Kit Home Delivered

      Now we are pretty much permanently living on the property, and we have a pretty comfortable set-up with the caravan and the bbq and chairs made of cut-off logs. The exciting news is that the kit home was delivered on Tuesday. We talked the company out of delivering it on a semi-trailer, as we knew that there was NO WAY that such a large truck would be able to make it up our driveway. The trickiest part was the culvert between the road and the gate, as it couldn't be made wider than the concrete support walls. We made it as wide as possible with some BIG pieces of timber, delivered by the local Rural Agents. It was wide enough for the truck wheels, but the dangerous part was when the back wheels came across at an angle when turning off the road. There was one hairy moment when the back wheels nearly went off, but luckily the driver stopped in time and did a bit of reversing and straightening. A local car had to stop and wait for moment while the road was blocked, but a friendly country wave made me feel like they didn't mind too much.

The driver was a nice bloke who knew his job well, and made it look pretty easy manouvering the large rigid truck up through a narrow gap in the driveway with millimetres to spare between trees on each side. And then he reversed down again without even a pause! The truck had a handy remote-control hydraulic crane which unloaded the four large packs of kit pieces with only a little hand steadying. The whole kit for building the 2 bedroom house (including the outdoor cladding, windows, verandah and raised flooring) is surprisingly small. Trying to imagine the finished product is somewhat difficult but it will all happen one day.

We are still trying to finish digging the greywater trench and installing the composting toilet, and Josh is still trying to finish the Owner-Builder course so that then we can Officially have council permission to live on the land. That would also mean that we have Official permission to clear the trees - a large area of about 70 x 80 metres, which is going to be more than an acre. I am very sad when I think about all those lovely trees and shrubs and animals homes which are going to be destroyed, but we don't actually have a choice in the matter due to bushfire regulations. We are trying to find a local with a bulldozer who can help us out in relatively short notice. We have a few possibilities from chatting to the locals and the neighbours, so we'll keep working on that!