This weekend was the beginning of two weeks off work for both Kyle and I. Two weeks of what we hope will lead to basic infrastructure on the property.
Most of Saturday was spent shopping (heavy duty pants, welding visors, lots of stuff from the tip), during which we resist the feeling that we are haemorrhaging money and try to remind ourselves that this is what we spent so long saving up for anyway.
Sunday was a trip to the site. We knew we weren't going to get very much done on this trip (the first when we actually own the place - we took a brief trip out a day before settlement and did some blackberry clearing, but we figure that doesn't really count). The purpose was really to talk over what happens next and get a better feel for the place. Early on we realised you can't really skimp on the time you spend talking it over before you start - a constant process of revisiting and reclarifying and making sure you both have the same vision in your heads and the same idea of what steps happen when.
So, we explored a bit first...
There are several areas we have started calling wombat villages:
Last time we were at the property the creek had obviously flooded a little while before, up perhaps a metre or two. I've checked the weather data and it looks like it floods that much quite regularly but the catchment area isn't big enough for it ever to go higher.
The water is quite clear, though, and trickles pleasently:
We went further up the hill on the other side of the creek than we have before - technically the property boundary is the creek itself, but when the property was subdivided from the very large cattle station surrounding it the creek was too hard to fence so they put it on the top of the ridge. This means we have an extra 20m or so all along the creek of very steep south facing slope with lots of scrubby trees. So we went all the way up to the ridge to take a look along the fence line.
We found evidence of past bushfires, though obviously from quite a while ago:
There's a quite lovely spot with a bit mossy rock in the shade:
Then we stood in the middle of the ridge and looked back up at our place. You can see a bunch of trees at the top, but only 3 of them are actually on our property.
After exploring we had an extensive discussion about what we want to achieve over the next two weeks. We've talked a fair bit about this before, but it's different when you're standing there and can see the scale of it and where things will go.
We bought some stakes with flags on from the tip shop ages ago, thinking they'd be useful one day, so we staked out where our outdoor kitchen will go (this is where we'll build the barrel oven). It will have a roof over the top, but otherwise be quite basic, at least to start with. You can just see the brightly coloured flags in the picture below. We've put it beside one of the trees right at the top of the hill, as we think that's a nice spot for entertaining - you can see pretty much everything from there.
A somewhat less definitely permanent composting toilet block will go a little way over on the other side of the tree.
Then we really got to work. We wanted the first thing we build on the property to be a little veggie patch. Nothing big enough to distract us from the build for the moment, but just something to say "we've started" and to begin as we mean to go on.
We staked it out pretty basic, with a few bits of wood we had lying around from ages ago that weren't going to be used for anything else much. We cleared the grass, and turned over the soil:
So, first days work and we have a veggie patch!
A long way to go, but we definitely feel like we've started now!
Most of Saturday was spent shopping (heavy duty pants, welding visors, lots of stuff from the tip), during which we resist the feeling that we are haemorrhaging money and try to remind ourselves that this is what we spent so long saving up for anyway.
Sunday was a trip to the site. We knew we weren't going to get very much done on this trip (the first when we actually own the place - we took a brief trip out a day before settlement and did some blackberry clearing, but we figure that doesn't really count). The purpose was really to talk over what happens next and get a better feel for the place. Early on we realised you can't really skimp on the time you spend talking it over before you start - a constant process of revisiting and reclarifying and making sure you both have the same vision in your heads and the same idea of what steps happen when.
So, we explored a bit first...
There are several areas we have started calling wombat villages:
But also lots of smaller holes here and there that are probably echidna's, or various other burrowing crawlies:
There's also one particular tree on the far side of the creek that had three birds nests:
Last time we were at the property the creek had obviously flooded a little while before, up perhaps a metre or two. I've checked the weather data and it looks like it floods that much quite regularly but the catchment area isn't big enough for it ever to go higher.
The water is quite clear, though, and trickles pleasently:
We found evidence of past bushfires, though obviously from quite a while ago:
There's a quite lovely spot with a bit mossy rock in the shade:
And the inevitable two or three spots with a large thicket of blackberries - this one is clinging around some large rocks, and it looks like some of the wombats have made tunnels through it to get to burrows underneath. Kyle tentatively leaned over the edge to take a look from the top:
At the top of the ridge we looked out over the neighbours property, a little greener than ours as it had obviously been grazed whereas ours has had the grass dry out over winter then regrow so it looks a bit brown from a distance.
Then we stood in the middle of the ridge and looked back up at our place. You can see a bunch of trees at the top, but only 3 of them are actually on our property.
After exploring we had an extensive discussion about what we want to achieve over the next two weeks. We've talked a fair bit about this before, but it's different when you're standing there and can see the scale of it and where things will go.
We bought some stakes with flags on from the tip shop ages ago, thinking they'd be useful one day, so we staked out where our outdoor kitchen will go (this is where we'll build the barrel oven). It will have a roof over the top, but otherwise be quite basic, at least to start with. You can just see the brightly coloured flags in the picture below. We've put it beside one of the trees right at the top of the hill, as we think that's a nice spot for entertaining - you can see pretty much everything from there.
A somewhat less definitely permanent composting toilet block will go a little way over on the other side of the tree.
Then we really got to work. We wanted the first thing we build on the property to be a little veggie patch. Nothing big enough to distract us from the build for the moment, but just something to say "we've started" and to begin as we mean to go on.
We staked it out pretty basic, with a few bits of wood we had lying around from ages ago that weren't going to be used for anything else much. We cleared the grass, and turned over the soil:
The neighbouring cows were fairly suspicious of us at first - they had lots of calves among the herd, and all gathered together staring at us. But eventually they got used to us, dismissing us as just odd humans I suspect.
So, first days work and we have a veggie patch!
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