A Year Of Firsts

In a previous post I wrote about all the things we had done this year and it got me thinking about all the things we had done for the first time.

I remember helping my parents put a fence around our property when I was a teenager, using a wire strainer and putting in posts (helping as much as a teenage girl does anyway) but I had never built a chook pen. The amount of research that went into that alone was huge, planning how it would look, where it would be and what materials, we had to consider bush pythons and roaming and wild dogs.

OUR DAVE

We personally have never had chooks, though growing up mum had chooks, ducks, geese and turkeys, and while I know a little about them, we still did our research and got information including a book on chooks,“Raising Chickens for Dummies” :D

My partner in crime and life didn’t want a rooster either and my only memory of roosters was big arrogant things that chase you, but our Dave is not like that at all. We have been told that rooster’s chase you when they think of you as competition which happens when you hand raise them and think you are another rooster, ungrateful things :p

I remember going around the paddocks to pick up all the rocks and throw them into the trailer with my parents (I actually don’t know what they did with all those rocks, maybe around the gardens, can’t recall) but I had never built a path. We had to do this as we were making muddy tracks to the doors and bringing more of the outside in.

While I have nearly always had some sort of garden, I had never built one from scratch, let alone have it so successful. Things have either not grown at all, or grown humungous, can’t figure that one out. I can’t seem to grow corn from seed but have these amazing paw paws coming along.

I have always had herbs and maybe some tomatoes but had never grown potatoes. My small experiment of potatoes worked so well I have more in now and plan on creating more potato patches.

I had never used a ride on mower before and not sure if my partner in crime and life had either, however seeing the one we have is old and needs fixing from time to time, he now knows a lot about ride on mowers. We find it an enjoyable thing to do, very meditative, with nothing else to do but be alone with the plovers following along behind looking for bugs.

We had also never built an outdoor shower, never had to climb a ladder to get onto the mezzanine level to get to the desk top computer, never lived in a big shed, never even thought about getting a shipping container (never knew you could even buy them), never bought water tanks and have never had an actual orchard with quite a variety of fruit trees (always wanted one though).

I am sure that there are many more things that we have done for the first time in the last twelve months, there are so many things you would never get to do unless you have a bit of acreage. We always wanted a larger property however this one is proving to be plenty of work, especially as we are working to become as self sufficient as we can.

It wouldn’t be as much work (or fun) if we just lived here and didn’t do as much with the place, some people do that, I guess they just want to be out of town. Each to their own, the world would be boring if we were all the same. However, I think you get much more enjoyment by doing all the things you could do when you have acreage, if you have the space why not grow a vege garden, plant fruit trees and bush tucker, have some chooks?

A bush bean and yet another wild tomato :)

A lot of people I know can’t understand why I don’t want to go in to town, “it’s not far, you’ll still come in”. However what they don’t get, even if I explain, is that we have be planning for this for over twenty years (yeah, we are a little slow but other stuff got in the way), and we are where we are, because we want to be.

So I just want to stay on our property, work on the garden and trees, work on growing as much of our own food as I can, and look at the chooks while I wait for them to lay eggs. If I wanted to be in town all the time I would have stayed there, we have a lot of plans that we have been working on for a long time and I just want to be here to do it. Can’t do stuff if I am running into town every five minutes because I can’t say “NO” to people (getting them to accept no is also a problem, and me not caving in), I am getting better at that.

So we obviously love it here and plan on staying for a while, we have a lot of work yet to be done, more gardens, more trees, a fence, some ducks and maybe geese (still thinking on that one). We are going to learn to make our cheese (we can get cheese making kits so we are checking them out) but not sure about getting a milking goat (apart from the trouble they cause, we can never leave home again).

Another luffa seedling has popped up, better get their bed ready.

There has been talk about getting bees, but we need to do a lot more research before we get into that, and there is the thought (planted by someone we know and now my partner in crime and life wants to do it) to build a wooden pier/bridge thing onto the dam. See, so much to do, so little time, and there are always more ideas popping into our heads, it is all so exciting.

ON OTHER MATTERS

Over at City Roots Country Life, there is this post about making bread, Emma has some good tips about making bread and some links. I actually cheat when making bread, I use bread mix, but I am going to make it from scratch, this year, I swear, I am inspired :D

Yesterday there was talk of petrol getting to $2 a litre which is rather disturbing. Someone said that it wouldn't, but hey, petrol is already at $1.45 a litre here and desiel is about $1.50 a litre, maybe a little more. Not really such a big jump to $2 a litre is it? And really, who thinks it will go down?

At Treehugger, they are sailing around following the plastic pollution in the oceans and we can follow their journey. This pops up from time to time on documentaries, but it is out there all the time killing ocean life. I like to think they won't find much, but I have seen photos of what it looks like, here are a couple of links here and here. Take a look, it is horrific.