Building – Gallifrey Forest Farm

Re-use, repair, recycle

2016/04/28 Danielle 0

An unexpected vet bill a couple’ve weeks ago (furbabies are epensive when they get sick!) ate into our infrastructure funds a little, and although we do have pet insurance, it’ll take a few weeks for any of those funds to get back to us for use. In the mean time, we have ten baby guinea fowl which are almost big enough to need their own grown-up enclosure, so they can start learning where home is. Not to mention the five wyandotte chicks which are growing daily, and sharing a brooder box with the guinea fowl keets. We do […]

aesthetics vs utility

2015/11/17 Danielle 0

One of the things which many, many permaculture practitioners seem to struggle with is a particular type of hoarding. I have this problem myself. You hold on to things because they might be useful, and because the idea of simply throwing them away is distasteful. After all, we know where “away” is in this context – it’s the mid-ocean garbage patch, or the local waterways, or at best the local landfill. I can throw away biodegradable things without a moment of guilt, because I know that they’ll just rot down and return to the soil. But those things tend to […]

Nesting

2015/08/10 Danielle 0

The house is so very, very close to being done. It’s a matter of weeks until we can move in, and while there’s a certain amount of argh-can-we-afford-all-this stress, it’s also a deeply satisfying feeling. It’s hard to rein in all the plans and projects. We’ve made a pact that we’re not going to buy any furniture except for a rug or two (the floor of the new house is tiled throughout, because I like tiles and hate the ground-in filth that accumulates in wall-to-wall carpets – rugs can be taken outside and beaten, or washed, or at worst replaced) […]

The Pointy End

2015/07/23 Danielle 0

People say that building a house is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. No one said it directly to me, mind you, but in theory people say this to other people as some sort of warning of the amount of stress and effort to expect. And the people they say it to (or don’t actually say it to) listen and agree and don’t fully comprehend what it means. I thought I did, but .. with hindsight, I was in the same boat as John Snow (i.e. I knew nothing). It’s taken three years to get to the pointy […]

Breaking Ground

2015/07/07 Danielle 0

We have a delivery date for the house – which, in case I hadn’t mentioned this clearly before, is a modular pre-fabricated building which is being constructed on the builder’s lot and then brought up on 3 trucks and put in place with a crane. Delivery is July 22nd, which means that everything is happening now. Earthworks have started, and the place looks a bit like its been hit by a bomb. Especially if the bomb were in the form of a rockbreaker and several digging machines. Still, they’ve assured us that they’ll fix everything when they’re done, re-dig the […]