The Bugs

Lets be honest, Aldi is great for many things. Where else can you shop for food and buy a porta loo at the same time? Well it was on one of these great Aldi expeditions that Kristian picked up two mosquito nets.  They were contained in non offensive small black drawstring bags and didn't take up that much room, but never the less I didn't want them kept in the house.  When we were unpacking and I came across them I asked Kristian to take them over to the shipping container.  A couple of days later when I was putting some stuff away in a drawer I saw those two mosquito nets and quizzed Kristian as to why they were still in the house.  He just calmly told me he thought that if the mozzies got really bad we might want to hang one over our bed.  I told him, that was ridiculous and that it would be ugly and there is no where to hang them blah blah.  He relented and took them over to the shipping container and I quickly filled their spot in the drawer with much more 'important' things. 

I live with bugs.  I live with a husband and 4 daughters but I also live with bugs.  Lots of them.  Like I need an encyclopaedia to research all the different type of species I am coming across.  I have seen more spiders in one week living in the shed than I did living 6 years in our town house.  Obviously there are the annoying Aussie flies (yes I've considered getting one of those hats with the dangly corks- don't judge me) but there are also weird bugs. The other night Kristian and I were sitting on the couch, and I wasn't sure if the dull glow coming from our only fluorescent light was messing with my eyes but I freaked out and told him he had a centipede on his head!  He flicked it onto the floor at which point we realised it was more like one of those earwig things. But it still had a billion legs and weird nipper things.

It may as well of been this big. (pic from google images)

 RIP little guy.  THEN, that very same night as I was getting into bed I felt something crawling up my leg. I paused, wanting to see what it was before I jumped around like a mad woman and it was a cross between a spider and a cockroach, a weird crossbreed I'm sure! RIP little weird, threatening bug.  

pic-www.thefuntab.com

I wonder if Kristian will walk back over to the shipping containers and find those nets.....

Eliza x

The first night...

23rd of December 2015 is marked as our first night in the shed. Kristian and I had been working hard all day trying our best to get things somewhat organised. Thankfully my mum had all the girls at her place so we could just concentrate on all the mess, yes mess. Boy oh boy, what a roller coaster of a day. I'd look around and think, "we are getting nowhere", then half an hour later I'd think, "oh wow, we are smashing this", then 20 minutes later I'd think, "set up the tent coz we have no where to sleep tonight". Anyway, we just kept on keeping on, shuffling and moving things, box by box. The thing is, under normal circumstances we would usually have cupboards and places to put things, but shed life is different, and space for our stuff has been an issue. The perfectionist in me has been struggling at not having everything looking 'done' and nice. There are extension cords over parts of the floors as we are still fishing the electrics, we are going to wait to paint the girls rooms until their ceilings go in, and most things feel half done. I keep reminding myself though that this is ok, because we are on a journey. It is a process and we knew things would take time. 

After picking up the kids and heading back to the property, there was still more to do. I unpacked 4 very excited girls  who eagerly ran throughout the shed trying to find their stuff. We finished arranging beds and putting bedding on and finally got the kids to bed about 8:30pm. We weren't far behind them, and as I lay there in the peace and calmness that night brings, I found my thoughts a jumble of excitedness and anxiousness. The reality of what we were embarking on was setting in. 

Eliza X

Ps- as I write this, sitting outside, I am watching the girls run around completely nude. They have been this way for at least 2 hours. I don't know what has happened to them, but I hope it doesn't happen to me....!

Exploring the dam....

We are very grateful to have a dam on our property! The irrigation isn't set up yet, but will be one day and it will be a great way of watering the garden and keeping any animals well hydrated.  Since we bought the land, Kristian has had his eye on that thing.  I saw he had bought a pair of goggles a few weeks back and I just knew he wanted to get in there!  I, on the other hand am happy to look at it, admire its beauty and dream of its functionality. The thought of traipsing through those murky waters and not knowing whats underneath or swimming around freaks me out.  Thankfully we have the Bear Grylls of the Mary Valley in our family, AKA Kristian who was eager to explore its miry depths.  You needn't worry people, he took all the safety precautions he could, and by safety precautions I mean, speedo goggles, (only the best here) a pair of crocs from Aldi, a pool stick, and board shorts with sufficient underneath protection, because you know.....eels!  

Cautiously entering the dam.

A little deeper

Girls watching daddy.

It was quite the event of the afternoon with the girls following eagerly behind Kristian as we walked down to the dam.  They were very good at giving their daddy advice from the sidelines....or in our eldest daughters case, throwing huge rocks that almost hit dad.  Obviously, in our eyes, his progress was very slow and we were all cheering him on to go further. So with his pool stick whacking the water every few seconds he delved a little deeper, each step his crocs getting stuck in the sludge. (I wish they would have gotten permanently stuck down there- weird shoe/plastic things)  He felt he had gone sufficiently deep enough after he encountered "something hard" and let out a big yelp!  Call me mean but I thought that it was hilarious, thinking he'd been bitten by an eel or something, but no it was far less amusing as he wasn't sure what it was, just that his arm touched something hard.  I'm pretty sure Bear Grylls wouldn't have gone any further either...yeah definitely not.  We cheered him on again as he made his way out, although we were laughing and saying such things as "ewe" "gross" "look at you" when we noticed he was covered in pond scum.  It's ok though because we have an outdoor shower!!!

Anyway, that's done now, and he can tick it off his list.  He now knows approximately how deep the dam is, that there are lots of reeds in there, squishy mud, and a mysterious 'hard' object.  We do have it on good advice to empty out the dam (use it to water other plants etc) so we can see exactly what is in there, clean it out and wait for the good January rains to help fill it back up.  That way if we want to use it to swim in we can.  I will keep you posted on what we do there.  But for now I'll leave you with a little video. 

https://youtu.be/tS0TO1Dee7s

Don't forget to subscribe to the blog and the youtube channel so you don't miss any updates.

Eliza x

The shed.

This is the shed before and after we painted the floor. The floor looks way darker in the pictures because the pic was taken while it was still wet. We decided to just paint the concrete floor, we figured it was an area where we could save money and didn't have to worry too much about all the dirt and stuff the kids would do to it. I say 'we' about the decision making but when it came to the labour, hubby did all the prep for the floors and painting himself. Isn't he amazing!

So those lovely timber walls you can see,  are not actually lovely timber, just a 'timber look' ply that the previous owner had put up. Initially we thought about ripping that off but for now we will leave it. That kitchen we will also keep for now- I am just going to paint them and re line the cupboards because, well, they are gross! 

Where we have put a lot of our focus is putting in two bedrooms up the back end of the shed. I really had to push for this because I think Kristian would have had us all sleeping in the one area, which as much as I adore and love our kids this was never going to happen! 

As you can see-one of the roller doors has come off and thanks to my dads handy gumtree skills we now have a window there in its place! I will post photos of the finished bedrooms once they are done! 

Next on our list of important things to do was getting a bore dug! We had the water diviner come out and he told us he was confident we could get water at 5 different spots on the property. We were very happy when the first spot he chose he struck water! They found water at 120feet. It's slightly salty but ok for livestock and watering native plants. Eventually we will get another rainwater tank and do half bore water and rain water and then we can use it for almost everything! I was thrilled,because with six of us living there we really needed more water, and once I picked Kristian up off the floor after receiving the bill, he too was happy! 

So we've been staying with my parents while the bedrooms are being finished and it was nice the other day to get up to the block with the kids in tow to have a look around! They were such a great help as we carted stuff from the shed to the shipping containers and their favourite way of doing that was with the wheelbarrow! The girls were way too excited when they got to have noodles for dinner, never mind that I almost sustained 3rd degree burns trying to make noodles in a non functioning kitchen! 

I'll leave you with one last picture that makes me laugh as although we had a great time getting everything done together, sometimes...things get tense! 

Eliza X 

Meeting the locals

Call me farmer Jo, and slap an akubra on my head, because we are friends with the local folk now.  Through his keen sense to sniff out any social interaction and a free lunch, Kristian met a local couple who own the rural supplies store and they were kind enough to invite us to a local growers and producers lunch.  The idea is that everyone brings produce they have grown on their own land.  When Kristian informed me of our invite, I was actually really excited and thought it would be a great way to meet some of the locals.  

On the day, however, I found myself feeling odd. Kind of first day at a new school, meets farmer wants a wife sort of thing.  I was getting dressed and didn't know what to wear...like I didn't want to rock up in my 'active wear' because everyone knows there's no gym around the area, but I also didn't want to wear a pair of cowgirl boots for risk of looking 'try hard'.  Anyway, I got over that and just put on a mix between the two. Striped t shirt dress, but with a crocheted vest as if to say "I've come from the city, but I am open to your country ways".  Phew, once that was sorted I was on my way and my thoughts had turned to the fact that apart from children, we don't grow or produce anything yet.  We were invited as the newbies, the ones to watch and learn, the ones who turned up with two bottles of wine and a sick baby.  Upon arrival I could quickly see that this wasn't just a few families coming together for a country pot luck lunch, no, there were even girls in super short denim shorts and RM Williams boots directing the cars where to park.  Kristian would argue he doesn't remember that bit.  I was a little embarrassed when one of the lovely girls came to the car and asked if she could carry something up for us to which I thought about offering her to carry our sleeping child. 

Anyway, we walked into this lovely open barn of tables laden with hessian and pretty little flowers and got talking to the people around us.  I am secretly checking out what others are wearing and judging my outfit accordingly. I got it ok I think, although I shouldn't have been concerned because as I looked over at Kristian I noticed the dust covering the back of his black shirt and dirt over his toes sticking out through his inappropriate farm footwear.  This is ok though because while I was at home standing in front of a mirror deciding what to wear, he was at our property with the bore drillers watching with anticipation as they drilled into the dirt to find water. 

Straight away we get to start sampling the local food, and boy was it yum! I probably got asked about 10 different times what we 'produce' and I just had to sheepishly explain how it was that we came to be there. Everyone was so lovely and encouraging regarding our plans for our land and future and it was really great to meet and talk to these people who each do different things to promote the local area.  I can honestly say that the spread these local growers put on was amazing and I'm so glad we went.  I managed to put aside my insecurities of feeling like we shouldn't be there, due to the slight lack of growing or producing anything off our land, and met some great people and learned a lot about our new area.  I don't know what I was worried about.  

Eliza x

PS: I am pleased to report we struck that water that day!  All that time I could have been telling people we produce...water!

New Beginings

This is us, just over a month ago.  We had lived in this three bedroom townhouse for a little over 6 years.  We brought home two of our babies to here, I probably rearranged the house at least 15 times in an effort to make it 'feel new' and we made great friends with our neighbours. Well, not all the neighbours, we didn't become best buds with the drug dealer across the street and didn't really socialise with the ice addict who would roam the street at any given time. Needless to say, we were very ready and happy to be moving on but also thankful for some of the great memories we were taking with us.  Just to give you a bit of background- Kristian and I have been talking and dreaming about owning lots of land and living the farm life for many years now.  The ideal goal would be to have a fully self sufficient property. So with that in mind we were always looking.  We would look at rentals with more land, or land to buy, or houses and land to buy but a culmination of things just meant it never quite happened or felt right.  That is, until we found our current block.  At the risk of making it sound easy, things sort of just fell into place and before we knew it we owned 30 acres with a half 'liveable' shed, rainwater tank and a dam, oh, and electricity which we will later change to solar. So that kind of brings you up to current day, where we have decided to jump all in and live there permanently so we can really put in all the work it needs.  I will home school our 4 children so they can spend a few hours a day doing school work and the rest outdoors with us, learning the farm way.  We are definitely pushing ourselves to learn more and create the lifestyle we have always wanted and we are beyond excited.  We'd love you to follow along so you can be a part of this journey with us.  I really wanted to document as much of this journey as possible so our kids and us can look back and see how far we've come.  You'll see the good, the bad, and lets face it- the ugly. I mean we don't even have a bathroom yet people!  At the moment our current project is putting in a couple of bedrooms for the kids and setting it up so its a functional living space for the 6 of us.  I'll leave you with an early image of the shed when we first purchased it and before we started making any adjustments to it or filling it with all our stuff. 
Stay tuned, 
Love Eliza.

PS- I promise I won't start growing my underarm hair anytime soon!