The Kit

Well February seemed to come and go in what felt like a matter of days. The most exciting event was purchasing our new “kit” – a 1984 Nissan Patrol diesel 4WD (work horse) and a 22ft caravan to accommodate Wwoofers, all for $5,500. The caravan is fully decked out with gas oven and hotplates, dining room, two separate bedrooms, and even has dimmer lights! The cheapest van we found of this size and condition on the mainland was $8,000 on its own, so we got a real bargain. It seemed too good to be true, but the mechanic has checked both vehicles over and it seems we really have scored big time :o)

The next door neighbour came over in his little excavator and has levelled the caravan site for us, and placed blue metal around the site so it doesn’t get boggy after rain.

On the land this month we planted some ground covers and a few dozen potatoes in Zone 2, along with millions of pigface cuttings (edible cactus) that we cultivated from a nearby permaculture property.

The seedlings we planted in January have also germinated nicely, and many should be ready to plant out in autumn.

They actually germinated so well that I was able to thin them out in the pots, and have already planted some seedlings directly into Zone 2.

We’ve cut the first proper walking track down to the creek. The photos below show the start of the track, an area we stumbled across that might become our wedding ceremony circle, and the scenery half way along the track.

During Feb we also placed rocks around the new driveway culvert to avoid erosion and make sure the water runs exactly where we want it to go – toward the future dam!

I started volunteering this month at an animal sanctuary only 20 minutes from our land, called Brightside Farm. They’ve rescued all kinds of birds, chooks, geese, cats, dogs, pigs, ponies, horses, donkies, cows, goats, rabbits, guinea pigs, and even rats and ferrets!

I’ve been spending time with a greyhound dog called Minnie that couldn't race anymore because she broke her toe, so the trainers were going to put her down. Unfortunately greyhound trainers use live animals such as chickens and piglets to teach them how to race (let's not even go there), so before a greyhound can be re-homed they need to be un-taught otherwise they'll chase and kill any small animal they see. So I put a muzzle and leash on her and walk her around the farm trying to get her used to all the other animals. She’s doing pretty well, though still can’t control herself around the rabbits. Poor thing must be so confused getting told off for doing what she's always been trained to do.

It’s really amazing how all the different animals get along, you can see in this photo there are pigs, chooks, ducks and even cats all interacting.

Wonderful news is that Brightside Farm found a new home for Hedge, the kitten we’ve been fostering. We had to keep looking after him until he reached 1kg (which he did two days ago woo hoo), so he’s off to his new home this week :o)

This is a great time of year in Tassie Mania, you can buy apples, pears, peaches, nectarines and plums straight off the tree (which have ripened on the tree), and we’ve never before had the privelage of eating fruit that tastes this good. There is also wild blackberry and cherries growing everywhere, so if we feel a bit peckish we just have to harvest the nearest bush! I made a delicious tart with blackberries growing on our land (not cooked of course, the raw food diet is still going strong).

We’ve written a list of other things we love about Tassie Mania:

· People hitch everywhere

· Politicians have gmail email accounts

· The RTA tells you to ignore their reminder notices

· There’s no such thing as a green slip

· Once registered in Tassie, vehicles never need a pink slip

· You don’t have to stand up for the elderly or pregnant women on the train, because there is no train

· You don’t have to stand up for the elderly or pregnant women on the bus, because the bus is never full

· Hairy legs :o)

In summary, we’re having loads of fun!

Welcome to Tassie Mania

We started 2010 in true Tassie mania style, spending NYE on the land with Dean in front of a campfire. We arrived just before sunset and took a walk to the creek, meeting a wallaby, rabbit and kookaburra along the way. We got back to the campfire just before a major electrical storm, and spent the next hour sitting in awe watching the most amazing natural spectacle with the whole valley lighting up before our eyes. We thought we might get bored throughout the night, but were still there to witness the sun come up over the river and the myriad of birds waking for the 1^st day of 2010.

We spent the next couple of days doing some touristy things with Dean (thanks to the Lonely Planet guide that Col & Michael gave us). This included Mt Field National Park (note Dean at the bottom of the tree)

Mt Wellington lookout over Hobart city

Port Arthur

and a truly awesome 3hr jet boat ride around the southern coast line, where we saw spectacular sea cliffs, caves and fur seal colonies lazing on the rocks.

We were also lucky enough to witness the yachts in the Sydney to Hobart go past (well, it was more like us whizzing past them)!

Once the “holiday” was over and we waved goodbye to Dean, our main goal for January was to finish our Permaculture (PC) design before Karim went back to work, so I could start implementing it. We started by doing a tour of a nearby PC property, where we learned a lot about local suppliers, plant species and much more. We then spent a ridiculous amount of hours on brush cutters to tidy the cleared sections of the land so we could see what we were working with (it was covered with two years old thick overgrowth). Within a couple of weeks we came up with the following draft design.

Dean came back at the end of January as our first official WWOOFER, and together we achieved some incredible milestones, the most important being Dean’s Dunny.

We managed to turn our food production area (Zone 2) from this

To this

This wasn’t easy, and involved Dean and I filling massive holes with rocks before the topsoil was spread. Some of the rocks Dean lifted must have weighed at least 50kg. We then spread dolomite and gypsum, followed by sawdust and hay, then topped it off with a temporary irrigation system and some nitrogen fixing cover crop, broad beans and potatoes to start fixing the soil.

The existing driveway was a steep scar down the middle of the property, which was an eyesore, an effort to drive up, caused a lot of erosion and sent a lot of water off the property. You’ll see in the second photo that we filled in the bottom section of the driveway with topsoil and changed the shape so that it now wraps around the tree line to the right (you can’t even see the new driveway, and we’ve created an additional growing area where the old driveway was). We also inserted a drain and culvert to direct the water off the driveway toward the proposed dam site.

The other major milestone in January was preparing a level area for the Garage slab, complete with a rock wall garden to attract bees and slow the water down.

And it that wasn’t enough, we (I mean Dean :o)) carted about 100 tonne of tree stumps, did odd jobs like mulching, and managed to plant a few thousand tagasaste, albizia and acacia seeds along with a variety of other native ground covers, shrubs and trees.

Between all these Permaculture activities we’ve been fostering a kitten that we found in the gutter in Hicksville, who the vet estimated to only be about three weeks old. He was very skinny and sick and ended up in an oxygen chamber at the vet, but is now doing really well and nearly ready to go into a permanent home.

And last but not least, we started our new raw food regime (no cooking or heating food) with a juice diet at the beginning of January. We’re actually really enjoying it, and in only one month lost a whopping 6kg and a total of 20cm off our bodies! Dean also stuck to it for eight days and survived, losing over 2kg in that time.

Well that pretty much covers January (which feels like a year already)! Of course there’s a whole lot more photos on facebook too. We can’t wait to tell you what we’re getting up to in Feb :o)

Crossing Over

The time has come to cross over to the other side :o) I resigned last week and we’re off to Tassie on 19th December. It has rained so much down there over the past few months that we weren’t able to complete the earthworks and erect/fit out the garage in time for occupancy, but considering that water harvesting is one of our main priorities, we welcome the rain. We’ve secured a rental property only 35 minutes from the land, which has a lovely view over the bay and will serve as a good base camp over the next 12 months, especially considering Karim is maintaining his full time job while I plant trees, dig swales, collect firewood, build soils and make mudbricks.

We had an amazing farewell and engagement party last weekend, with some great friends from around Australia, the UK and NZ. We partied like there was no tomorrow with friends that we’ve had the most brilliant journeys with over the past 10 years, and new friends that we’ve met while living in Sydney that will be a very special part of the rest of our lives.

But of course there is a tomorrow – a truly wonderful tomorrow. We’ve already arranged a tour of an established permaculture property not far from our land in Tassie only 3 days after we land, and have bought our survey equipment ready to spend Christmas surveying the property and start drafting our permaculture design. Some experienced local permies are then coming to our land to review our design and discuss what they might do differently based on their experience. Faboulous… we couldn’t think of a better way to spend our Christmas.
We’ve then got a great friend, Dean, coming over for NY to ensure that we have a few days off to simply enjoy. I look forward to our next blog update, as the journey gets truly underway.

Straw Bale Working Bee

Karim headed down to Canberra in August for a 4-day straw bale working bee, along with about 24 other volunteers, to help construct the first straw bale house in Canberra. Straw bale is a very appealing construction method for us in Tassie because of its thermal insulation properties. The slab, posts, beams and roof were already in place, so by the end of day one a whole main wall of straw bales was already in position.



If the house is designed according to straw bale construction, the width between posts and the height between beams should be calculated according to the width an heights of the straw bales, which avoids cutting straw bales to fit and obviously speeds up the construction process dramatically.

Once the bales were in place, they were secured with metal brackets, then large needles were drilled through the bales and tightened with wire.


The last step was to trim the excess straw while having a good chinwag with fellow volunteers, before spraying on the mud and clay render.


And at the end of a hard day’s work earth building, there’s nothing like sharing your camp site with the locals.

This is definitely the kind of initiative we would like to adopt when we eventually build in Tassie – giving people the opportunity to learn how to build their own earth home while getting your house built at the same time!

Planning our Temporary Accommodation

The deal we made for the previous owner of our land in Tassie to stay there for two years is (unbelievably) nearly over, so its time to plan the construction of some kind of “temporary” accommodation. We really liked the idea of a yurt, but in the end it wasn’t very practical in the long term considering the cost. So we’ve decided on a large garage with a storage section, living section and an undercover carport that we can cut and store wood under (as well as create an outdoor dining area). This way, when we eventually build our earth home, we’ll have a great size garage come workshop, art studio and accommodation for WWOOFERS and guests.
Even though it’s “only a garage”, we’ve applied permaculture design pricinples by positioning it on an east to west axis, with the living area and main windows along the north side. And of course we’ve made sure that it won’t get in the way of future dams, swales and food production areas!
We’ve measured every piece of furniture that we want to fit inside the living area to make sure we build it just big enough to be comfortable for a few years if necessary while we build.

We did a quick two day trip to the land in July to peg out the site and meet local concretors and builders that could help with the fitout. You can just see the orange survey tape marking the location of the garage through the trees, to the right of the trucks.

Something else very exciting took place during this visit, Karim got down on his knee on the land and proposed :o)

That night we celebrated with a lovely meal at the Old Court House, and stayed in the most beautiful straw bale cottage called Whispering Spirit, only 3km from our land. Karim now knows never to put shampoo in a spa bath :o)

Upon returning home we finalised the garage design plans and lodged them with the council. Why aren’t we surprised that you can design a garage, have earth levelled and a slab laid, have double glazed windows made, manufacture and erect the building faster than the council can say “we allow you to put a garage on YOUR land”. Hmph
Now its time to research suppliers for our compost toilet, kit kitchen, floor coverings, water tank, and of course the most important thing, someone to help us build a cat cave ready for our four furry babies :o)