It has finally happened – the first event at the Journey!

We may have been here for a while, but it has been pretty hard to entertain when it is winter and you only have a caravan.

Getting the shed meant that if the rains came, at least we could be under shelter and warm. It also meant that we could move the fridge in and store the food and drinks – a handy situation when you have a crowd coming along.

Thanks to everyone that came along and caught up with us. We had neighbours, friends from Meg’s work, heaps of friends from Adelaide, Clare and around the place, family from Adelaide and Clare and more.

We even had our adopted dog, Xara for the weekend. Xara comes over from the winery when the mood hits, and having another pup from Adelaide to visit seemed just the thing. The two of them played for ages, keeping us entertained as they roared around and wore themselves out.

Lunch on Saturday turned into dinner, drinks and bonfire on Saturday night, followed by breakfast for the fifteen or so that stayed, then another lunch and afternoon snack.

It was pretty relaxed on Sunday with a wander through the property and some wildlife spotting leading to more sitting around the fire.

I was really happy with the way things went. The toilet remains intact, despite the best efforts of my mates! The barbie didn’t run out of gas. The drinks were cold (even if they weren’t in the fridge) and the weather was perfect. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and it looks like this will be the first of many casual weekends of friends enjoying our Journey.

It must have been about five in the afternoon when the last group packed up on Sunday and Meg, Raph and I retired to the shed. I think the eyes were closing in front of the box a couple of hours later when Raph headed for the tent.

Meg and I weren’t much later.

I love spending a little while walking around in the morning and checking everything out.

Since finding the camera again and making sure everything still works, I’ve felt the need to take some pics.

This morning was cold and even at nine am there was still a hint of frost about.

I wandered about in the crisp air, thinking about all of the jobs that we’ve done lately and remembering those that I hadn’t taken pics of.

The first was the securing of the flue to the shed roof. Pa and I did this the other day with some stainless steel wire. It even looks half professional!

Then there is the half finished path to the (also half finished) toilet. I’ve had Pa working hard – here he was shovelling and raking gravel.

I’d originally thought that we’d pave a path to the toilet from the shed, either in cheap pavers, old bricks or just flat stone from the property. Then there was the suggestion of gravel, combined with the memory of the stack of posts and the quick, cheap and easy path was born.

Three trailer loads of gravel were $60, the posts were free and so was the labour! Thanks Pa.

The toilet is a little more than half finished. It just needs the front panel and some tidying up.

The exhaust vent is on, although some might say that it has a little “character” as Meg and I put it together on the Sunday afternoon after “the 24”. I’d had about 2 hours sleep and a couple of drinks on Saturday night and was a little worse for wear.

We zipped the vent to the adapter with some self tapping screws and then glued the angles together after cutting the pipe to size. It was only when we held it against the wall that we noticed that the top was crooked. Too late – the glue dries fast!

I’d also added a line of self tappers to the cladding that afternoon to make it more secure. It’s easy to see which line I added – it squiggles up and down in about the same way that I was seeing the world.

Meg had surprised me with some projects when I’d returned that weekend, the first of which was the sink stand. She’d got the timber cut to size as she didn’t want to use the circular saw and glued and nailed it together. It works really well and now we have a full size sink to wash the dishes, complete with bucket drain.

One of the next projects is the pergola to contain the shower, washing machine, sink, and hot water service. It shouldn’t be too hard as we don’t have to dig footings and make sure they are level, just dyna bolt it to the concrete.

It really rained yesterday and I noticed that there was a lot of water pooling behind the shed. A couple of hours later I had some long drains out either side to steer the water away.

The rain didn’t help the road situation and I’ve been switching to 4WD almost daily to get in and out. When it rains, the mud seems to attract moisture and hold it for days. It squelches as you walk on it and Meg has had to park at the entrance for the past weeks.

Hopefully the earthmovers will be able to get in before the 21st and everyone can drive up the hill!

The garden is coming along and the most promising is the broccoli, broad beans and silverbeet.

Meg and I have also had time to install the solar pump in the pond and get it functional so that the fish can see where they are swimming.

It was so calming to take a moment to look around the garden this morning with the camera. I was reminded of a few years ago, when I took photos professionally most days and switched back to that mode of thinking about light, subject, focus, and frame.

Seeing a bubble of water on the broccoli inspired a few shots, as did the reflection of the pond and the flight of the Willy Wagtail. If I’d had my other lens with me I could have done the little bird justice, but had to be content with what I ended up with.

After taking a few pics, I wandered through to the citrus and was a bit surprised to see frost still on the ground around the base of the lime. Shaded by weeds, it hadn’t melted in the sun, even though it was getting on to half past nine in the morning.

It was a nice hour of reflection, walking around the garden and being reminded of my former life, working at racetracks and travelling the world.

I don’t see the two lives as good or bad but different - different times and different priorities and goals. These days I enjoy seeing the mist over the hill, kangaroos in the valleys and sunsets over the range in the distance.

I’m also glad that I can take the time to capture the scenes and see the changes from season to season and year to year.

So much has changed here already, but there is always so much left to do – build the house, design, plant and grow the food forest, chooks, livestock and more. What a great journey is to come.

I must remember to take the time on mornings like these to enjoy and lose myself in the moment, but also to remember experiences from the past.

It had been another big weekend of travel to Adelaide, as well as going out for Raph’s birthday, so when we headed back to Clare on Sunday we were a bit behind the eight ball already.

 The plan for the toilet had evolved a number of times and Raph and I set to work, digging out the floor.

Considering that the bin sits under the floor of the toilet and needs access to be replaced, locating the toilet on a hill would mean less digging, and I’m all for less digging after the saga of the trench.

We dug into the hill before working out where the footings would go and digging them.

 Darkness had fallen and lights were rigged to get the footings done. I wanted to allow them some time overnight as I didn’t want to lose any “Raph time” waiting for them to set. Meg helped as we worked to get down deep enough before mixing concrete and setting them in place.

Raph came up with the brilliant idea of making a frame with the correct dimensions to slot into the footings, ensuring that they would be properly spaced and aligned and that any wildlife wouldn’t knock them over before they were set.

We mixed the pre-mix concrete bags, but it was soon apparent that we needed more. Slight dodginess allowed us to mix the leftover “scalps” that was the base of the shed (under the concrete) with straight concrete at an ad hoc ratio and pour it over the top of the pre-mix to seal the deal.

It was heading for 10pm when the lights went out at the worksite and we retired to the van for the night.

Raph and I measured and cut the timber as well as some other jobs in the morning before the assembly started.

With surprisingly few mistakes, the framework took shape throughout the day and we got ready to put the floor in.

Things really accelerated on Tuesday with joists cut and fixed early before cutting and fitting the flooring and working on the platform for the pedestal.

Raph clad the outside on Wednesday as I had committed to a server build and backup restore with some clients in Clare and Thursday seemed to have come a little too early as we still had heaps to do.

I’d visited a client in Clare in the morning and when I returned, Raph had made the front wall and installed the door! Great stuff. We put the clear roof on the toilet and dashed into Clare around lunchtime to buy the seal for the flue on the wood heater.

Time was tight as we returned in misty rain. Meg was finishing work early as we had some tasks to do in Adelaide in the afternoon and we had to get the fire in before Raph was returned home in the same trip.

Despite the rain, we quickly measured up and Raph took the plunge with the grinder into the new roof of the shed. It was all going well until the final piece of the flue didn’t fit.

I rang Meg as we were now late to pick her up and she started walking to Adelaide (well, in the direction of Adelaide anyway).

Despite my insistence to the contrary, we had installed the flue upside down including fixing it to the roof and filling all gaps with slimy high temperature silicon.

Raph finally convinced me and we swapped the flue direction and bolted it all together before racing into town.

Meg had walked a couple of kilometres in this half hour and we met her at the caravan park. She hadn’t wasted her time though, and had rescheduled the pickup of the sewer vent that we were also to pick up on the trip.

A hectic return trip to Adelaide later and Thursday was over.

The last job on the toilet was to install the pedestal, liquid hose and “poo tube” into the bin and Meg and I completed this on Saturday morning with more blatant use of the grinder and tubes of silicon.

Without the exhaust vent in place, I decided that I could “commission” the toilet before I headed off for the weekend.

I sat there and looked up through the clear roof into the canopy of the trees and considered what we had achieved with a smile on my face.