Editors Note:
I wrote this on another site on the 19th January last year.
Since that time – a lot of things have changed – which I will update you on in the next post or two – but I thought you might like a bit of background as to where my ‘head-space’ was leading me, over a year ago…
Not exactly in the vein of “a new year, a new you” – but some may think it so.
Twenty something years ago, I went ‘back to my roots’, and moved to a thirty acre block in the middle of the backwoods of south west Qld, that didn’t have sealed roads, running water, electricity, plumbing of any sort, or any neighbors.
When we first moved there – it didn’t even have gas.
All we had was a big unlined one room colorbond shed, with an annex slab added, for a ‘kitchen’, and we did have a nice big dam!
I also had four small children – the youngest being just 6 weeks old, and the second youngest still in cloth nappies.(none of that disposable business when my kids were little. lol)
It was a lot of hard work – pretty much from sunup to sundown, but by the time we sold up and left – we had a 5 bedroom home, a visitors cabin, a genny shed, a huge 3 bay work shed, 2 large tanks, and a smaller header tank, another huge dam, a massive thriving vege garden that had shade cloth cover, so we could grow all year round, chook yards, a pig pen, a fully fenced house yard with gardens, sheep, over an 1ac of fenced protea plants, and orchard trees, an 8′ x 8′ walk-in larder/pantry, with gas fridge, a wetback wood stove, a pot-belly stove, solar power, with generator backup, and plumbing with a real bathroom, with a bath, shower, and flushing loo!!
We even had a library!
(I’ve been known to be a little book-crazy!!)
Even though we put in our loo, we still kept the old pit toilet going.
It was in a nice spot, which we moved round every few months, and it had a nice outlook.
On a beautiful day, it was nice to still be able to ‘go’ out in amongst the forest, and just sit and contemplate…And each time we moved it, we’d plant something on top, that would grow in leaps and bounds from all the nutrients. lol
Now, well over twenty years on – I’m feeling the need to get back to the simple life.
Back to basics.
Not to the extreme that it was in those very early day – although it wouldn’t bother me in least if it turned out that way – but definitely back to a Life that has meaning and feeling.
I’ve started growing my own veggies again – and whilst it’s only baby steps so far – we’re trying with the rare spare time that we do have, to work towards making some differences in our Life.
So far in the garden, we’ve got:
two different types of potatoes,
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Two types of beans
Zucchini
Pumpkin
Coriander
Basil
Spring onions
Carrots
Beetroot and
Chillies
We’ve also got a number of fruit trees awaiting to go in the ground.
It’s a start!!
We’ve also been working on ‘reclaiming’ more of our yard, so we can put in more beds.
At the moment, we have what can best be described as a sort-of Balinese rainforest type garden.
Lots of lushness, ferns, palms etc.
We’ve been gradually paring back, so that we will have the privacy that we so desperately crave, but so that our yard can also be a whole lot more productive than its currently being.
Just yesterday we had someone come in, who wanted our old woodshed, and he came and tore it all down, and started carting it off. Free gardening in exchange for a free woodshed!
The amount of room that that alone will give us to put gardens in, will be staggering.
Wheeehee.
And on the news the other day, there was rumor about Masters (the big hardware store) possibly closing down, and therefore having huge sales.
We wanna be there for those sales I can tell you!!
We’ve also just bought a more economical car, which thankfully, is a ute – so that will make it a whole lot easier than its been for a long time, to get plants, supplies etc, from point A to point B!
On a slightly different topic, I have been unsubscribing like a demon of late.
All these things one subscribes to, that just end up wasting your time and cluttering up your inbox (& your mind!) – I’ve been unsubbing from as fast as they come in.
A very liberating way start to each day.
Give it a try! ☺️
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