And So It Goes

It's been almost a month to the day since the last post, and I can't say a lot has happened in that time. I'll be meeting with the real estate agent on Tuesday to organise for the block to be put on the market. We had had some interest from someone that was looking to buy the neighbouring property, who wanted our block for it's access to the water, but in the end they decided they wanted to be closer to the nearby city. At the time it was a positive sign, because selling the block is going to be challenging, to put it politely.

We're holding off marketing this place now, until we sell the other block. We need a place to live while we wait to clear that one out and consolidate our lives. Just got to hope everything doesn't come crashing down around our ears in the meantime, on both the personal and global levels. It's still up on the internet site, and if it sells, well, that's the way it's meant to be, but we wont be pushing it via an agent for now.

I finished the tiling in the kitchen, well, almost. DW has asked that we tile the back of the cupboard that faces out into the room, rather than trying to do anything else with it, so the job got a little bit bigger, but it shouldn't take much. It's looking a lot better in there, that's for sure.

The newly planted trees survived a bout of heat and have made it through to our current rainy period. It's still hot, and strangely muggy, but at least we're getting some rain, and all the weeds look so nice and green :-P

Further sad news on the vehicle front, we are now without any kind of work vehicle. After the adventure with the little truck, not two weeks ago the trusty ute died on me, right in the middle of Sydney, on the way home after attending meetings for work. It made it all the way down there okay, but just couldn't struggle back, throwing the timing chain as I was motoring back along the M4. Needless to say this has left us in a pretty tight spot, especially considering we've got so much stuff to move around the place to get all the plans in order. There is something of a synchronicity in this as well, even though a negative kind.

Yet again I'm left wondering about the validity of any of the plans we dream up. The Universe is either challenging us or obstructing us, but it doesn't appear to be giving us anything in the way of clear guidance. The various things I read around the place tell me we're heading towards ever more trying times, yet we find ourselves in a position that is, if anything, even less prepared than we were two years ago. It could well be that that is the message, that we need to clean everything up, get it all sorted out, before we can move forward. It certainly started out by cleaning two useful vehicles (and associated expenses) out of our lives :-) Off to a good start perhaps!?

Back to the Drawing Board

We seem be to going around in circles at the Farmlet at the moment, which I imagine must be a bit frustrating for you who take the time to read this. Unfortunately that's the sorry tale that is to be told, so unless I choose to say nothing at all, it's what you get ;-)

As a bit of a test I called up the Council yesterday to challenge them about the need for 50m of RG2 roadway connected to the intersection. Council's policies (I should point out that they are new policies only accepted by Council back in May) state that the old RG1 standard of single lane gravel road is now non-existent, except for right-of-way situations serving only an average of 16 vehicle movements per day. The result of the conversation was as useful as I'd expected. I was told that for each allotment the average was 8 movements per day, how people would use 8 vehicle movements per day I don't know, some people obviously drive way to much! Even if we dropped the kids off and picked them up from school that's only 4 movements per day, and living in the country if you drive out to drop the kids off then you keep on going if you need to. As there were two allotments up our lane (and it seems we have to pay for both of them) this equates to 16 movements in total, and the RG1 standard was only applicable for less than 16.

I tossed and turned last night rather than sleeping, and then realised just after midnight that the Council offers a 2 movement discount to encourage development. Silly me for missing that in our conversation.

First thing this morning I called up a business that does road building to get a ballpark figure on how much the roadworks were going to cost. At the end of it we arrived at about fifteen thousand dollars to do the upgrade (yes, $15,000) all of which should have been levied on the guy doing the subdivision. Strangely, all of which was levied on the guy doing the subdivision, and was passed on to us in the purchase price. Hence our extreme reluctance to spend more money on it. But I'm getting the distinct impression that Council aren't overly concerned about spending our money for us.

I called the Council guy back again after finding out this sum, but was directed to voicemail. I'm figuring that the calling number display alerts them to the fact that it's me so they avoid taking the call now. I left a message outlining the reason for the call, particularly to discuss the fact that he hadn't taken into account our supposed discount, and indicating that I would like a call back to discuss the issue.

After much discussion with DW we came up with a last resort plan. I don't expect the response from Council to be positive. It hasn't been to date, and even the most positive things have carried with them heavy burdens in the way of additional conditions, typically to make up for all the stuff they forgot in previous versions. There's a special brand of ineptitude being cultivated up there.

So our cunning plan is to ditch the shed development consent and to build the shed under the new NSW exempt development rules. The certifier was pretty certain that Council's idea of legal access to the block was flawed and that the current state of the access shouldn't hinder building under those rules.

This eliminates all of the conditions that have been applied to the shed, including the road upgrade. We then fall back to the conditions on the original house consent which included the stock grids and the BAR/BAL intersection. I'm guesstimating that more than half of the cost of the works would be tied up in the 50m of roadway, so for roughly $7,000 we should be able to upgrade the intersection. Another $6,000 for putting in the stock grids, and we arrive at a total of $14,000 of work.

Sure, that looks pretty close to the other number, give or take a thousand.

Did I neglect to mention that in addition to the road upgrade we also needed to fence off the road reserve? I've estimated that at $5,000 odd dollars for materials, so the total for upgrading the road and fencing would be (conservatively) around $20,000. This way it stops at $14,000.

An additional benefit would be the scrapping of the new condition that was applied to the house consent (which is a dubiously legal condition at best, so I've been informed), which required that we do the roadworks before pouring the footings on the house. Under this new plan (which is a lot like the old one) we can do most of the house before having to worry about roadworks.

So I keyed a letter off to our certifier to request clarification on all of our understandings and intuitions, and now await a reply from both people. Whilst I wait I'm left to ponder the situation. Perhaps there is something we haven't achieved that we should have, and so we are being sent in circles until that achievement is made? The universe, by way of a friend, was kind enough to supply us with building materials, tools and other goodies on the weekend, so it's still looking after us, there's little doubt about that. There must be other processes in motion, things happening behind the scenes that need to catch up and arrive at a particular point for us to move onward.

So, depending on the answer to my email and phone calls, we might not be proceeding with locating the shed in the spot that we've picked out and done work to clear up. Not such a bad thing perhaps, though I've now got to go back to the drawing board and pick another spot (more than 15m from any boundaries IIRC). Tricky on our hilly country, but as you might have guessed, I don't mind a challenge, though I'd prefer it if it wasn't the same challenge over and over and over again...

Kitchens & Furnaces

Yet again the universe has conspired to assist us in it's own peculiar fashion. We received news last week that someone working in at the Totally Local store in Orange had acquired a complete kitchen from a fire damaged home. The kitchen itself was unharmed but for some soot & smoke. Knowing that opportunity might knock a couple of times, but that it was always best to secure a bird in the hand rather than watch any number flutter away into the bushes, we reassigned some priorities, reconsidered finances, and purchased it.

New Kitchen

It's a lovely piece of work under the grime. Looks to be Tasmanian Oak, and modern stuff, well, more modern than our old kitchen, which is the slat fronted doors that were popular some time in the 70's, if then. I carted it home late last Friday, and we set about cleaning it up and deciding where it would all fit in. I should say, the DW set about cleaning it, I set about building the bits that went toward installation, and undertaking said installation. Not that I don't like cleaning... well, maybe I don't :-)

Old Style Kitchen Cupboards

So far we've installed a big pantry unit and a trio of overhead cupboards, one of which contains a rangehood unit. Beautiful stuff! The previous kitchen was sadly lacking in storage space, all of it below-bench and poorly organised. The pantry unit alone has allowed us to move all of the foodstuffs from the other cupboards into it, with room to spare. There is one corner unit we can install, then the rest requires the services of a plumber to set up the tap. That will allow us to remove the last of the old stuff.

We had been contemplating getting new benchtops made up for the old kitchen, they were, to say the least, tacky, having been cobbled together from various pieces as we changed the layout over the years. With a new kitchen, it will be worth the expense of getting benchtops to suit, so that's one of the upcoming projects once we have it all installed.

Due to the way it needs to be laid out we'll be left with an odd corner where we currently have a cupboard and the drawers. As we want to completely exorcise the old kitchen I'm thinking it might be a good spot for a built in shelf unit.

Having a decent kitchen will improve the saleability of the place greatly. The previous kitchen was tres tack to say the least, even dodgoir. The new one might not be tres chic, but it will be a vast improvement.

On the farm front, no news yet on the status of the DA amendment. If the weather is nice this weekend (predicted not, which is understandable given it will be a full moon) we will get out for some more camping and a big tree planting day. Hopefully even if we don't camp there will still be time for a bit of planting.

Getting stuff in the ground and growing out there is very important in the grand scheme of things. We can survive in a tent, but cannot survive without food. Whilst I hope that society will run along smoothly enough that we can complete all our plans, a realist would know that such a dream might be a bit of a stretch. A relatively abundant and safe food supply out there will increase our options and level of security. We could of course live off rabbit and hare, but DW does like her greens!

The big post-peak oil preparation project for this winter was going to be a charcoal making system, to complement the blacksmithing. In my wandering about the place and researches, I've come to the conclusion that this would be better as a combined charcoal-wood oil system. There's no point wasting the byproducts of charcoal making, indeed many of them would be very useful in other areas of the household system. Tar for preserving wood and methanol for making biodiesel for instance.

In thinking about a design for such a system, I thought to myself, why bother creating a furnace just for charcoal making? What else can we use a furnace for? In the past I've thought of metal casting, glass blowing and pottery firing, all of which go toward making a comfortable life. A single well designed furnace unit should be able to accommodate all of these activities. So I've come up with a preliminary design for a multi-purpose furnace. A grating will support either a charcoal/wood oil drum, a crucible for smelting metal, the same for melting glass, or a series of racks to allow pottery to be fired. One piece of infrastructure to suit many tasks!


The main modification I've thought of since doing this model is the inclusion of an extra door above the grating. When working with glass you need access to the crucible to draw out material, whilst leaving the rest nice and warm. Depending on how tall it ends up being it might be possible to do this from the top, but then the glass worker would get rather warm...

I'm also thinking a big lid with a chimney wouldn't go astray. A bit of work should allow the furnace fire byproducts to be harvested for further use as well. It's obviously not the kind of system that will be running all the time, so the outputs cannot be relied upon for critical purposes, but surely the heat or the kinetic energy from the flue gases can be put to some use? Turning a turbine for a bit of extra electricity? Pumping water? Direct heat for a glasshouse? I'm sure something will come up!

What the EL?

Two posts in one week?! Something must be up :-)

Just this morning I had a call from a local mining company, who have the EL (Exploration Licence) on our new block of land. This wasn't totally news to me, our good neighbours had warned us that they'd been paid a visit not long back.

It was an interesting conversation, the crux of it being that they were going to be doing a special scan of our area some time this year, and if they found anything interesting they'd take it from there, perhaps with some exploratory drilling, and then negotiation to purchase what they needed if their drilling confirmed their scanning.

I informed them of the status of our plans for the block, and asked them if they could get in sooner rather than later. We'd much prefer find out that we have to move on sooner rather than later. I can imagine the disappointment I would feel after planting a few hundred trees to suddenly find the whole lot was scheduled to be bulldozed. He mentioned that he would mention it to TPTB, though I don't know how we'll fare having such things rescheduled to suit our insignificant plans.

All this time we've been asking for signs, looking for inspiration as to what to do, and then this comes along. Perhaps all the council slowdowns and hiccups have been for a good reason? Maybe we've been put off precisely because these folks want to dig the whole lot up, and so there was really no point to progress in the first place? If this exploration does uncover something, will the relevant content of this blog form a body of somewhat circumstantial evidence as to the existence of Universe-directed synchronicity that moves in a direction to make our lives better?

The DW and I have discussed it, and resolved that we'll take a slowly slowly approach for now. We'll proceed with the plans for the shed, even though that means doing some work for council at our expense, but we're not going to panic about getting our adventure up off the ground to a great extent until we find out what the mining guys want.

If nothing comes of their investigation we can proceed with greater surety. Their technology is pretty advanced being able to view down to 2km under certain conditions, to see what is under the ground. They reckon that if they don't see anything under the ground worth having, then there isn't anything under the ground worth having. If they do their scan this year then we can get back on track for the next one, and only be an extra year behind, yet still a bit ahead given that we should have the roads and shed sorted out. Given the way synchronicity has flowed on this whole endeavour, I'm placing a bet that they will find something, sad as that will be.

As an added bonus, I've hit them up for a look at our underground realms if they don't find anything. Having an interest in rocks and geology and bones of the earth sort of stuff being able to see what's down there will mollify me greatly, and will be like winning even if I don't win the bet. Maybe there are underground caves? Buried rivers? Long lost kingdoms?? lol!