers, cups and utensils

* WRITE to your local MP and state your concerns. Write to the Prime Minister.
Get engaged, get involved, turn up, raise your voice. Our children’s future depends on it!

Ged the Builder

by . Posted on
08 Jul

Gary arrived on Monday but unfortunately doubled over with some sort of bug so after I’d cleaned the caravan for him, we just put him to bed in the hope that work proper on the office might start in the morning.  I dosed him up with homeopathics and they seem to have done the trick as he and Ged have been out there digging out the holes, mixing cement and embedding the piers in the hill.  Ged mixed and barrowed 82 loads of cement downhill from mixer to hole – Gary did two!!  And I got to see my husband the builder in all his glory – lordy those boys can eat!

Luckily the good weather has remained with us although the nights are getting really cold now and the fire is burning day and night to keep the house warm.  It feels so good to finally have progress being made on the office.  The little nesting mother is getting quite antsy about getting the office all finished and the clutter out of the house so she can prepare a sacred space for the baby . . .
We drove down to Sydney on Friday to stay with Shirley and Marcel.  We went out for great Indian food near them which was lovely and good to catch up.  They are full of excitement about their impending six week sojourn in Italy so it was good of them to have the love tribe invade for a night.  We were all up and gone early on Saturday morning, they to work and us to brave the hordes at IKEA (which seems to be mecca for mums to be, judging by the bumps traversing the aisles!)  We got the last little bits for the kitchen, a gorgeous mosquito/fly net for the baby which has given me the ‘theme’ for his room, and various other bits and pieces for the house.  And then it was off car hunting for Ged.  He has decided to change his car completely.  When he bought his ‘ute’ it was for him alone as he was still working for his brother’s firm and thus had a work truck.  And even though we fitted the ute out with metal boxes for all his tools they cannot weather the dirt roads.  Since we also need a nice family car with rear doors for easy access to bub, Ged can swap his car for a pure work wagon that really suits his business.  He has done heaps of research and has come up with a plan!  So we were scoping out the possibilities in Sydney.  Then we were late for our hair appointment in Newport (sorry, Ilia!) but it was bliss for both of us to be rid of the weight on our heads and to catch up with Ilia and Rosa.  A quick walk on the beach with Phee – it is so long since I went to the beach at Newport, I remember how much I loved my daily walks and runs there – I do miss the beach no matter how blessed I am with river and nature, there is something so primal and elemental about the ever-changing vista of the waves and their roaring and shushing on the sand.
Next stop was Ilia and Rosa’s new home that they are building to pick up a wood burning stove they have donated to us out of the old house they demolished.  It was great to walk through the frame and see the scope of the new house – huge!  Nice big block and building proceeding to schedule so hopefully they will be in by Christmas.  And then we were off again – this time to the Central Coast for a quick shower and change at our Motel and then dinner with Steve, Cherie, Aaron, Leisa and Gary – our first catch up with them since the wedding.  We went to some appalling pizza place but had a good time nonetheless – next time Ged and I will choose the venue!!  Sunday we bought jocks and socks for the lady who keeps outgrowing her clothes (me!) and then spent the day with them all and the kids which was nice.  Finally home just before the witching hour and my god it was good to breathe the crisp, fresh, peaceful air of home, looking up at the star-filled sky and revelling in the space surrounding us.  How anyone lives in cities is beyond us!!

That’s the nicest thing about going away – it’s so, so good to be home again!

White Ant invasion

by . Posted on
09 May

We have been scrubbing the Comboyne office (and there are those of you who know how much it needed it!!)  We have given away the fridge, toaster and microwave and packed up all the paraphernalia belonging to Ged’s brother and his business and are almost free and unfettered . . . we have exchanged on the sale of Ged’s 400 acre block and are now just awaiting settlement so it’s a good feeling for us both to be clearing out the detritus of his bachelor life and more fully embracing the life we have chosen together.  Needless to say, I won’t let him keep much!!

Meanwhile, down on the farm, we have discovered where the white ants went after we ejected them from my side of the shed where they were gnawing on the wooden mattress supports for one of my beds.  No, they haven’t gone up into the bush where there are thousands of felled trees they could nibble on to their little hearts’ content, they migrated instead to Ged’s shed and set up camp in the beautiful Tasmanian Oak flooring we had set aside for the office . . . they were obviously pretty bloody hungry, because there isn’t much left!
So Ged has been burning the equivalent of money as he sorts through the mess and I have been on the internet searching out sure-fire death to these pestilent perpetrators of wholesale wood massacre.  They’ve got 400 acres of wood out there – what’s so bloody tasty about my furniture???!!
Poor Shirley and Marcel have recently discovered White Ant in their Guest Annexe so both Marcel and I have been investigating options.  He is Sherlock Holmes, I am Watson.  He has gone down the pest man route, to the detriment of his bank balance.  We are still looking for solutions which go back to the nest and kill the queen, because we need an on-going long-term solution.
We are avidly watching the second series of The West Wing on DVD (which Neil and Jane lent us) and I am simultaneously reading ‘A Woman In Charge’ – Carl Bernstein’s balanced portrayal of Hillary Clinton.  Since The West Wing is based on the Clinton era I found factual events and actions on which the plots were based as I read on.  I found the book absolutely fascinating.  Highly recommended to anyone who lived through, and wondered about, the Clinton history, marriage, Whitewater and all those women . . . I’m not sure whether to be sad or relieved that she’s been sidelined by Obama.  The feminist in me wants a woman in the White House very badly.  But Hillary – I’m not so sure.
I am loving being at home more, revelling in the beauty of this idyllic spot, and most definitely nesting . . .
Return of the platypus . . .

A kitchen at last!

by . Posted on
25 Feb

Well, it’s all go here!

From fear of never finishing and frustration at the slow progress and lack of productivity of yours truly, we have hope, renewed confidence, and a light at the end of the tunnel.
Gary was very brave and got stuck into the flat pack IKEA kitchen which Maria so kindly donated as our wedding present.  There were a few wrong turns as he ‘read’ the pictorial instructions, which, in black and white, are pretty hard to follow! and there were a few scary moments when we thought it wasn’t all going to fit.  But fit it did and now, at last I have a kitchen.  OK, right now I don’t have a BENCHTOP, so I can’t actually USE it, but I have a kitchen!
All the skirtings have been cut to size and await the attentions of the painter (me!), and the new door frames around the cupboards in the bedrooms have also been installed and ditto.  Progress, my friends is being made!
Everyone convenes in my bedroom in the morning as I sip my hot juice and delicately pick my way through my toast and I dole out the day’s instructions just like the Queen of Sheba.  Then the boys all get to work and I warily get up and then spend the next hour or so alternating the venues for my morning retchings.  Everyone just ignores me wherever I might be!  Situation normal in the Love household!
Just a reminder of the kitchen I have been living with for the last 6 months or so . . . .

Are we there yet?

by . Posted on
11 Feb

Lordy, I’m so far behind . . . better buckle down and try and piece together the past for you!  Get ready for a marathon!

I feel as if we’re never going to get there.  I am weak as a kitten, prostrate over porcelain and tired beyond my worst nightmares and Ged, too, is over it.  Talking of marathons, it feels like we are in the last 3 or four miles when you’ve already hit the ‘wall’ – everything hurts and it seems too far, too much, and an impossible reach to the finish line.  Every fibre of your being is screaming ‘give up, give up, give up’ and it is only the exhortations of the strangers on the sidelines that keeps you putting one foot in front of the other . . . .
There’s so much still to do and that determined, ambitious, can do, will do, nothing gets in my way, never say can’t female that we all know so well, seems to have deserted me.  She has gone AWOL and left behind, in her place, this weak willed and muscled, floppy, drooping over furniture female who is a complete stranger to me and let me tell you gets precisely nothing done!!
It was good to get away to Sydney and have a dress fitting (thank God, Adam cut the dress big is all I can say – when that feisty female left she took my waistline with her!) and have my haircut by Ilia and begin to get some sense of how this hair will be for the big day.  I also found a jewellery valuer who could do an on-the-spot evaluation of my engagement ring which was very gratifying – it’s already worth substantially more than we paid for it – so it’s doing much better than my first foray into the share market!!
Let’s hope that great Amazon warrior woman we know and love comes back soon . . . !

Mr Goanna who keeps eyeing up my chickens and their eggs!

Slow progress and paint stripping

by . Posted on
08 Jan
On New Year’s Day we left Phee with the hungover hosts and went shopping for something for Ged and his best man, Steve, to wear on the big day.  Success!  As usual, I had a vision in mind, and we managed to find the right jackets and shirt even if the pants were all the wrong sizes, but at least that gives me an on-the-phone challenge for the New Year!
Back to Avalon and work on the farm and on the house.  We were preparing for the imminent arrival of the Grippers, so Ged replaced the platform for the Flying Fox on the house side, and also made an all new ‘basket’ lining so it was solid and safe for my beloved Gripper kids.  We ordered an ‘enviro-loo’ from Brisbane which came complete with Cane Toad (oh. my. God!) and set it up in one of the old corrugated iron ‘builders bog’ that we inherited with the property.  Ged also made a sink stand and a wooden base for an ablution block out of sleepers and piped cold water to the site.  We never quite got to the hot water, but we will one day . . . .!
I stripped and sanded a little antique table I had and spent a day stripping a window – layer upon layer upon layer of paint, dating from sometime early in the last century and STILL the window is not close to being ready for painting – ugh!  I put another coat on the ceilings and painted yet more doors.  Other than that, we read some good books, went for some nice runs and enjoyed staying on the property.  The weather was glorious, the river peacable and pristine and we spent a lot of time platypus watching which was bliss (the new Flying Fox platform is the perfect platypus viewing post!)
Slow progress is being made!

The Myrtles in full bloom over Christmas.

Control freak, moi?

by . Posted on
24 Dec
I left Ged and the plumber ripping  out the bathroom the other day.  After I had bossed them both around and got in the way I decided I had better not ask any more questions when I saw Colin drilling a hole in a strange spot in the floor.  I figured they both knew what they were doing and just had my bath outside under the jacaranda tree, revelling  in nature while they toiled.  Then I made them scrambled eggs on toast and iced coffee and left them to it.  When I came home I was thrilled to see the shower base in and to get a sense of how good my shower will be.  Then I walked into the rest of the room.  ‘Why is the toilet there” I asked.  ‘That’s where you wanted it, honey’ Ged replied.  Oh God, that is NOT where I wanted it . . . you can imagine the rest!
The upshot was that since Colin went away for the Christmas break early the next morning, Ged was given all the instructions and had to spend Saturday moving the loo . . . less than six inches to the left!!  Control freak?  Moi??
I went to Sydney and found a dress so you will be pleased to hear that I will not be fronting up at the hitching rail in my Birthday Suit on 15th March!  It’s going to be made by a fabulous gay Aussie designer called Adam Dixon who I found through a strange set of coincidences and it is exactly what I had in my head so we won’t worry about the dollars!!  Well, I got my wedding shoes at Target for $20.00 so that should offset some of the cost!!  It was good to see Shirley and Marcel and be inspired by their lovely home and it is testimony to how tired I am that I slept through all the cars and trains which create the Sydney soundscape.  I put myself through DFO (Direct Factory Outlets) which is rather like being in a huge fluoro lit maze and first it seems exciting when you come across a dead end and then you become more and more frustrated and fearful as you can’t find you way out, every way you turn is the wrong way, until you finally stumble back the way you came and stagger into the sunshine, heaving deep breaths of relief and vowing never, ever again . . . .
I went to Ikea to look at the kitchens and have found one so we will go back into the breach once more in January to find Ged a suit for the big day and bring home my country kitchen from the big smoke.
I got one of my Christmas presents early . . . I have wanted a Jersey cow ever since I read and fell in love with Colleen McCulloch’s gorgeous ‘Ladies of Missalonghi’ many years ago.  And she arrived on Friday!  She was immediately christened Daisy and when I was out trying to befriend her on Friday night I must have not fully locked in the yard gate bolt.  When Ged got up to make the tea on Saturday morning he found Daisy was long gone!  So we went hunting and eventually Ged and Phee found her hiding on the other side of the river and tried to tempt her with honey sandwiches to no avail.  So I went and played Parelli games with her for three hours until she would follow me home.  We only  had one bad moment when I decided to rope her to get her to cross the river with me and she showed me her strength by hauling me head first and bouncing on my ass through a briar patch . . . so i gave that up as a bad idea!  Bloodied and battered I persuaded to forgive me for such rudeness and love me again and she followed me home across the river, up the bank, all the way down the flat and back into the yard – good girl!!  She kisses on command and she definitely thinks I’m a cow!  She tried to mount me three times that afternoon and played head butting games with me so I had to slap her down a bit.  On Sunday we let her out again and she went off at a leisurely pace to the same spot but when I went to retrieve her a few hours later I just had to call and she came wading across the river to me and followed me home again.  We might be two mad cows together but we are very happy!
This Mad Cow is signing off for 2007.  It’s been a crazy year.  Who would have thought that my single-minded pursuit of my dream farm would bring me my best friend, my life partner and a love I’ve longed for all my life?  Who would have thought I could have found this much happiness someone who understands me and loves me anyway!!
We are in a mad push to get the house done over the holidays so Ged can start building the office and I can plan a wedding and orchestrate all the different things that have to happen at Avalon before she is on show in March.  I hope we also get some time off to enjoy each other and this land which holds and nurtures us and is our much-loved home.
Here’s love to all of you at this time of togetherness, hope and promise.  Let’s see what 2008 will bring us all . . . .

DAISY!

Dressed to impress

by . Posted on
03 Sep

Well, even the best laid plans . . .

I don’t know quite what happened with Ged’s week off. I know one day I spent being Trinny and Tranny in Port Macquarie, upgrading and updating his wardrobe (which has improved his sartorial elegance but has done sweet FA for the house!) And we ordered lots of things to help the house on its way and I know that the new washing machine is now installed in the laundry and today the taps have been relocated by the plumber and the gorgeous tallowood work surfaces have been ‘dressed’ (Trinny and Tranny all round!) And . . . the falling down awning to the side of the garage has been removed (finally!) and George has been behind the shed with the tractor and made a lovely space for my one day chook run. And the orange tree has had a very dramatic haircut so Tinkerbell and Baby have been having a feast . . . but there’s no one thing finished in the house for me to tick the box and say ‘done’.

Either someone up there is trying to teach me patience, or sorely trying my patience!!

George pushed all the pebbles back up to the bridge on Sunday so I was at last free to leave. When I did finally go off the property it was a strange experience – liberating, exhilarating and kind of scary! Fascinating to see the havoc the water had wrought with all the crossings and bridges and see just how many people, like me, were river or creek bound for the duration. The best thing is that the solar system held up through all that drear, grey week of rain with not even a murmur which was brilliant, even if the sun wasn’t!

Having escaped the truly horrible (and sometimes fatal) flu that had been doing the rounds and that Ged was bed-bound for a week with, I was headachey and nauseous all week but I put it down to sunstroke, PMT or dehydration and soldiered on until mid-week when I spent the night wedded to the WC as my father so eloquently puts it ‘s****ing through the eye of a needle!’ I had a raging temperature and spent the whole of the following day (which was boiling hot) shivering under the doona while all sorts of workmen hammered and tractored and sawed outside. Or maybe that was just what it felt like in my head . . . .

Actually I was dragged out of bed by George early in the day to go over to his place and meet the Fire Brigade to get my Fire Permit now that the ban has been brought in early. I can’t say I was looking my best for such an occasion, and luckily while I looked like death, they were no pin-up boys either, so I didn’t miss a perfect opportunity there . . .

I was all better by the next day and had to go forth and forage for food in the shops to fill the void and found some gorgeous local natural yoghurt – there are some really amazing locally grown and made natural products up here which inspire me to cook for my workers. I have also just discovered Kipfler (??) little sort of long potato things – divine. Highly recommend my sweet potato curry . . . .!

On Saturday we headed down to the Central Coast to go to my old hairdresser’s 40th which was a big Yugoslav family affair in truly the naffest house you could even begin to imagine – huge mock tudor baronial/aussie macmansion. It was ‘gangsters and molls’ so I wore a great beaded dress which Mel sent over (and will unlikely be getting back!) and slicked my hair back with kiss curls on my cheeks. It was all a mad rush, especially since I was determined to trim the horse’s feet before we left. So we raced into Port to get shoes for my outfit, socks for Ged’s, present for the birthday boy etc., and then I was sewing buttons and headbands in the car on the way! But it was fun to see them and some people I hadn’t seen for ten years and to have a good boogie. On Sunday we went to meet some of his oldest friends and had a look at where he had grown up – lovely acreage at Terrigal where his big family roamed the countryside on horseback and listened to the bell birds in the bush. It was nice to get out on the water in the speed boat but I wasn’t game to ski – too bloody cold for me!!

Then home and the warm glow of a good day’s burning – George has been a busy boy and done a great job. and he tells me that his daughter gave him a huge amount of home cooked food when she saw him at Church on Saturday – so she was obviously guilt ridden into action after he told her I was cooking for him – great! I can rest in peace then . . .


THE MAGICAL ANGLE CREEK

Slash and Burn

by . Posted on
06 Aug

Well, I fired the builder.  Had to be done, really!  The previous week his children had been sick and then he had caught the bug so I didn’t see hide nor hair of him.  Monday he turned up looking for a cheque and on Tuesday he presented some very flimsy invoices to support his request for ‘more’.  I gave him a cheque but when he hadn’t turned up by lunchtime the following day with no call to explain why, I cancelled it.  And reconciled myself to the fact that he would have to go.

He was very sweet, and reasonable eye candy but I can watch Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise for my jollies, and at least I KNOW he’s not going to renovate my house!!    Oh well, my intuition was way out on that one!  Or maybe I was right, and he would have done it, but it would have been like Waiting for Godot and we all know that I haven’t a patient bone in my body . . . .

Ged to the rescue again!  He used to be a builder so he is going to put his hands to good use and last weekend we got more done in two days than the builder had done in a month so things could be looking up!  OK it might only happen at weekends but at least I know that it will happen.

My life is beginning to feel like one of those commercials ‘it may not happen overnight, but it will happen’!

George is my saving grace!  He has burnt a break across the other side of the property so ‘on the next good hot day ‘ he can ‘set a match to it and get rid of all the bladey grass’.  Australian farmers make sense of the phrase ‘slash and burn’.  But George doesn’t know that my Natural Farming book says that burning destroys more nutrients than it puts back so while I agree that the years of neglect need to be burnt off, this may be the last year he gets to indulge his pyromania!

He has also been up on the ridge cutting down the wattles and lantana – silhouetted against a pristine sky – an Australian icon.  I am so privileged to have him to learn from and also to witness that rugged pioneering spirit.  His father was a pom so when we agree we have anything in common he says it’s the pom in us!  He is a master of bush craft and I am a willing disciple.  He makes me laugh but his story is a sad one.  His gorgeous wife who is a real looker with the kindest deep blue eyes, has Alzheimers and he will not give her up to care.  His work is his sanity and she is his one true love so it’s a hard row he hoes and he often needs just a little sympathetic hearing from an unconditional heart.

Now we are calling in George’s younger brother to do my post and rail fencing – just a bit at a time when I’m feeling flush!  I have been the painting queen all weekend, coat after coat over the vile lime green walls inside and pressure washing the outside and making a start on that.  I cleaned out the cattle yards, pulling up all the fireweed and mowing seven years of weeds.  George got me in the river to put a couple of wires across to stop the cattle – the river was the same temperature as the sea at West Wittering on Christmas Day in the UK.  I did two walks across (belly button high) and strung two wires and plunged straight into a boiling hot bath!  Freezing!  George and Marcia thought it was hilarious!  And now my water wading skills have been requested again for early Thursday morning for a repeat performance at the other end of the property.  I think I’ll go buy a boat!

Cold Comfort in the Country

by . Posted on
16 Jul
Nothing’s working!!  The mower had to go back because it was a wuss (as we say in Australia) a wimp and a limp excuse for a machine.  The phone felled itself for some unknown reason and even the washing machine is, literally, on the blink – it keeps shorting out.  And the gas hot water system that I had always had a funny feeling didn’t work, managed four whole days before it gasped its last and left me freezing, frustrated and floundering in the dark ages, boiling pans of water on the stove in order to shiver in 3 inches of lukewarm green river water in a cast iron bath!

I have lost my sense of humour completely!

And the builder turns up but what is he DOING under the house while I shiver in my single bed in this building site with big gaps in the floor where the cold winter winds whistle through?  Can’t he see that I don’t CARE about the bloody piers, I care about my own comfort and making a home that I can live, rather than camp in!

To add to my frustration I seem to have spent most of the week in the Telstra vortex – on hold ad nauseam while I battle valiantly to get some sort of broadband solution.  Lots of promises from call centre land, but they’ve probably never been out of Mumbai, and certainly never experienced the strange and scary Orwellian world of telecommunications in regional Australia.  I have become part of ‘the one percent’.  John Howard always talks about broadband solutons for 99% of the Australian population.  I’m the rest!

This week’s brave new frontier is wireless broadband.  Sounds good the way they talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk it transpires that it isn’t Mac compatible.  Back to the drawing board and the stove to keep boiling the water . . . .