Hello everybody!

As you can guess, it’s been a busy time with our little girl and our blog has been getting neglected.

Willow is now 4 months old (where did the time go?) and we are still in the shed with the house a long way off.  Never mind … we’re comfortable and Willow loves the shiny silver walls in the shed.

Our plans for the house are in with council but of course now we are thinking of changing them which will make the approval process take a lot longer.  The aim is to have a house by the time Willow is in Primary School.  It is a joke but could possibly become reality.

Rob has been working hard as usual, his business has really taken off, he’s a doting dad and somehow he still finds time to chop wood, mow and basically keep the place running.  Thanks Rob!!

There is plenty of work to be done lately, and more and more of it has been actual paying work for the IT services business that we run.

Meg and I were sitting at our computers tonight while I worked on a couple of laptops and the high end workstation and part time server that I’m building.

It looked a little out of proportion to have four laptops and a workstation with 24 inch LCD lined up together, sharing our satellite internet as well as a 3G connection while we ran some maintenance and connected to the new wireless printer in the “foil” lined shed we call home. (Cue the conspiracy theory jokes about tin foil hats extrapolated…)

But there in the middle was a sign of the rewards. A bottle of Bremerton’s 2003 Old Adam Shiraz from the Langhorne Creek region of South Australia – a gift from a client for a job well done to be shared amongst friends.

Work hard, play hard. Life is for the living!

With only about 10 weeks to go it seems like a good time to mention that the permanent population of the Journey will be increasing by one.  While Rob has been busy growing the vegies in the garden, I’ve been working on growing him a little helper.

The little bump in my belly, which initially looked like a beer belly, has been steadily growing in size and now looks like I’ve stuffed a watermelon up my shirt.  Maverick/Willow (as we currently call it - we originally named the embryo Wolfgang/Fernando) is getting more and more active as the weeks have passed making the idea of a Mini-Mader a lot more real.

We decided not to find out if it’s a boy or a girl but decided to have a surprise - and it’s not like there is a room to paint a particular colour as it will only be having a section of the shed which is the lovely unisex shade of silver.

As in most things we are pretty clueless to what we need to do or have prepared but figure we will learn as things progress like in everything else we do.  Through reading books and talking to friends and family who have had babies we have learned to expect the unexpected because no two pregnancies or babies are the same.  So thanks everyone for this support and also for all the new and second hand bits and pieces that have been given to us.

It has been a bit hotter lately and I’m obviously concerned about snakes about the place.

Most weekends now involve at least an hour on Penfold (the ride on mower) as I try and keep the grass down and the ground visible for when we are walking around.

Of particular importance is the vegetable garden, as the pond in the middle provides a water source and the variety of lizards and small animals provide a potential meal for the snakes.

Tonight Meg rang as she arrived home to find a brown snake on the concrete outside the roller door of the shed, “looking for a way in”.

After advising Meg to keep an eye on it, I quickly packed up and headed home.

Arriving home in a cloud of dust, I saw Meg standing under the pergola at the end of the shed. The snake had left and she had been following it to where it disappeared, under some rocks on the corner of the concrete slab.

After making sure that it wasn’t still visible and turning a large rock over, we revealed what looked suspiciously like a snake hole…

Meg wasn’t all that fussed though, and we’ll just look carefully when we enter the shed and try to ensure that we don’t have mice. As well as this, Meg taped up a small gap at the bottom of the roller door of the shed.

While this excitement was going on, the very small, male mistletoe bird was twittering around us, landing on the car antenna and also on one of the small blue gums next to where we park.

I grabbed the camera and the 100-400mm lens and snapped him a few times in the approaching twilight.

Before packing the camera away again, I thought I’d capture the new flock of sheep that we have grazing in the paddock. Hopefully they’ll eat their way through our bushfire risk in the next month or so and won’t keep me too awake at night.

Check out more in the gallery.

Winter is here in full force which gives me a great excuse to sit and tend a fire.

We have three regular fires; the combustion heater inside the shed, the cob oven that Meg built and the bonfire site. Occasionally we burn off the light pruning of gums that is mainly leaves to reduce the summer bushfire risk, but this isn’t very often.

Friends dropping in is a great excuse for a bonfire and camp oven, and the latest recipe turned out a treat. An incredibly simple recipe of sausages, potato, sweet potato, carrot, onion and a large tin of tomatoes transformed into a hearty meal by the fire.

Meg’s been cooking up a storm in the cob oven as well and has discovered the simplicity of chicken drumsticks with soy and honey. The smoky roast potatoes and garlic in local extra virgin olive oil are hard to resist and we plan to branch out with more roasts soon.

A daily ritual in winter is lighting the combustion heater in the shed, and while it is nice and warm with the insulation installed over summer we seem to be burning a reasonable stack of firewood.

On cold nights, it has been getting down below five degrees so far, with much cooler to come in the coming months and I find that Meg and I are filling a wheelbarrow full from the wood shed every two or three days. At this rate, we seem to be going through a trailer load of firewood every couple of weeks, which means that I must find dry days without anything else on to cut seasoned firewood from the property.

I find cutting firewood quite enjoyable if I have the time to spend – there is a bit of a Zen like quality to the monotony of the physical work and the sound of the Stihl on full throttle – but there are only so many easy to get to and well seasoned trees that are either still standing or have fallen so that they lay off of the ground. (The best firewood is old and dry and hasn’t been transformed by white ants.)

The plan last year was to cut green wood and stack it to season for this year to provide for out firewood needs, but the wood hasn’t seasoned as fast as I’d hoped and we are using much more than I’d prepared anyway.

I’m dealing with this in a few ways; I’ve cut a lot of green wood for future seasons and I’m travelling more of the property to find the “ready to burn” wood.

We’ll never be able to burn all of the dead wood on the property because I doubt we’ll be able to get to eighty percent of the available resource due to the steep hillsides and gullies and the groves of bluegum that block an available path. This means that there will always be habitat for natives and (unfortunately) introduced fauna and our property will slowly return to the original state.

In the meantime while we wait for the bush to return and watch the development of our land, I’ll still plan and react to our firewood needs as I can, driving the 4WD and trailer where I can, cutting, splitting and stacking firewood for warmth and comfort.

A week or so ago on a calm, dark night, I went outside for some reason and heard the rustle of leaves in the blue gums along the path between the shed and the toilet.

Being a curious bloke, I grabbed the torch and crept slowly to about where I’d heard the noise and pointed up to see a furry little fellow. It looked like we have Common Brushtail Possums on our property, which are listed as “rare” by the Department for Environment and Heritage.

Tonight I heard the distinctive rustle again and quietly returned to the shed to put the camera together.

Using the Canon 28-70mm f2.8L lens with the Speedlite 550EX flash for starters, I used the torch to identify the general area that the possums were in before clicking off a few shots. Shooting directly up into the branches was a bit of a stretch for me, and after using the torch I couldn’t see anything through the view finder as my eyes didn’t adjust in time to the pitch black, moonless sky.

It must have looked quite interesting from the neighbours place across the hillside, with the trees occasionally lighting up from the powerful flash!

I changed to the Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L to try and get a bit closer and this greatly increased the level of difficulty of getting the possum in frame, but the shots that I did get were much better.

I think that it is interesting that the possums were eating the blue gum blossoms and not the box mistletoe that I’ve been told is their food source. There is plenty of mistletoe around, although we have been slowly reducing it by selectively pruning with both chainsaw and rope saw.

Possums are meant to be quite rare in the Clare Valley area. I’ve read that the average is down to one per hectare, the lowest in the area including the Yorke Peninsula and the Mid North and I’d wondered where and when we would see one – we should have more than 40 on our property.

While many people don’t like them, I haven’t seen evidence of them in the vegie garden yet, so as long as they stay in the trees then maybe we can just get along together.

Check more info with the Dept of Environment and Heritage Fact Sheet

After pumping water into the new tank, the next project on the list was the new shed. It is a bit embarrassing to talk about this storage area as a “shed” in a place where sheds usually span at least six metres and are composed of three or more, three metre bays but we had bought as big as we could without having to get council approval to build it.

So the “shed” was three metres by three metres and would do to house mowers and garden tools and get a heap of other stuff out of the way.

A trip into Clare to buy cement was an opportunity, as always, for Raph to get a pie and we loaded 16 bags of cement into the trailer from Mitre10.

With that amount of cement, we needed a heap of gravel. Consulting our new “How to make concrete” booklet, we worked out that we’d need at least two trailer loads of sand/gravel mix. Erring on the side of caution for a change, and with the quarry closed over the long weekend, Raph and I did three quick trailer loads before tackling the pre-pack shed.

It was a bit of a laugh how easy it was to zip the shed together. Even though the wind came up, the two of us managed to hold and fix walls together and then fit the roof. Thanks to Raph’s ingenious use of straw bales as a “third person” to support a wall, we were soon admiring out work.

Of course, our haste to build the shed saw us erect it next to where we wanted it to live, and the next morning with a bit of grunting and a little bending, Meg, Raph and I man-handled it into position to prepare for the concreting.

Being an opportunistic scavenger, I had leftover reinforcing from when the “real” shed was professionally concreted and this was enough to cover the floor with a little overlap outside. Using leftover pavers to lift the reo off of the ground and then the shed off of the reo gave us about 100mm for the concrete slab.

After Meg and I returned from the ANZAC Day dawn service in Clare, Raph and I set to work to mix the concrete with the resurrected mixer. I shovelled while Raph carted, spread and finished. We worked hard and fast with the threat of rain and in a couple of hours, the inside was finished.

Tired after the early start and hard labour we retired for afternoon as the rain spoiled any chance of further work and the goon started to flow.

24mm of rain fell on Friday arvo and through Saturday and it was Sunday afternoon before Meg and I set to work to concrete the outside apron around the shed. Of course, as soon as we finished more showers came in, but the overall result will be functional.

The last few days have seen both a flurry of activity and construction as well as some relaxing DVD time, listening to the rain on the shed roof.

Plans have been in place for a while to build some more storage and find a better way of using rain water.

We need storage since the shed that we live in is cluttered with tools and boxes. Other tools and machines are stored in the wood shed – taking up space where the firewood should be drying and there are assorted piles around the place that should be tidied up.

The other problem that we have discovered is regarding rain water.

A while after building the shed we bought a 2000 Gallon poly tank to catch the rain water. With the shed on a slope, the tank is lower than the level of the shed which means that the only real use of the rainwater is for drinking and cooking.

The problem came to us over summer, when we were happily drinking the water but noticing that the level in the tank wasn’t going down significantly. A nice problem to have, but what would happen when it rained? Rainwater running out of the water tank overflow and down the hill would be a crying shame.

The solution was to consider our water use. We pump bore water into a 5000 Gallon tank at the top of the hill and then gravity feed from there. This allows us to use the bore pump (2.2kW) for about two hours a month, rather than pumping every time we need water.

The bore water runs down the hill to the shed to be used for the shower, dishes and clothes washing, as well as a bucket or two for the small garden. The height of the tank over the shed and the use of one inch poly pipe for transfer means that we get about 20 litres per minute – enough pressure for any of our needs individually.

The Nature Loo toilet doesn’t use any water and the sink at the shed is used for washing hands.

We considered this and the luxury of excess rainwater (through our frugal usage) and decided to put another tank on top of the hill for rainwater and plumb an alternate pipe for use at the sink and shower. (The clothes seem to wash fine in bore water and Meg thinks that we will continue to use bore water when we build the “real” laundry for the house.)

The catchment will still be at the shed, but when the tank fills we will pump to the new tank at the top of the hill for later use. Having 5000 Gallons at the top of the hill should provide us with enough storage and if we monitor the use we should have enough for our new usage plan.

The other benefit is for when we build the house. We should already have rainwater in place and ready to incorporate into our house plumbing.

As well as plans for The Journey, Pa was talking about installing another 5000 Gallon tank at his place.

So with ideas expanding and combining with each other, Pa and I prepared sites with many trips to the Clare Quarry for crusher dust.

Pa’s site was dug out with a Bobcat due to time constraints and then levelled and three loads were put on top of the hill at our place for the tank and shed.

It all hinged on Raph coming up from Adelaide during the mid semester Uni break for another part of the “work for the Goon” scheme and I’d ordered tanks and a 3m x 3m garden shed to be ready when he was.

Wednesday was tank day. We’d picked Raph up from the bus on Tuesday night and we were ready for a big day of work.

After picking Pa up at his place, we headed to Cox Rural where we had the tanks ready for pickup. I’d been told that it wasn’t the done thing these days to tow the tank trailer with a 5000 Gallon tank, but they were OK with it and Pa and I had done it before. (Just think about a 3.7m diameter tank on its side on top of a trailer – this takes it to a bit under 5 metres tall!)

Despite a highly embarrassing although minor trailer incident where the trailer wasn’t correctly hitched, we were soon motoring very slowly down the back roads. With the height of the tank we had to be very careful to avoid the trees overhanging the road and zigzagging back and forth at 30km/h.

The tank came off of the trailer easily after the centre post was inserted and was easily slid into its final resting place with the help of the crusher dust.

With one tank done, we picked up the second and headed to Pa’s place to confront a problem. One of the trees looked a little low and despite my enthusiasm to get out the chainsaw, Pa thought we’d be able to ease through.

With a little encouragement, low range four wheel drive engaged and a little slipping and sliding, the tank gently pushed the trunk up and slid underneath! There were a few tense moments, but we were soon crawling gently up the rest of the steep driveway.

With a bit of reversing and some final digging to allow the trailer wheels to be almost level, the tank slid off into place perfectly.

We were happy. Two tanks were in place before lunch with only a one embarrassing moment and no failures. Job done.

After lunch we picked up the shed and plumbed the pump into the water tank at the shed before I had to go and see a client.

Not every day of work ends in so much getting done and it was good to look back at the results.

Check out the gallery for a heap more photos.

It seems like ages ago when I first learnt about the government’s Australian Broadband Guarantee program. It must have been about April or May when visiting a client and she asked me about it and gave me some info and forms from Activ8 to explain.

Since then I’ve spent a considerable amount of time reading about it, applying for it, spreading the word amongst my clients and then chasing up my application to find out if I qualify and when they can connect me.

The letter finally came in December and we could finally rely on having internet access at home, without having to use a service like BigPond mobile broadband which would cost a fortune.

The installer had called me earlier in the week to arrange a time, but didn’t have much idea where we were, so I’d agreed to meet him at the Sevenhill pub and bring him up here.

It was an early start to the day and surprisingly crisp for a January day in Clare. It was the first time in months that I’d put a long sleeve shirt on in the morning. But the cool weather didn’t dampen my spirit – we’d have internet access at home soon, and without the cost of installing a phone line that we don’t need!

Raph and I did some jobs around the place, while Brett unpacked and installed the satellite dish.

A few hours later the moment of truth came. The satellite dish was mounted on the roof and aligned in the right spot and Brett pulled out his laptop to talk to the modem.

The modem by the way, is an IPSTAR broadband satellite modem with 4mbps download and 2mbps upload capacity, although it is set to 512kbps/256kbps for our install.

While the modem was configured, I plugged in my ASUS wireless pocket router and plugged it in.

We tested the speed and then I plugged the network cable from the modem to the router. My new laptop found the network straight away and I was immediately online.

I called Meg and let her know we were online as internet access for her has been extremely limited since we gave up the BigPond cable broadband that we had in Adelaide. Now she’ll be able to communicate with her friends by email again and get a bit more involved in the blog.

Having broadband at home will make a significant difference to my work as well. For the last ten months I have been using the broadband connection at my folks place most days and while it is great to catch up with them so often, it will be so much more convenient to check the little things from home.

Even though the shed is temporary accommodation, we still need to be comfortable while we plan, get approval and build the new house. In winter this was solved with an abundance of firewood and a combustion heater, but Meg and I both knew that summer would present an altogether different problem.

Sheds transfer heat very well. The single layer of colourbond sheeting gets very hot in the sun and quickly heats the inside.

The construction also allows a lot of air gaps which leak and provide hundreds of entry points for insects and creepy crawlies. We noticed this in the very cold weather when moving away from the immediately radiated heat of the fire the temperature dropped dramatically and the wall of the shed was very cold to the touch.

Millipedes were a problem when it was wet or in the days after a heavy dew. Armies of them would march across the concrete and through the gaps…

Warmer weather has brought more spiders with their skin-crawling effects.

Initially we thought that the cheapest and easiest way to insulate was to use a cheap three ply, tec screwed into the purlins and rails with standard fibre insulation between the outside sheets and the ply. It would be a little tricky to box in the skylights and windows with timber, but I figured that we could do it. We looked into it and even bought some sample sheets of ply and insulation to give it a go. But then a chance meeting with one of my clients led to a new direction.

Meg and I had both done some work for this client; Meg with editing and typesetting a book that he was publishing and I had been solving his IT problems.

It was only when Meg and I went to his office/warehouse to view the finished book that we started talking about things and he suggested using the Aircell insulation that was in the warehouse.

Aircell is a reflective sheet with bubblewrap like compartments of air trapped inside. It comes in a roll and is tec screwed to ‘C’ section and adjacent sheets are taped together.

Changing our minds was easy and that weekend we’d bought enough to do one bay.

Our neighbours, Kym and Ian were building their huge shed across the road and were using a scaffold to reach the roof. They were more than happy to offer it and it turned out to be a godsend. I can’t imagine moving around at the top of the roof of our shed using ladders! With the scaffold, two of us could work together with one holding the sheet and the other drilling the screws.

Of course, you can’t just stick to the instructions and we decided to use traditional fibre insulation in the roof section between the colourbond and the aircell.

More trips and more purchases later and the shed was taking on a new, space age persona.

The effect was immediately noticeable. We’d had a few days of warm weather and returning to the shed after a hot day away was stifling. Meg noticed one day that the potatoes were warm to the touch and going soft, even though they were previously fresh and stored under a bench in their wooden box.

After the “David Bowie effect” had spread over the full length, the shed is quite cooler on hot days. We lashed out and bought a pedestal fan and combined with the cross ventilation effect of the opposing windows, we can quickly reduce the inside temperature of the shed when the outside temperature drops at night.

It may look weird, but then we didn’t say we were normal and I’m all for function over fashion.