Hidden a mere 15-minute drive from downtown Portland, in the city’s North East, is the unexpected semi-rural neighbourhood of Cully, which is brimming with urban farmlets growing food, flowers and the deep roots of community. It’s a gem in this …
Category: Design & Build
Reticulation monster bites
I didn’t get past Day 1 in my blog posts about Edgefield’s reticulation project because it morphed into a monster that devoured our time and money in a way we hadn’t anticipated. I would like to focus on the positive: …
Day 1: water installation begins
Day 1: Trenching, pipes + pumps “My God, the place is destroyed…in a good way.” It’s been a long time coming but we are finally making tangible progress on turning our water strategy at Edgefield into reality. And it’s a dirty, …
Sun shine on!
5kW solar power system installed at Edgefield Just a little bit excited about the 20 new solar panels and 5kW Fronius inverter fitted on our house today by Solargain. It’s been a long-held dream and a very big box ticked …
Edgefield’s water strategy is taking shape
Slowly but surely we’re making progress on our water strategy for Edgefield. Sounds easy, right? In reality, it’s been probably the most challenging and complex problem we’ve yet had to solve. There’s plenty of water in the Hills, plenty AROUND us, but no reliable and …
Spring Project Central
There’s been so much going on at Edgefield lately, along with a busy work schedule, that allows no time to write this blog (my usual, boring lament)! As cliched as it sounds, spring fever has gripped me and, by association, Jeff. We are powering …
Woodworking Pt 2 – Dovetail joints
It’s now Term 3 at Mundaring Sharing where I booked into a woodworking course (in Term 2) to make a “simple” potato box for my pantry from Jarrah planks leftover from my deck. I am still plugging away. I now remember that …
Wonderful woodworking
I’d always longed to try woodworking, so Jeff bought me a Introduction to Woodworking course at Perth Wood School for my birthday years ago. I made a very simple document/jewellery box and loved it. So, of course, I jumped in head …
It pays to get expert help
While I like to think of myself as a do-it-yourself kinda gal, I learnt from my father (who was not a handy man) that often your time is better spent doing what you do well and paying someone else to do what they do …
Five months of silence: Where to start?
It’s been so long since I last posted on my beloved blog it was becoming untenable. Either find a few minutes to write for enjoyment or call it a day. So here I am. I am under no illusions I write …
Recycling blackwater: a step in the right direction
We have installed this Fujiclean ATU (Alternative Treatment Unit) in our new house. It treats every drop of water we use, including our blackwater (from toilets and kitchen), to an almost potable standard and reuses it all again through reticulation piped under the …
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Garden pool: you gotta love crazy, innovative ideas
Swimming Pool Farms: Going Off the Deep End in Arizona http://modernfarmer.com/2014/09/ground-gardening-going-deep-end-arizona/ How cool is this? Instead of water wings and inner tubes, Dennis and Danielle McClung’s backyard pool in Mesa, Arizona, is filled with tomato plants, grape vines and wheat. …
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Spring gardening fever takes hold
Life has been so busy of late with a new marketing contract for a local realtor, school holidays and myriad jobs readying our current house for its imminent rental that this blog has taken a back seat. However, there have been many blog-worthy gardening and …
Roof on, wall cladding…it looks like a real house now!
It’s been a while since I posted a house update but I’m so excited with the progress. Unfortunately, the windows and doors we ordered from Queensland were late in arriving which set everything back. So our progress against schedule has …
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DIY brooder box and new Australorp chicks
I built a chick brooder box and I’m a little bit proud of myself. It’s a simple thing but often they’re the most rewarding, especially as I now have six new one-week-old Australorp chicks happily peeping outside my back door. I …
Designing a chook palace using permaculture principles
Another rainy day design session at home, this time imagining a monumentally magnificent chook house that would do any dandy rooster proud. I wanted a lesson in SketchUp, an awesome 3D modelling program that Jeff uses regularly for work and in which he created …
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Stormy conditions fail to stall building progress
Mother Nature has been doing her worst of late, hurling rain and wind down on Edgefield. Freezing temperatures and frost creeping insidiously down the valley have turned my heat-loving Brazilian cherries brown and halted the early mulberry shoots in their tracks. However, nothing is getting in the …
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Winter Wonderland
Edgefield is so beautiful this time of year. There’s something beguiling about winter in the Perth Hills: dripping trees, misty mornings, citrus trees groaning under fruit, mushrooms popping up and the last splatters of russet-coloured leaves clinging to the trees. Inside it’s …
Itching for a concrete slab
We’re back on schedule according to the builder’s program, as opposed to being ahead of it, as we were. But how can I complain about that? Progress has been slow and steady (I’m just really impatient). The brick build-up was finished …
