I'm a digger now

This week I joined the Diggers Club.

It's a club for people who have veggie gardens, you can buy heirloom seeds from them. Heirloom seeds are seeds from older style plants, no GM stuff, that have flavour and style. They also have a HUGE range of seeds. I'm looking forward to ordering seeds, and am having to restrain myself from getting them all NOW.

I had thought that I might get them now, and at least have seedlings to transport and transfer to my garden, but the reality of it is that, with organising the house, I probably won't have gardens ready until next year.

Sad, but true.

I have bought some seeds off ebay, mostly trees, which I'll be planting in the next few weeks. I will then have tree seedlings to transplant, and it doesn't matter if they sit in a tub for 6 months.

Also, I got quotes from the Draftsman for the house, and they were ridiculous, so I spoke to the certifier, and did the drafting myself. It came out really well, and I'm quite proud of it. The elevations look fantastic, and I can't wait to see what it looks like in real life.

The Wastewater plan is being done, and should be finished late this or early next week, The engineer has been sent the plans for his quote on the engineering of the sub-floor, the Certifier says he can have the plans in to council as soon as he receives the Waste Water plan, then the council will take up to 4 weeks, so, based on the fact that the council should have the plans by next Wednesday, we should have our D.A. by the 23rd of November.

This fits perfectly with our timeline, the builder will be available in about that time.

I've also asked for a quote for trusses and frames (pre-manufactured), this should greatly reduce our build time, as the builder won't have to make the frames. The trusses are full span, including the verandah's so it should look spectacular.

My house site has been chosen, it's a little further from the lagoon than I'd hoped, but, in the interest of not flooding, that's where it has to go. Even though there's not been a recorded flood there, we're not taking any chances. Bad enough we are in a bushfire prone area, I don't want to be panicking when it's raining as well as dry!

It means that I'll have to manufacture 'a view'. I'm planning mostly clearing a few acres around the house, and cutting timber for a nice fence when we get a chance. I'll put a nice rainforest style garden in, and that'll cut the heat, give me a fire buffer, and look nice, all in the one fell swoop.

thinking trees

I'm thinking...

Other than the obvious safety considerations of having two people there when a tree's being cut down, I want to be there for every tree-felling because I want to check every tree for hollows as it comes down.

We have Yellow tailed Black Cockatoos, Glossy Black cockatoos, and Wedge tailed eagles on the farm, along with 6 varieties of owl. I'm concerned that, notwithstanding the many varieties of arboreal mammals there, that, if we fell a tree with a hollow, there could be unfledged young in it.

Now, I've hand raised cockatoos before. I'm not really overly keen on doing it again (it's a bloody lot of work) but, if we happen to accidentally fell a tree with young in it, I'll want to be absolutely sure that the young are cared for.

I'd like to try to avoid felling trees with hollows in them. Other than the fact that they aren't good milling trees (not a lot of timber in a hollow!) They'll serve to hopefully steer the critters away from those trees we DO want to use. Some areas this will not be possible, for example, the home site, the boundary and the roadways. We'll have to clear ALL trees, whether possible hollows or not, and unfortunately our timing is shithouse, since it'll be right in the middle of breeding season. It would be better if we were felling toward the end of winter.

Maybe we'll be able to set ourselves up such that we drop a years worth of trees in a few weeks at the end of winter, to minimise the breeding disturbance, and just mill for the rest of the year.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Glossy Blacks and Wedgeys hanging around our farm. I used to breed Gang Gangs many years ago, and have to admit, they're my favourite of the black cockatoos, I'm sorry we're too far north to fall into their habitat.

I have to get onto the draftsman and certifier tomorrow and get my house plans done! That'll be fantastic. Then maybe we'll have some sort of timeline for when we can actually get to living in paradise.

Work and doin' stuff.

Well, somehow we have to "work the land".

The farm is pretty much totally treed. Our plan is to harvest timber off the property.

Mostly when I say that people have visions of us going through and clear-felling it all. Not so.

We're doing something called "Selective harvesting" or "Sustainable forestry".

The plan is, to take roughly one tree per hectare per year. This should allow the forest to go on un-harmed, shouldn't affect the relevant ecosystems, and maintain the general ambiance of the property.

Of course, there are some areas we do have to clear. We need to clear my Orchard, veggie patch and animal areas (chook and horses areas) and the home paddocks, but there are also other areas to clear. We'll need to clear for sheds, Picnic area, Camping area (for friends), Other internal roads, and a large area for a Hardwood Plantation.

We'll have to be careful with the Tree Harvesting. There is a large ecosystem there, and we'll have to be sensitive to the animals who might use the trees we're cutting down. I had a thought, I might make nesting boxes out of any hollow tree limbs we find, and hang them in trees we've designated as 'not to be cut down' trees. That might get the animals to steer away from the trees we DO want to take.

We've bought a Sawmill. Well, we've ordered it, anyway! We'll be milling our own timber. This is really cool, because we'll be able to utilise the trees to their utmost, and ensure minimal wastage (and maximum profit) from the timber. This will mean we need to use fewer trees!

It'll be interesting to maintain the balance between gleaning an income out of the property, and keeping the property from looking denuded or ruining the ecosystem totally.

What now???

Well, it's official.

We now own over 300 acres in the stunning Northern NSW Hinterland.

It's got lots of trees, a huge Lagoon, and not much else.

There's lots to do to make it liveable. I think we're too scared to actually write a list, it'd be too long. We've got to concentrate on establishing a residence first. Well, i say 'first' but, really the first thing is to create access. There's a rather rudimentary driveway through the property, but the Bush and Scrub and Lantana are so darned thick that we haven't even seen the whole of the property yet!

We've found a good 105 HP Tractor. Well, it's a really OLD tractor, but it'll do the job and seems to be in good nick. We're getting it checked by a mechanic before committing, but it's looking good. Then we'll get a slasher to drag behind the tractor to get rid of lantana and scrub.

So, list of things to do might start thus:

• 1: Buy Tractor.
• 2: Learn to drive Tractor.
• 3: Figure out where Boundaries of property are.
• 4: Buy a Chainsaw.
• 5: Learn to use the chainsaw.
• 6: Drive tractor around perimiter, to clear the boundary and see what we have.

Also, we have to work out where we're putting the house. Would be nice to be able to see the lagoon from the house, but it's not looking like we'll be able to put it close enough. So, I'll have to put a garden and little pond in for a view.

A broad list of things we want to achieve, domestically, would be:

• Establish Driveway
• Establish Boundary of property
• Build house
• Fence house yard
• Establish Veggie garden
• Establish Orchard
• Organise Chicken sheds and runs
• Clear horse yard
• Fence horse yard
• Get a horse!

That's my list, it's not exhaustive, and it's very broad, but there's a roughly list. Now, this is just a domestic list, not a business list. I'll cover that later.