17 August 2013

Stage One finished!

The slab's been poured, and it looks pretty good. The concrete plinth with the bits of steel rod and plastic pipe sticking out of it is for the bales to sit on.

View from the south east corner

Ramp down to the pit where the composting shitter's bin goes.

The paddock's really green, and the nanoforest looks fantastic. The wattles are starting to bloom again. On a recent trip (not the one where I took these photos), I saw a euro in the scrub and tried to photograph it. Unfortunately the camera is not real flash, and it didn't really show up. About a minute later, I saw three of them bound out of the trees, jump about the paddock a bit, then turn and go back into the trees.

Now I need an estimate from the builder for the frame and roof, so I know how much money I need to borrow to finish it.


10 June 2013

Progress (continued)

The builder has done some work - the site is leveled and there's a hole for the grey water settling tank, but not much else. I'm a bit concerned that there's no pit for the composting toilet bins yet.


As you can see, the paddock is really green.


I went for a bit of a wander, and took these photos of the micro forest.


Looking south along the western fence.


Looking into the northern edge. The taller trees are at least 4 metres tall.

06 June 2013

Progress!

I've finally got around to engaging a builder to put in the slab. He started digging the trenches on Tuesday.

I'm going up on the weekend to check on progress. There will be photographs and a proper post.

07 January 2013

Has it been nearly a year?

Well, yes it has.

I still haven't managed to get the fox, unfortunately. I've only seen him once since I bought the shotgun, and I couldn't get it up quick enough to shoot the bastard before he ducked behind some trees. And he has been eating the quail - there were hardly any of them escaping from under the slasher last time I mowed.

Still, all-in-all the health of the paddock is pretty good - I've got clumps of trees and saltbush scattered over it,  and there's a lot of grasses and other short plants as well, including some lucerne that Chris and I broadcast-seeded a couple of years ago.


The thing in the foreground is the handle of my Hamilton tree-planter, to give some scale: it's about a foot long.

And here's a photo of a bit of the windbreak from last August. The whole of the windbreak and the micro-forest had this beautiful golden haze from a distance because of the wattle blossoms.

The paddock is no longer quite that green.


I recently bought a second-hand post hole auger, which was really hard to attach to the tractor, and I still haven't worked out how I'm going to store the thing other than on the tractor itself. I think I need some kind of gantry in the shed. After Chris and I spent a day playing agricultural equipment Tetris, I've got everything under cover (the slasher spent a couple of weeks out in the weather). Having sons has turned out to be handy ...

So, the next steps are to find a contractor to put the slab in before the building approval runs out in May, and get some fencing organised. I need to fence in the micro-forest and the windbreaks, and along the creek line, and also divide the paddock into 5 or 6 bits, of a bit over a hectare each, so I can cell graze when I finally put some sheep on it. That's actually not as critical as the rest, especially as too much fencing will make building the Hovel trickier, but I need to at least plan where the fences will go eventually.