Tell us about *your* place..

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by ~Tullymoor~, Jun 12, 2005.

  1. ~Tullymoor~

    ~Tullymoor~ Junior Member

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    Hi everyone,
    Thought I might start a new topic so that those who would like to can tell us all about their place. How long have you lived there? What were your original plans/dreams? What have you achieved? Did any plans fall by the wayside? Great success stories? Hard-luck stories? Before and after photos?? That kind of thing... anyone keen?
     
  2. miss.vitalis

    miss.vitalis Junior Member

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    I can give you only before photos! I read a book :study: about permaculture a few weeks ago - and I found myself dreaming how to build my place... for now i'm trying to compost for the first time, and i will make a small mulch garden for beginners!
     
  3. clonte

    clonte Junior Member

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    Hopes and dreams

    hi tullymore,

    i just noticed your post its been a while so i hop you are still around.

    i have raised three children, mainly in country victoria but some of the time in adelaide. i used to think i would be an artist, but that was long ago.. i ended up being an accounts clerk until i was 26 and then moved to the country out of necessity as my husband had (and still has) chronic fatigue syndrome. over the years i have come to terms with my life and i can honestly say i am pretty content now and am very proud of the way my children have grown up. my youngest is 16, a boy, and very talented musicaly and i am listening to him right now singing and playing his piano to one of his many original songs.. yes life is good. but there is alot more to come - i would dearly love to have a boutique winery and b & b in a couple of years as it will be very quiet without without my very own musician :nike: :nike: :wink: when he goes off to the big smoke to study .

    clonte :wink:
     
  4. ninamcsteve

    ninamcsteve Guest

    Hi, my husband and I rent a property of 16 acres in Jimboomba, to see if we could handle the commute to work (one hour each way) and to see how things work outside of town. We discovered the rain fall is much less. We realise that self sufficiency is useless unless you get enough water to survive which currently nature is not supplying. Last winter I tried to have a veggie garden but we ran out of water around july and had to buy water in. So this year due to even less rain fall in summer, I have decided not to put in a veggie garden and mulch it instead. The weeds soon took over, but I just opened the gate, let the chooks and sheep in and whalla the garden is cleared and manured ready for spring.

    Our experiment has been great, no neighbours, no noise (except crows) plenty of room to fluff about and do absolutley nothing but enjoy. Hopefully in the next few years we will have a property big enough to run cattle and other livestock. Our current problem is trying to find a lender who will give us enough money to purchase a large slice of land outside of town without a house on it. Our primary goal is to live a self sufficient lifestyle which wont need us to find income from outside the property.
    :D
     
  5. jeanneinsunland

    jeanneinsunland Junior Member

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    Hi!
    My "place":
    We (my husband, daughter, and I) moved in about 8 months ago, to a small (7400sf) lot in a fairly urban suburb of San Diego, California, USA. When we moved in there were 2 small citrus trees in front and 2 in back, plus a couple of juniper shrubs in front, a scraggly lawn everywhere else. Since then, we have added 4 more fruit trees, 3 non-fruit deciduous shade trees, and started a few sheet-mulch veggie beds. My plan is to get most of the place under mulch in the next couple of months, so that it will be ready for more tree-planting in Fall (Oct-Nov). We will have a grssy area in back for husband and daughter to play in (she has a sandbox! hooray!), but I'm hoping to make the rest of the place productive in a permaculture kind of way.

    I am so happy we finally have our own home. I wish I had taken more "before" pictures, but I will post "during" and "after" pictures as I go!

    And can I just say I love this board and the people on it and thanks to "SueinWA" for directing me here!
     
  6. The Phoenix

    The Phoenix Junior Member

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    Hi All
    I've moved onto my property with my 3 kids, just over a year ago after going through several very difficult years. I wanted to build a house that was as 'self sustaining' as possible but being on a budget ended up with a standard home with as many modifications as I could afford. I have a large roof surface area for catching water, huge water tank, house facing north, solar hot water with electric boost, blockout curtains on all windows, solid fuel combustion heater and wormfarm sewerage. My garden was the first thing that went in after the yard was set up, where I planted my roses and hardy plants, as where I live it's very windy and dry. I've also planted a small herb garden along the southside wall of the house. The kids did the hard manual work as I'm not able. I use water from the washing up to water the plants and also collect the first shower water till it gets hot. This is used either on the garden, to flush the loo or occassionaly the animals will drink it. we've also used it for making concrete. We planted a lot of trees but unfortunately because of the drought a lot have died. The animals provide the entertainment with their antics and life is now good.

    Now tell us about your place Tullymoor.
     
  7. Felix (AKA Just Learning)

    Felix (AKA Just Learning) Junior Member

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    Hi All,

    My hubby, almost 3 year old, dog, chooks and I have just made the move back to Tassie, after spending 5 years in Canberra. The last 2 years were spent trialling our ability to grow anything, let alone be self sufficient, but in a backyard of 10X8m, we managed to have chooks for eggs, and enough garden veges to get us through the spring/ summer/autumn even in the middle of the drought. As we rarely use soaps (all allergic), we used all our bath/shower water for the garden!

    Now full of self delusional confidence, we have bought 7 acres an hour south of Hobart, and are just going through the process of deciding what to build/plant/clear. We are renting for 18 months whilst we go through all the planning building stages, and will make sure I get lots of photos as we go.

    Current dliemma is what composting toilet and grey water system to go with!! Any suggestions welcome!

    Felix
     
  8. dani-243

    dani-243 Junior Member

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    *our* place is 20 acres of regenerating sub-tropical savannah woodland. It’s 25km out the Gibb River Road from Derby in the Kimberley region of WA. Hot and wet in summer, hot and dry in winter. Got abundant good quality bore water. Major veg is boabs, bloodwood gums, black wattle and pindan wattle, with grassland understory. Wattle is more dominant than it should be and alot of weeds as we had a big bushfire in 2001 (5 days after we bought the place... :cry: that was a test of our resolve). Soil is ‘pindan’ – very fine, red-brown sand-clay.

    *we* are me (environmental scientist, working in sustainable agriculture), and him (former machinery operator now stay-at-home dad and house builder), both 35, and daughter, 16 months, and baby #2 due xmas day 2005.

    We bought our place in 2001 while we worked for a mining company, planned to use the income from destroying the world to protect a small piece of it. For two years we stayed there part-time in a shed, no power, cold water only, had a great time. Spent a small fortune on architects and engineers trying to design the perfect energy-zero house. Nearly took out a big mortgage to build it. Company shut down, both lost jobs, crisis :shock: ! moved south, had a baby :D , never forgot the dream although it faded a bit. Lived the suburban lifestyle, remembered why we hated it, moved back to have baby #2, build a scaled-down version of the perfect house and live the dream.

    The Plan is to live simply, raise healthy safe children and enjoy nature. Challenges – a low-cost house (freight charges), a power supply (the solar maze), getting a composting toilet and greywater system past the council, cyclones and bushfires, developing a small source of income. Goals – be debt-free and finish paid work in 2010.

    Love this forum - I have a new addiction!
     
  9. ~Tullymoor~

    ~Tullymoor~ Junior Member

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    WOW!!!!!!!!

    What an incredible bunch of sheilas we have here! :D :D

    Will jot a few lines about my place (will be boring by comparison) but right now there is a break in the torrential rain we have had all day and I'm off out to do some jobbies.

    Thanks for your posts girls, I've really enjoyed reading them.
    ~Tullymoor~
     
  10. The Phoenix

    The Phoenix Junior Member

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    Hi Felix
    we have a wormfarm waste system where all your sewrage, showers, washing water and compost goes. It is all kept in a big underground plastic tank where worms munch through it all and when the water content gets to a certain height a big pump pumps the grey water into an evaporation trench. This is a good place to grow fruit trees or suchlike if you don't get a lot of rain like we don't.
    link https://www.wormfarm.com.au/
    Hope this helps
    D
     
  11. jeanneinsunland

    jeanneinsunland Junior Member

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    Hey, Dani! Just thought I'd mention that after our insane fires here about 2 years ago (seriously thought for a minute that the whole county was going to burn), everyone started thinking about "shelter in place" design, basically building homes to withstand fires rather than having everyone evacuate and have to rebuild everything afterwards. At least for the back-country dwellers, the city folks are rebuilding according to their homeowners' association rules :roll: . Anyway, I could probably come up with a few links of you're interested. Cyclones, on the other hand.... :D
     
  12. mossbackfarm

    mossbackfarm Junior Member

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    Here's a brief rundown of our place....

    We bought 40 acres in NW Oregon, USA, about 2 1/2 years ago. It had been previously abused with overstocking of cattle year-around, with gullying and soil compaction running rampant. Few trees survived the abuse. By the summer solstice of our first summer, all of the fields were baked brown and tan.

    We've been using pastured poultry (layers and broilers), sheep, and pigs to add fertility and cycle nutrients. An orchard is going in in phases, water catchment and piping is slowly being expanded, and in the abundant free time :) I'm signing up for some federal cost-share programs for further improvements.

    This summer (nearing solstice now...) the pastures are still green and growing; sheep are fattening nicely, and every year, more bird species nest around the homestead.

    More info on our farm is at our journal page https://www.mossbackfarm.com/journal

    Cheers
    Rich
     
  13. baringapark

    baringapark Junior Member

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    Hi all

    I am new to this great site.

    I have 3 human babies and love my poultry and large black pigs. I am into heritage varieties of fruit and veg and love to grow my own. I have a huge vegie patch with 2 chook domes (chook tractors) which do all the work for me. This means that I rarely buy vegies for my family. Our fruit trees are establishing well, with good crops of apricot, plum, peach, apple last summer. The citrus are more of a prob, maybe due to the severe frosts we get, but they should improve as they get bigger.

    I raise chooks for both meat and eggs, and have just got into ducks for the same purpose. We have been here 5 years on our 6 acres and feel disgustingly content. The school bus pulls up at our front gate so life just gets easier for this Mum.

    We have sown a lucerne crop this year and have oaten hay in the shed from last year's crop which feeds our horse and pony. Next on the agenda is a jersey cow and some shedding sheep...no more supermarket shopping for us in the very neat future!

    I also have geese, but like them so much I couldn't eat last year's offspring!! I am also keen on rare breeds and have a nice flock of Silver grey Dorking chickens which I will breed this year. I love to chat about permaculture techniques and self sufficiency and love living in this place of short sharp winters, long hot summers and views of the snowfields in the spring.


    Elizabeth
     
  14. The Phoenix

    The Phoenix Junior Member

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    Hi Elizabeth
    sounds wonderful and it brought a smile to my face to hear of your contentment. :) I know how you feel. It's certainly great when the school bus collects your kids from the gate. We have the same type of thing. Have you got any photos of your pigs you can post? I thought pigs smelt, do they?
    :wink:
    Cheers
    Dawn
     
  15. baringapark

    baringapark Junior Member

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    Hi

    Pigs are super-clean animals if they are allowed to be. I run mine on pasture, although with the drought and then the latest downpour they are on mud currently.

    They generally only toilet in one area, but with the cold weather my girls are finding it hard to get out of bed to go to the toilet, and have made an area closer to their bed.

    If I knew how to post a pic I would, I will work on that!

    Elizabeth
     
  16. baringapark

    baringapark Junior Member

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  17. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Hi everyone, this is my first post, and I am excited to be connected witth a far flung bunch of people via this forum. It sounds like you are all involved in very satisfying things.

    My wife Dawn and I live on a 70 acre piece of hilly land about two miles up river from the Kekchi Maya village of San Pedro Columbia, in Belize's Toledo district. We are in a wet/dry lowland rainforest (what's left of it after many years of annual cropping regimes, logging and a hurricane a few years ago). Most of our cultivated aread are on the south side of a long ridge, with the southern border of our land being the same river we pole dorey up and down to access and leave our farm.

    I bought the farm in 1988, and took a PDC course in 1992, and we have used what we were exposed to their to transform our farm from a cattle and citrus farm to a model stacked polyculture with hundreds of species. When I bought the farm, there was mostly cattle on about 8 acres, and 5 acres of citrus. It is now very different.

    We have thousands of fruit, timber and legume trees, including three acres of cacao based polyculture. We raise chickens and ducks, have had cattle in the past (totally inappropriate for our soil types) and we once owned a pig named Gregor just to see if we could fatten a pig on coco yam, cassava and banana. It worked, but we were not ready for him, so after he dismantled our chicken house and our chickens started to disappear, we sold him off to our compadres for a corn planting episode.

    After losing my job of seven years with a small organic fairtrade chocolate company (since bought out by a large not organic not fairtrade chcolate company) we have registered our farm as an NGO under Belizean laws, and are working with several local groups to promote food security through biodiversity.

    We have a PDC scheduled here on our farm next February with Toby Hemenway and Penny Livingston, which is exciting. We have been quietly working since the PDC course we took in 92, and have been out of the loop on the permaculture world. Having satellite internet has enabled us to look up all sorts of exciting things, like this forum, which is really exciting for us.

    I will be looking further into this forum, but if anyone is ever in Belize, you are welcome to visit with us. Thanks for whoever made this forum possible!
     
  18. The Phoenix

    The Phoenix Junior Member

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    love the pigs Elizabeth! How cute ! :D
     
  19. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Christopher!
    Welcome to this forum. Satellite internet must indeed be changing things for you...
    Your place sounds awesome. Belize has always sounded like a beautiful place to me, in need of some restoration like that which you have been working on. 3 acres of chocloate trees! How good?!
    I am so interested to hear more about your project. Particularly your efforts to fatten a pig on cocoyams and cassava. A friend of mine in nearby Peahi here on Maui has often complained about the wild pigs getting in and eating his manioc, and even his raw taro, so I can imagine porkers doing well on that sort of diet.
    Did you cook the coco-yams, or just throw them in to the pigs raw? (For readers who don't know it, the cocoyam is a kind of taro, very ornamental with purplish stems and the tubers have these tasty little side shoots, rather than one big corm). I have just divided up our first crop of cocoyam to plant out, as we are in a preliminary phase of abundance here...
    What is your original nationality Christopher? What was the process to become a landowner in Belize? What is the case now?
    Aloha,
    Rich
     
  20. Penny

    Penny Junior Member

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    My Place

    What a great site.
    I have 106 acres in Western Australia and am just starting out. I and my partner bought the property 18 months ago and planned to develop it together as a permaculture property. We have an aquaculture set up (Silver Perch and Marron.) I am on my own now as my partner was killed in a car accident 9 months ago, because of this I lost interest for a while but with help from good friends am now working on bringing the dream to fruition.
    The plan is to build a small house (Straw Bale or rammed earth) and starting at the house gradually spread out as time and finance allow. I have a great group of supportive friends who are helping, have applied for organic registration and begun a course in permaculture design. I am interested in what others are doing and discussing successes and failures. the idea of before and after pictures appeals as well
     

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