Spring has Sprung and the Wood work is finished

Technically we're actually a few weeks off September, marking the start of Spring, but this weekend was the first whole weekend of glorious weather we've had at Mia Mia in a long time.  There are lots of baby lambs springing around along our fence in front of the cubby house, and it is finally time to start planting.  I didn't realise that lambs actually spring, I thought it was something they only did in Looney Toons cartoons.  They are so cute, groups of 5-8 of them keep gathering around a particular rock, climbing on one at a time and springing off like it's a great game.  They are like playful puppies.
We got out late Saturday afternoon to find 4 cubic meters of garden soil had been delivered and within 5 minutes the rest of the wood needed for the verandah rafters. 
I have now filled one of the garden beds in the 'pet cemetery' and planted the following:
-celery that was living in pots in our car park in Melbourne, but not thriving
-potatoes that we had at home, and another 5 potato plants that had started growing in the compost bin
-carrot seeds, which I had the will power not to plant all at once so we can (with luck) spread the harvest over a few weeks
-snow peas from seed
-2 pots of basil, one for Mia Mia and one for home
-pot of coriander
-The lemon tree we have had sitting in a pot out the back is now planted (but not the lime tree which was stolen.  Who steals a lime tree?!)
I also scattered some sunflower seeds around the place, hoping for some random looking growths of colour.  I don't know why I like sunflowers so much.  They aren't traditionally beautiful like a rose, but I used to really like them when I was a teenager, perhaps for their sunny dispositions.  I read somewhere they are also good to have near a veggie patch to encourage the right kind of insects that will keep away the bad ones.
I used the compost from our bin for the first time, it was full of worms working their magic.  The mandarin tree is looking a bit yellow, so I googled the problem.  How silly is it that we don't have connected power or water, but we have internet access on our phones!  Apparently yellow leaves means either over watering, under watering, over fertilizing or under fertilizing.  Helpful huh.  They hadn't been watered for 2 weeks, but there has been quite a bit of rain, and the ground was wet.  So much rain that even though it was sunny, there were little billabongs of water everywhere because the plates of rocks won't let the rain soak through.  But the rain must have  only just happened, so I have no idea if they are over watered or under watered.  I did put a bit of plant booster on it any way just to cover the fertilizer issue. 

Aidan had a very productive day too, he finished putting up the woodwork for the verandah off the edge of the container.  It has been a very long time coming.  It began with trying to dig holes for the support poles, which at Mia Mia is a night mare.  We bought a jack hammer and hired a generator to try and break through the rocks, but it was a couple of months of having nothing but holes.  Kay, Aidan's mum had the ingenious idea of putting in footings so the holes could be much smaller.  Then we had footings there for a while, then 2 poles, then a beam across them.  The purchase of a generator has moved everything ahead rapidly, who knew having power could be so useful?  So much got done on the weekend, I'm so happy with what has been done, and proud of Aidan for finishing the structure.  I almost don't want to put a roof on it, it looks so good, but the idea is that we need shelter and somewhere to catch rain.

I'm also very impressed with Aidan involving the boys.  Over a couple of wines around the fire, we discussed how Mia Mia needed to be something that involved the boys, not just something they had to endure.  I know how frustrating it can be when they boys want to help, particularly when they are more of a hindrance, and there is always the concern of them getting hurt; but Aidan, who has not always been known for his tolerance was great with them.  Oscar just wanted to wear the tape measure on his belt and wasn't prepared to share it, but Aidan took it in his stride.

Early mornings are usually the hardest out there, when it is still freezing.  William whinged for about half an hour wanting 'coffee' while we tried to get the fire started and heat the billy.  Thank goodness the neighbours couldn't hear.  Imagine what they'd think of this city kid, who isn't even 2 cracking it over coffee!  What he really wanted was a hot chocolate, or more importantly something hot.  But as usual once everyone had had breaky all was calm again.  One of the joys of eating outside is not worrying about food and mess falling on the floor, which happens a lot when you have two boys  under 3 and a half.

After reading my last entry Aidan felt I should make a couple of additions, firstly I didn't introduce myself, I am Jill, a dance school owner and teacher, and the one trying to keep life functioning smoothly for the 3 boys in my family.  Secondly, Aidan felt I should have mentioned that he was a visionary for our dream.  It is true Aidan has been the one researching and planning for this building.  He started out wanting to build a log cabin, I think a mud brick house may have briefly entered the equation, there was definitely been a straw bale house idea at one point, but it is through his research that we've settled on a shipping container house.  The beginning inspiration for our design was from Adam Kalkin, an English architect who happens to be giving a talk at Melbourne University next week, and luckily for us David has got us tickets to.  Unfortunately Tuesday at 6.30 is the absolute worst time for me to go, but Aidan will be there with bells on.

To top our productive weekend off, just before we left Terry walked over the two fences between our properties with a tray containing a couple of strawberry plants and bell pepper seedlings, both items on our wish list for the garden. We will have to fill the other 'plot' to plant them next time...
Another thing Terry bought to our attention was the problem of rabbits eating everything.  I've noticed a few places around, including Terry's which have big netted areas, presumably to keep birds out, but having never seen any rabbits out there hadn't considered them.  If we put wire around it they will just dig under.  What to do?  

Living the Dream

It's hard to put into words what our little piece of country side means to us.  It is a place we try to get to most weekends, we have no running water, no toilet and only recently acquired a generator so power is limited, but going there fills us with the kind of bliss I didn't know we were missing.

'We' are my husband Aidan, animator and the general handyman on site, Oscar, our 3 year old son who likes to 'use' the tools and help Dad build things, and William, 20 months and is still a bit hit and miss about whether or not he's an outdoors man and can appreciate our permanent camping site.

We have a 3.5acre property in Mia Mia (pronounced My My by the locals) which currently contains a shipping container and a cubby house.  The last few months have seen the creation of a patio area which is really just boxed in crushed granite, and 5 poles with beams across them which will become a roof on the container, 2 stone wall garden beds that Aidan likens to a pet cemetery and as of yesterday 3 fruit trees.

We bought the property in 2007.  Between the time we put an offer in on the land, and the offer being accepted we discovered Oscar was on the way, hence the several year delay in being able to do anything with it, and then of course the arrival of William. The previous owners had done some sort of excavation, so we have 3 piles of huge rocks and a driveway cleared.  Rocks are a very relevant part of life at Mia Mia.  They are absolutely everywhere.  We took a sample to Aidan's Uncle Stephen (Gallagher) who is  a geologist, who informed us that approximately 100 thousand years ago a volcano exploded and spewed across our property, leaving volcanic rock everywhere.  Unfortunately it isn't the fertile kind that has broken down, it's only young volcanic rock and won't be useful in our lifetime. 

The big picture dream is to create our dream home.  We don't necessary plan on living there full time, but it will be our retreat, complete with offices so we can both work, and plenty of scope for play and entertaining.   The architect working on it is very conveniently my brother David (Lister), though when someone is designing a house for free, you fall on the back burner when real work gets busy.  We plan on building a house out of shipping containers, based on the idea of creating a home with as many recycled materials as we can, living as sustainably as possible and having a cutting edge, evolving work of art as our home. 

Mia Mia is a place for the boys to learn about building things, and making a fire and how to entertain themselves without a tv. They love going there, most probably because it is the one place we get to spend time as a family without work and other distractions readily available in our Melbourne flat.  We are all learning new skills out there.  We don't have Aidan's dad nearby, who would normally help us construct and fix things. My mum lives in Bendigo, half an hour away so if we get rained out we sometimes go there for breakfast, but we're meeting neighbors and everyone seems to be very supportive of a young family moving into the area.

We have two neighbors in our little street, Mary and her husband, and Terry.  After 5 loads of dirt and road base being delivered in two weekends I think we'd proved we're sticking around so Mary has started bringing us the local paper, the Bridge Connection when it comes out each month, and Terry pops by and offers his help.  The night we'd been shoveling 7 cubic meters of crushed granite we were sitting around our fire in the dark when he bought over a gas lantern.  It completely changed our evenings out there.  I can't believe we've been sitting in the dark for so long!  We went out and bought one the following week.

I'll try and update this each time we go out, so we can look back at the end and see how far we've come.  Wish us luck!

The cubby

Willis

Aidan and Osc

The view and reclining cows

Our container and set up