No Change on the Block Yet...

Still Waiting...

      Nothing has actually happened since the last blog entry, but we on the verge of something happening so I will write about that instead. We have had a couple of bulldozer operators come out to chat about clearing our trees, after waiting months for someone to

a) advertise other than word of mouth, with their actual phone number

b) answer their phone, at all, ever

c) actually come out when they say they will come out

d) give us a quote less than $10,000 (yes that is TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS)

      They both said it would be a fairly easy job which could be done in one day. It's hard to imagine so many trees being knocked down in such a short time, but I guess I will be seeing it with my own eyes eventually. We have complicated things a bit with wanting the front of the driveway fixed as well, so that will most likely turn it into a two-day job. The most annoying thing about these guys is that they tried to convince us to move the house site somewhere else. We said that we don't actually have a choice about where to put the house due to having to be

a) 50m from the creek

b) not clearing 20m from the creek

c) 33m from the boundary due to bushfire restrictions

d) 50m from the road

      and showed them the lines in which were are restricted - but we still had to listen to a big monologue about how he thought this other spot was a much better spot. Even though it was RIGHT next to the boundary fence. I am getting sick of saying the same thing over and over - I should just write it out and hand them a written document! Besides the fact that it's all council approved and too late to make any big changes now without paying more money!!!

      Then there was that hilarious confused 5 minutes while the guy tried to process us telling him that we don't have a car. We tried to move the conversation on but he was just standing there, shaking his head and muttering. 'Don't have a car! .... ! .... ! ' We always tell them that we get around with 2 feet and a heartbeat, as it really is a lovely walk to the bus-stop or into town, with the trees and the cows and the birds. Anyway...

      The first bulldozer guy said that he wouldn't want to start any work until we had someone come out and find EXACTLY where the phone lines went through our property. If a tree is knocked down within root boundary of the lines, they could get pulled up and broken - and since everyone's phone lines further down the road goes through our place, that's a pretty big problem. So we rang round a couple of places and we were going to have to pay $400 - $500 - until one friendly guy said that he was down at Coffs Harbour which was too far to travel for a small job BUT he knew how we could get it done for free. He said that if we ring Telstra and tell them that we are on a rural property and haven't had a line survey done before, then Telstra would pay the contractor for us. So we did and one week later, had the line surveyor come out - for FREE!

      He made the job look easy, clicked a little machine onto the phone line and then walked around with another little machine - probably somewhat like a metal detector - marking the lines with big dot of blue spraypaint every 5 - 10 metres or so. He could even tell how deep they were and wrote that on the ground with the spray paint as well. Somebody told me that the lines would be maybe 1 and a half metres deep - well, these are as little as 40 cm deep and as much as 80 cm deep. There's a lot of rock around here, and under that rock there is more rock - a big rock shelf. So that did not surprise me.

      That solved the problem of bulldozing the trees - but created another problem. What do you think the chances were of the phone lines going right through our house site? Or of them going right through the EXACT MIDDLE of our house site? Well it turns out that the chances were 100% because that's where the line goes. I couldn't believe it, I thought it would be close, I thought it would be very close, but I didn't think it would be straight through the bloody middle.

      So I think we are just going to have to move the house site a few metres towards the road - that's one of the good things about it being such a small house, it only means about a 6 metre difference, and I am pretty sure the council won't even notice. All our maps are pretty rough anyway - and we don't even know exactly where the front boundary of our place is exactly. So basically the phone lines are just a small problem.

Now we are back to playing the 'waiting for the bulldozer' game all over again.

Mini-Greywater Trench Completed!

Another milestone completed - the mini-greywater trench! This was a hugely difficult task which has taken us months, digging a 3 metre long and 1 metre wide would have been easier if it wasn't for all the giant rocks. We had to spend weeks just chipping away at the edges of these until they broke off the underlying rock, and then use a block & tackle to pull the biggest rocks out of the hole. We told the council we would go 50cm deep, and we only barely made it due to a couple of rocks sticking up here and there. If we didn't have a 6 foot long metal pry bar on the property when we bought it, I really don't think we could have dug this hole at all. We only wanted to go 50cm wide but by the time we got out all the rocks from the sides it ended up being twice as wide.

     The 'simple' part was filling the hole back in - and even that took two solid days of shovelling gravel and dirt. We were lucky enough that we had lovely grey gravel on the property that we could use, but unfortunately for us it was mixed in with sand. I came up with 4 different methods of separating the two, and now I feel like I could start some kind of mining operation. I finished off the top of the greywater trench by planting it with some dianella and native grass that was dug up in the gravel, and then protected it from being walked on with some stick teepees and a rock edging. The result looked a lot more 'witchy' than I was anticipating, but I am certainly happy with how it turned out!

      Mum-in-law came for a visit and loved our composting toilet. Thanks Clivus Multrum!

      Also we have internet, phone and power in the caravan, so things are certainly getting cosy. Josh has finished the owner-builder course, and now we are waiting for Fair Tradiing to send out the Permit. I cannot recommend this online owner-builder course company for anyone wanting to do the same thing - unprofessional is one word I could use to describe them, and that's being very kind.

      Next step - final council approval, and we can start knocking trees down!

Compost Toilet Installed

Blog Wednesday 22 October

Finally seem to have gotten something done - installed the compost toilet! AND have gotten official approval from Clivus Multrum :D

Also figured out the school buses that go into Casino - all 3 of them (each way) ! First Drake to Tabulam, then Tabulam to Sandilands, then Sandilands to Casino. Only the third bus actually charges a fare, $15 each way, but most people round here seem to have a pensioner concession card which makes it actually affordable. Luckily I was pointed in the direction of a lady who frequently makes the trip, she actually lives a bit further down my road, so I was her shadow and followed her so I knew which buses were the right ones to get on.

Also we have had the solar system delivered and Josh has set it all up, and now we actually have bright lights in the caravan. It's a bit brutal to our poor darkness-adjusted eyes but I guess we might get used to it. This means too that we can plug in our laptops and have a method of charging them other than taking them into the Resource Centre and paying $2. Yay free energy from the sun! Next step - internets!

So much hard work with little to show for it

A week of frustrations with nothing really to show for days of working to the point of exhaustion, until at the 11th hour Josh finally got that damn rock we have been whacking for uncountable hours to break free of its stubborn spot blocking our greywater trench. Sore hands and muscles, blisters and mouths full of dust every day, finally we might finish this first important thing sometime next week. So much for having it done months ago.

I amused myself at the end of one day by knocking together some random broken bits of wood and making up a little bird house, which was actually much easier than I thought it would be. No birds or animals seem to have gone near it yet, unfortunately I wasn't able to nail it especially high up in the tree. Maybe I can move it when we have a ladder here.

Which might happen very soon - mum-in-law is planning a visit and we are very excited. Both to see her, and to have her see the property for the first time, but also because she will be bringing up heaps of useful stuff that we have had frustatingly sitting around in Sydney all this time. Such as a ladder!

The magicalness of everyday is not wearing off yet, what with the birds and the insects and the flowers and the bettong and bandicoot that Josh saw while making dusk phone calls. The scraps we put into the compost keep appearing in random places around the sheds, and an avocado skin was even dragged inside the annexe. Apparently these little creatures are not scared of us humans. The swallows might be now though, since their bub has fledged and they spent a night out in the wild instead of their mud nest inside the shed I took the opportunity to knock down the nest. I didn't want to be mean to them, but they were shitting all over our stuff, and we are going to be putting even more stuff in there soon. They will have to remember what it means to live back in nature again! I felt so bad that I made some little tree shelves and nailed them up, so if they want they can build their nests with some human help in the outdoors.

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!

Land Warming

After an awesome party for Josh's birthday with 7 people hanging out and having fun, the property now feels more like a 'real' place to settle in and live. One night of drunken debauchery, dancing around the fire made of a torch just to keep warm as the temperature dropped into single digits. One relaxed day of bushwalking, cricket, and chilling out. One night huddled inside the caravan playing made-up board games, toasty and warm with hot chai. More bbq'd meat than we all could eat.

Next trip down is in a few days, when we are planning to take all our stuff and then not go back to the city until a good reason comes along. Important tasks are to fix the driveway, finish installing the greywater trench and composting toilet, brushcutter the house site, and liaise with people to help start the clearing and groundwork for the house. Finally the real work will begin!

Digging a hole big enough for a dead body

We tried to finish the mini-greywater trench and compost toilet installation over our week visit, but partly due to rain, rain, rain and more rain, and partly due to it taking more than half that week for the caravan to get moved, we didn't get it finished. We did dig a big hole though, and found LOTS of rocks inside it. Also the compost toilet delivery was messed up in both timing, delivery address and also vital parts, so that totally was not our fault. Now we are back in the city we will need to do yet another trip to Bunnings to try and make sure that we have ALL of the little bits and pieces needed for putting all the various pipes together. Also Josh has to kick his own ass to make sure he completes the Owner-Builder Course asap, and when that is done then it is time for another trip to the bush.
     Below is the rock that Josh realised that he couldn't dig out. From the bottom of the 1.5L water bottle to the bottom of the hole is all one big rock. And I am sure that it goes further in every other direction too.

     We had the grease-trap in the pic delivered along with some other useful hardware, such as a shovel and a wheelbarrow, from the local rural supply store. The driveway was fine for their small truck but we will need to do some serious upgrading for the 2.4m wheelbase semi-trailer which the kit home will be delivered on.
     A week seemed like a long time, but the list of stuff we DID get done is a lot shorter than the list of stuff that we DIDN'T get done. The good news is that even when it is raining, it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL down there amongst the trees, and the native mice, and the baby birds - all cute and fluffy, and completely unafraid of humans! Then the sun comes out, and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.