Hornfels

Tagasaste

Rebecca — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 05:35:19 +0000

I am not sure what to do about Tagasaste commonly known as Tree Lucerne. I have struck quite a few seeds with the intention of planting them in and around my Chook pen and as a hedge around the vegie garden but then, in my research I can across it on the weed species list. My intention is that my chooks and sheep will eat the plant but I can’t stop native birds eating it and spreading it….what to do. What would you do? Do I go ahead and plant them and be super diligent with cleaning up the seeds and keeping them cut back or do I destroy my seedlings (which I am inclined to do)? Should seed businesses be supplying such seeds without any warning?

Sheep Farming

Rebecca — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:28:58 +0000

I know that there are hundreds of farmers out there that “do it properly” but my journey in hobby farming sheep is chugging along with so much to learn still ahead of me. My current concern is lice. The horses that are agisted here got lice recently and apparently it is quite unusual. The vet was quite surprised and suggested that the sheep may also have them. I have gone straight to Pat Coleby because I think she seems to have it right. Sulphur. Sulphur deficiency can also biting critters to take up residence on your stock. I was using Pat Coleby’s Basic Stock Lick but lack of suitable vessels made it a labourious task having to move them from paddock t paddock and move them out of the rain and dew so I let it slide. The Basic Stock Lick has sulphur. So, back to it. . And, since I first got it, Pete has had a basic lesson in welding so maybe, just maybe, I could put a feed container on the list… I found this site as I was trawling through the IT ocean and it clearly indicates how to use it but my next problem is the lack of suitable yards for drenching. I called a place and asked for prices on yard fencing but it seems they must have been unable to email it through as it hasn’t arrived – one more incentive to keep on working!

Revegetating the gully

Rebecca — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:21:19 +0000

We spent yesterday afternoon planting out indigenous native shrubs and trees in the gully closest to the house site. We put some plants in last year but the site desperately needs many many more. Pete has been fencing the gully to ensure no stock graze it allowing for good plant growth, reduced compaction and reduced erosion through soil disruption. It has been a big task fencing as we decided to do both the top and bottom end of the gully in one hit so I think we have used over 3km of fencing wire.

Looking down into the bottom of the fenced Gully

It was a wicked frost here yesterday (and today) but we had a lovely clear day with it and it was great to be in the sunshine for a few hours. We got over 180 plants in yesterday with the help of Jock, Sophie and Sam and we put in over 50 a few weeks ago with some neighbours but you can see that the site will take a lot more and that’s only the top end!

First Frost of the year

Rebecca — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:40:10 +0000

This morning I woke up to a frost. The first frost of the year. I just wanted to document it here so I know for next year. Lovely. Wish I had taken a photos but the stresses of house building took over 2 minutes after walking out onto the crunching grass (read weeds here). We really need to process some photos as the house has come along so far with the internal walls up and all storm water plumbing completed. We are still 8-12 weeks away from moving in and it feels like such an epic….

Vegie Gardening

Rebecca — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:59:50 +0000

Last weekend Pete and I (mainly Pete) finished off moving soil from the Dam to the vegie patch and filled up 2 long beds. I have been reading lots of permaculture books and, as usual they have inspired me to keep on plugging away. On Wednesday Sophie, Sam and I planted out a whole heap of seeds – they may be too late but Gardenate says it’s time for them so we’ll give them a go. We put in seeds of:

Radicchio – 10 – 12 weeks

Red Drumhead cabbage – ?

Leeks – ?

Italian Sprouting Broccoli – 16 – 20 weeks

All Year Round Lettuce – 8 – 12 weeks

Chicory ‘Red dandelion’?

Tatsoi – ?

Yukina Savoy – 40 days

Crimson Globe Beetroot – 10-12 weeks

Hunter River Brown Onions – 24-32 weeks

Early Californian Red Onion – 24-30 weeks

Spinach – 8-10 weeks

Turnip – 10-12 weeks

Native Everlasting Daisy – 60 days to flowering

Good Bug Mix

Waltzing Matilda Wildflowers – 120 days to flowering

Snow Peas

I am hoping that Pete’s father will lend/give us some of the old cloches used for the tobacco seedlings along with the frames to keep things going through the frosty period.

We still have capsicums producing well, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, popcorn, zucchini, squash, silverbeet, beans, snow peas, golden nugget pumpkins and the odd beetroot left. Most meals are predominately coming from the garden complemented with produce given to us by others (particularly pumpkin) and meat from the local butcher. Vegie curries with red lentils are a favourite and there have been a few egg meals to use up the eggs.

Today I transplanted the Wormwood into the chook pen along with some lemon grass – the soil is not all that good there so I am hoping that they are strong enough to survive and thrive. I have mulched one of the plums and one of the apples with soiled straw from the foal yard and transplanted 4 gardenia cuttings I took months ago – I am hoping to have a hedge of gardenia along my bedroom window in front of a citrus grove consisting of Tahitian Lime, Kaffir Lime, Lemon, grapefruit, orange and mandarin.

Initially I thought I would have a predominantly indigenous garden around the house but the fire risk is too great and I would prefer to have an edible/useful garden surrounding us. I intend on continuing the garden down here at the shed too, hopefully using permaculture principles to eventually make it virtually maintainance free…..

The house is moving along and I do have more photos to share…soon!

First Lambs for Hornfels Ridge

Rebecca — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:56:20 +0000

We were blessed with the arrival of our first lambs on Easter Saturday. The first lamb was born around 1230pm and, as the second didn’t come until after 2pm, I thought we’d only got one. I was a bit disappointed as I was sure she was carrying twins (just by the look of her) and was relieved when we arrived home from the Easter Parade in Beechworth to see the second lamb lying in the grass just born.

Romeo has shown his interest and the mother (we haven’t named her) has taken it all in her stride – these are her first ever lambs and I must admit that she seemed a little surprised by them. The group seem to keep an eye on them all and wont let us too near. Watching the lambs frolic fills me with joy which I can really embrace as I think they are both ewes so we wont be eating them!

Strawbaling 101

petersacco — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:44:36 +0000

Bec's dad - Jock was a huge help with his 'powerful arms'

making custom bales

enjoying a beer at the end of the day with the old man

Dean looking very please after a hard days effort

Fran and Sophie taking a break

It is starting to take shape

Dean begining to put the all thread rod in

Everyone worked so hard - we are so lucky to have such good friends and family

Poa dog

Bec and Poa taking a break - she did eventually wake up

Allan was so good keeping the troops going and cleaning up the site each day

Hear no eveil, see no evil, talk no evil

Peter and Dean putting the last bale in place

Once the walls were put up it was time to put the top plate on

Compressing the bales by using a ratched to tighten the nuts on the all thread rods

Pete and the 'Persuader' straightening out the walls

Pete using the whipper snipper to trim off the walls

Bec applying the first lot of cob to the walls

Dom checkign up on Bec's cob

Tieing in the all thread rod

John and Bec making up a cob mix for the the gaps in the walls

Sophie and Sam were even helpful with the cobbing - they had a ball in the mud

Beautiful sophie

building the roof - a job best left for the professionals

Tools of the trade - needles used to make the custom bales that Dean blacksmithed himslef

House on the hill

power points installed

Sam's pretty happy so far

Claude was great on the detail. We decided to use chicken wire around the corner where the switch box was put.

View of the house from the rear (South aspect)East side of the houseFront of the house (north) - Bec and Kids looking out the kitchen windowView of the house from the bottom of the hill

view of the house from the top corner of the property

Building a house is a slow process!

Rebecca — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:37:15 +0000

We began the building process several weeks before we finally got to put up the straw bale walls and it seems, true to all builds, they never run “on time”! Organising the team to put up the straw bales proved to be a nightmare due to timing, weather constraints and about 4 date changes and people who wanted to be a part of it couldn’t due to other commitments (largely work!). We were lucky that a number of people were able to take time off and be a part of it and we are hoping that those who missed out will want to come and help with the garage whenever that may be!

Before we could do any straw baling the builders had to put up the frame.

We went with the builder’s recommendation of a steel frame for both strength and termite protection. Our builder is an amazingly strong man and it’s great to watch him in action, especially when that strength is directed towards our house!

Picnics on the slab have been lovely in the warm evenings

They put steel posts around the whole house and then a steel beam, wooden frames were then put in for all of the windows and a bottom plate was put in place and filled with pea gravel.

Wooden window boxing in situ

Beautiful sunset with bottom plate and pea gravel shown

The picture above show the bottom plate with pea gravel in situ and you can see the All Thread rods on the outer margins. In the middle of this photo you can see the exhaust vent for the composting toilet in the en suite.

The Beginning

Rebecca — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:19:20 +0000

We are a long way into the building of our “sustainable” house and I am yet to post an entry about it. It has slowly dawned on me while watching this house grow that building a house is not really all that sustainable and that surely buying a house already used is a better outcome for the environment. We have made great efforts to build a “sustainable” house and there is no doubt that this house will help us lead a low impact life but at what cost? A part of me says “Who cares?” but it is still something that I think about on a regular basis. Still our path is set and we have a very exciting house growing from the ground up and here is our beginning. Please let me preface this by saying that I am NOT a builder and have NO IDEA about building, as I am sure you will come to know as you see our house grow, this is an account of how I have seen and felt it!

The Straw Stack

This is a picture of our walls – yes it is a hay stack or, I should say a straw stack. These bales have formed our walls, they are going to keep us cool and keep us warm with 450mm of insulation between 50mm of lime render. They are going to hide us from the outside world, protect us from wind and rain and nurture our family as it grows. They were grown within reasonable proximity to our land, a distance that I feel makes them pretty much locally grown. Triticale. That’s what the straw we have chosen is. obviously this photo was taken some time ago with the green grass – I can’t really remember when it all turned to dust but this is a lovely reminder that green will be back again soon!

In between bringing in the first load of straw bales and beginning the build one of our Indian Game X hens (white lace) began to sit on 13 eggs and eventually hatch 1 chicken – most of the eggs were not fertile, some just didn’t hatch and I meddled with a couple – lesson still not learned.

Than, the real work began, the site was marked out with hurdles and string lines and then the diggers came to dig our toilet pits:

Calm Before the Building Storm

Digging the toilet pits

I felt like they dug and dug and kept on digging. They hit a lot of rock and it took longer than anticipated to get those pits deep enough and long enough for my Clivus Multrum composting toilets to fit under our concrete slab.

Getting deeper into the pits!

Footings and plumbing trenches were dug out and filled in:

And the toilet pits were prepared to bare the load of the slab and fulfil their role in storing our waste as it biodegrades:

Slab in Toilet Pit

We has some rain...

A slab was poured with reinforcing bars and then the walls were bricked up – reinforced all the way – before the cavities between the earth walls and bricks were back filled with more super strength concrete.

Bricked in toilet pit

The toilets were delivered:

Clivus Multrum Unit

The slab preparations where carried out and the piers were dug out, some quite deep and some not so deep.

Slab preparation

Not quite as deep...

The toilet pits were boxed up ready for the slab to be poured:

Boxed above the toilets

And, finally, after all that work the slab was poured. 17 trucks of concrete. So much for sustainable housing!

Making a little Man's day - the digger!

Putting in the plates that the frame will be welded to

Poa had friends to play with

Pouring the Slab

Notice the all thread poking up through the slab – these were our means of securing the tension on the bales…

Hornfels Ridge

Rebecca — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:16:14 +0000

After a bit of discussion Hornfels Ridge will be the official name of the property. Sunday a week ago, we began the task of the deliberate revegetation of some areas.

The previous owners ripped two lines alone the driveway so we began there planting alternating Lemon Citriodora & Red Gums.

Driveway Planting - Sam & Peter

Driveway planting - Peter & Sam

Driveway Planting - Peter

We also targeted the Gully Erosion near the driveway with planting of red gums, black wood and two different native shrubs . This gully needs lots of attention before it erodes too far – or any further really – so our plan is to put in natural barriers such as dead wood to slow the water progress and minimise the devastation it can wreck. The planting of trees and shrubs will assist in maintaining the top and sub soil and will provide habitat for local wildlife.

Tree Planting - Sam

Gully Erosian - Beck

Gully Planting

Gully planting on the other side of driveway