Geek on tractor…

Tags

gaming

Okay, I admit it. I am a Geek. I can knowledgeably explain what Role Playing Games are, and my explanation won’t include anything about ice cubes, handcuffs, sexy nurse outfits, or any of the paraphernalia that one might find with a certain type of role playing (Unfortunately). Sadly, the equipment that I can wax lyrical about are dice and which kind of graph or hex paper is best for which kind of adventure map. Sigh. I was in my late 20s before I even knew that there was a kind of role playing that didn’t involve sitting around a table with a bunch of other guys and pretending to be a hobbit. Man, did I choose the wrong kind of role playing, or what?

Anyway, I can also probably deal with most common IT issues, have owned a vast collection of SF films and TV series since before I knew that there were even better kinds of Role Playing, and I even learned some Klingon back in the dark dim past. I am a Geek.

To be honest, I am not embarrassed or ashamed by this. There wasn’t a lot of point. It was kind of massively inevitable. I have always gravitated towards the stuff that pushed your brain and your imagination. Games like soccer are just not… well… complex enough. Kick ball into box made of sea net. Got it. Don’t touch ball with hands. Check. If an opponent comes within three feet of you fall over clutching your leg as if your shin has been shattered. Noted. That’s just… well… boring. Plus, most sports seem to take place when it is cold and wet outside… or when a really cool movie is on.

It’s not that I am bad at sports, it’s just that the sports I really enjoy are… well… geeky. Fencing and Badminton. Done a lot of both over the years and loved them.

So. Geek. Wordy geek who is obsessed with language and expression. Moves to a remote country hamlet. The only work in this region is either farming, raising cattle, or cutting down trees. When you go to the little general store in the nearby hamlet, there WILL be several trucks out the front. Because trucks are what farmers drive. It is the only practical solution out here. I have one, too. I use it a lot.

But my background is academic research, technical writing, IT support and training. Not a lot of cattle clamoring for me to write some documentation for them. Not many sheep asking for me to do a quick content analysis series for some research they are undertaking.

When you have spent most of your working life at a keyboard, being faced with the reality of a bent steel fencepost that is in desperate need of being ripped out and replaced… well… there’s no app for that at the Apple Store. When you mention your dilemma to your highly amused neighbour, they are likely to chuckle and explain that you just need a fencepost remover. “Great! Excellent…. umm…what’s that?”

Street cred is really hard to get when you have no frickin clue what you are doing. Not knowing how to lay a gravel road or weld together a new gate, or wield a chainsaw without painting the surrounding terrain red… well… being ignorant of these kinds of things is – apparently – just a bit gay.

All over the world Geeks are coming into their own. Knowledge is power, particularly in the information age… and we geeks know a lot about a lot of things. Names like Jobs and Gates are HUGE. Being an uber geek now means being worth millions or even billions of dollars.So what do I do? I move to a place where they don’t really even have a concept of Geek.All of my skills are – frankly – useless. Mind you, if I work really hard and learn a zillion things, I might one day manage to be the village idiot.

But y’know? I’ve never had this much fun in my life. 🙂

Badger

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These are a few of my favourite things..

Tags

Humour, Renovation, Tree Change

It seems that anywhere you go these days will have a fleet of slightly harrowed looking mothers navigating the streets and avenues in their own ‘Good Ship SUV’. These monsters are generally mildly enormous. They are virtually impossible to park and I am quite sure that they set off earthquake alarms whenever they go over a bump. They are ghastly vehicles and they serve little or no purpose.
That said, I do have a 4WD truck. But here’s the difference; my driveway is unmanageable even with a 4WD for several days of the year. I also have about 20 acres of overgrown paddock. I also tend to need to move a ton of this or that at least once or twice a month. My 4WD is a workhorse. It doesn’t have ‘climate control’ (Well, okay… it has windows), its seats don’t massage ones buttocks. I don’t have cinema like dolby surround sound. It does have an absurdly monstrous bull bar which is great for ensuring that when some daft pillock fails to take a corner in their idiotic SUV, their SUV is going to be much worse off than my truck.
I also have a little Mazda 121. It’s small and zippy. Comfortable to drive, great handling, great brakes, great fuel economy. It’s also over 20 years old and still steadfastly reliable. It, however, can not get up my driveway for most of the year.
Musing on my vehicles led me to rant about SUVs (done that bit) and to ponder how my various vehicles and tools and gadgets have shaped my tree change experience. So I thought it might be a good idea to mention the shining stars. If you’re contemplating a tree or sea change of your own, then mayhaps some of my experiences will be of use to you.
Number One – Big fancy rechargeable LED lantern. It’s great. It can be charged off the mains, by a generator, or from a car’s cigarette lighter socket. It has the ability to break into two different lanterns. It is highly water resistant. It’s incredibly rugged. Its inbuilt power pack lasts for hours. You can comfortably read a book by its light. Given my lack of electricity for the first year or so, this gadget made an ENORMOUS difference. So. Choose a really good torch and a really good lantern. Don’t go with an el cheapo. This is one of those areas where you want to get the one you like the best and ignore the cost. Stumbling around in the dark is a bummer. Having a nice illuminating beacon ready to bathe you in reassuring not-dark-and-creepiness just seems to make the world a nicer place.

Number Two – Okay. I admit it… there’s a bit of potty humour coming. It IS the second best thing to arm oneself with… and well… I couldn’t resist. Number two is my portable toilet. Basically it has a tank for effluence and a tank for flushing with. It looks like a gray box. I call it the bucket of shame simply because I ALWAYS vow to empty and clean it long before it is burstingly full. When it is full, it is much harder to empty and clean. Emptying and cleaning it are NOT fun. Unfortunately, I always put it off to the last minute. This often means that I have to do the chore in the rain and while feeling miserable. At those times my language is not very polite. Oh. One thing. If you have one of these nifty portable toilet things, be sure to put it on a level surface. A LEVEL SURFACE. Very important. Don’t forget. LEVEL. Moving right along.

Number Three – Ooh… gets tricky, now. I am going to go with the little 2 stroke generator. Basically these things will produce about 700 – 800 watts. Plenty of energy for recharging phones, computers, running a handful of lights, maybe running a CD player. DO NOT TRY TO HEAT OR REFRIGERATE. One thing nobody mentioned to me is that the wattage on an appliance does NOT include the start up. Some appliances will use ten times their running wattage just at start up before settling down. Using a generator that is not rated for such a drain will kinda kill your generator. So don’t do it. Keep the wattage usage really low.

You can of course get a much larger generator. They produce more power, but use more fuel. For me, the little 2 strokes did what I actually NEEDED. They also did it with a minimum of fuss. Servicing them was easy. That said, I have been here a year and I have gone through 4 generators. The two more expensive ones didn’t really outperform the cheap 2 strokes… but they cost a lot more. It may be that I will be able to repair a couple of the generators. Being mechanically ignorant to an astonishing degree means that I am kinda chuffed at knowing how to clean and change spark plugs. But I will persevere. One day, I will get one of these sods working again!

Number Four – My tractor. It is seriously cool. Basically, when I looked at the property, I realized that there was a LOT of work to be done on the land. thistles, bracken, irish heath, etc. all needed slashing. A dirt road would be needed to afford access to the more remote parts of the property, and the area around the house needed extensive earth moving and cleaning up. Back of the napkin calculations indicated that I was looking at 30 – 40k in earth moving costs. Being rather poor, I couldn’t afford that. I spent some time thinking about it and then started looking into possible alternatives. What I found was a flatpack tractor. Basically you buy it and they send it to you as bits in boxes. You then assemble it yourself. This struck me as wonderfully cheap and an outstanding opportunity to reduce my level of mechanical ignorance. Then I had a bit of a motor accident and for a variety of reasons paid a few hundred dollars to have the distributor assemble it for me.
By this time next year I will have completely amortized the cost of the tractor just with earth moving… and I will still have the tractor. I have not made the kind of progress that I would have liked in the last year… but that’s not because I didn’t have the tool for the job. If you are looking after 10 acres or more – particularly if you have some earth moving projects scheduled, seriously consider getting yourself a small tractor. They are amazingly nifty things to have around.

Farmer Stam – Not Farmer Badger

Number Five – Netbook/iPad. My sanity was preserved by my netbook. Basically I could read or write, play computer games, watch DVDs, listen to music. A desktop wouldn’t have cut it. It would have taken up far too much room and couldn’t have readily been run by a little generator. Now I have a second hand iPad. It’s nifty, too. Smaller and a bit more rugged. It serves most of my internet and writing needs. I can also take it around the block with me to check diagrams or work plans. I like it very much. Mind you… I am a geek, so a computer was bound to be in the top 5 no matter what. 🙂
So there you have it. My five essential must have necessities (Yes, that’s a tautology, but I don’t care. If you want me to care about dangling modifiers, tautologies, spelling, grammar, etc. pay me to edit, proof read or write something… it’s my blog and I’ll blither illiterately if I want to!)… okay… now I have forgotten what I was going to say. Oh, yes. These are some of the things that I HAD to have. Without these items, doing the tree change probably wouldn’t have worked for me. While settlers in the 1800s made do with an axe and a steely gaze, they were made of sterner stuff than I. Mind you, soft I may be, but at least I don’t think that I need an SUV so that I can whip round to do the weekly shopping.
Badger

Neither more nor less

Tags

Humour, Tree Change, Writing

G’day, what follows is about writing… the inertia that opposes writing to be more specific. I had originally started to write something on how emergent technology affects renovations of century old buildings…. then there was going to be this nifty bit on useful equipment.Then the iPad I was fiddling with gobbled my text… that led to a bit of stream of consciousness blather. Rather than delete it and spare the world, I have decided to put this explanatory paragraph here and consider you warned. I will – from time to time – ramble about something unrelated to… well, anything. Sometimes writing – like life – goes to unexpected destinations.

Bother. The bloody thing just deleted half a page. Oh well, it was hardly timeless prose. I suppose I should explain why it doesn’t particularly perturb me to lose half a page. You see, the challenge for a writer is to find a story that wants telling. Most stories don’t, you know. Want telling, I mean. So us writer types tap away at our keyboards or scribble with our pens. We put one letter after another till we have a word, then a sentence, then a paragraph. Usually we end up with several paragraphs or pages of some nicely crafted word play… But no real story.

Real stories are messy things. Meaningless bits of mundane action, large slabs of dialogue that don’t advance the plot, and pages and pages of characters doing things in settings that are irrelevant to anything much other than paying the bills or ensuring that there are clean socks. Writers have to wade through quite a lot of prosaic to get to the prose.

Then there are the words. Nifty things; words. Humpty dumpty said something along the lines of: ‘When I use a word,’ … ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ I like the sentiment very much. It is particularly soothing when I mangle harmless sentences or try to use words that are simply innocent of the expression that I try and foist upon them.

I don’t mean sentences like: “I’ll be sure to get that to you tomorrow.” When I say that, it’s just a lie. But when I try describe where I live, I tend to trot out things like ‘very pretty’ or ‘wonderfully relaxing’. Those words really don’t do the setting justice. I could rely on hyperbole or wax poetic in metaphor, but even then the words only rarely convey the full measure of the scene.

With extraneous material obscuring the simple thing that we are hoping to express and even the words we use sometimes resisting being where and what we need them to be, it can be difficult to produce a story that wants telling.

So with this blog and with my other writing, I’ll just go on putting one letter after another and hope that I somehow manage to craft that rarest of gems; something where the detritus has been cleared, the right words found and placed just so. A complete and true accounting; a real story.

The view that greets me in the morning. It’s very pretty and wonderfully relaxing.

Wheeze then snort

Tags

Animals, Humour, Tree Change

It gets dark at my place. I mean really dark. You might think that it gets pretty dark in your average city, town, or hamlet, but there’s a profound difference in a remote place on a moonless cloudy night. The depth of the darkness is absolute. No stars, no porch lights, no street lights gamely crying out to the sable ink ‘c’mon, if you think yer hard enough!’.

Most evenings, there are exactly two artificial lights visible from my property (Not counting my own). One is a small underpowered streetlight that sort of indicates where my road joins on to the main road. It’s a kilometre away (That’s a little over a thousand yards). The light from it looks like a slightly bright star that has gotten tired from all of the energetic capering about in the sky and has decided that lazing around on the ground sounds good. Seriously, it’s only a little bit brighter that venus or mars (mind you, as I have had a few eye operations, I might not be a leading authority on what something ‘looks’ like). Anyway. It’s not a shining beacon.

The other light is a sort of yard light, porch light thing outside of my neighbour’s house. It’s quite close. It’s only 400 metres or so (About a quarter of a mile). But as it’s a 60 watt globe it’s not exactly lighting the place up, either (Okay, I admit it; I don’t actually know what wattage it is. Sneaking up to one’s neighbour’s place with a ladder to check the wattage of their garden light might lead to a rather awkward conversation, so I haven’t checked).

Anyway. It gets really dark here. I have two cats. Pigeon and Sophie. Being cats, they are of the opinion that the universe (well, the bit around my house) is their empire. They apparently never tire of wandering around catching and torturing the local wildlife. My fervent hope is that the local wildlife stops wandering into my house. There are many, many hectares of tree festooned hillside. I really only frequently wander around a small part of the property. The cats cover even less of it. So if the wildlife stays out there, we’ll stay in our bit and there will be peace and cohabitation for all.

So. Dark. Two cats. Wildlife.  At this stage, I could describe the baby Tasmanian devil in my kitchen. But that story didn’t involve the cats. I could talk about having to get out of my truck to move the echidna out of the way so I could head to the shops. But that didn’t involve my cats. Or I could tell you about waking up one morning and finding half a rabbit on my pillow next to my face (Napisan really is good on those pesky rabbit entrail stains. Can you imagine what life would be like without Napisan? I wine and dine a charming lady, bring her back to my place; “Don’t mind the stains on the pillow case, it’s from the digestive tract and reproductive organs of a rabbit that one of my cats partially ate.” Thank GOD for modern cleaning agents. That story does involve the cats, but I don’t like talking about it coz I get this horrible headache and a I start sighing a lot.

Anyway, let’s get back to the story. By the way, there is a point. It will actually all lead to a (sort of) coherent finish. I promise. It’s dark, I’m outside noticing how terribly dark it is. As per usual, there is a furry obstacle trying to ensure that I will trip and fall and shatter my spleen (Yes, I know spleen’s aren’t things that you can shatter, but my cat’s don’t, they’re mental.) As usual, I reach down to pat the furry obstacle, musing to myself that by doing so, I am actually giving them positive feedback in their efforts to shatter my spleen. But it’s not one of my cats. There’s a wheezy kind snort. It’s a possum. He doesn’t scuttle away in terror. He doesn’t claw my arm off. He gives me a wheezy snort. I don’t know if this is possum equivalent of a: ‘Careful mate, I’ll have you if ya try that again!’ For all I know he could have just sneezed. Australian Possums are not the same thing as Opossums. Firstly, Possums are MUCH cuter. Secondly, they tend to have talons that can slice into Australian hardwoods. I elect to withdraw carefully.

But he just wheezed and snorted. Then he wandered off. What’s with that? It got me thinking. He was about the size of my cats. Maybe 7 kilograms (About 15 pounds). So I am about twenty times bigger than he is. I am not sure that if a Black rhinoceros came up and prodded me with his foot that I would simply wheeze and snort. Quite a remarkably brave creature is your average Possum. And your Echidna. And your Pademelon. And your Bandicoots (but only fleetingly, because I have had halves of several of them left behind, too. Sigh). So all of these critters – these Wallabies, Platypuses, marsupial mice and the rest – are wandering around full to the brim with courage even though there are lots of other critters trying to eat them. But when the prod comes, wheeze then snort.

This encounter has taught me two things: Firstly, the critters aren’t going anywhere. They will bravely (albeit at times unfortunately) go about their business where they want and when. Courage truly does come in small packages.  Secondly, I really need to change the light globe on my outside light.

Badger

Critters

Tags

Animals, Humour, Tree Change

Okay, let’s talk about wildlife. Living – as I do – in a fairly remote area with lots of wilderness and a couple of national parks being a fair bit closer than an actual town, there is a bit of wildlife about. We’re talking wallabies, pademelons, bandicoots, possums, brown snakes, white lipped snakes, tiger snakes, tasmanian devils, and platypus. Don’t get me started on the bird life.

An Echidna near my front door

But here’s the thing. It’s actually not quite as nifty as it sounds. I like animals. I do. I especially like wilderness settings chockerblock with critters. But… well, it’s a bit of a nuisance when you have a breeding pair of European Swallows (unladen) who have made a nest in your living room. First of all, there is the bird poo. You can tell where the birds like to fly because they leave a squishy dotted line along their flight path (I did say unladen). There’s also the feathers; they float around and stick to everything. On top of that, they have little baby swallows, so I can’t just evict them or I will feel like a complete bastard. I have been assured that they will go back to Europe… In three or four months. Sigh.

Then there are the Tassie Devils. They are cute in a toothsome way, and they have a lot of character. Unfortunately they also sound like fiendish monster created by HR Gieger that is trying to deal with a particularly unpleasant case of piles. My Godson Oliver came to visit for a few days a while back. For various reasons, we didn’t get to the house until after it was dark. Armed with a flashlight, I took him around the crumbling old abode and into the cottage; where we found a young Tassie Devil. Cool, huh? Nifty way to impress the Godson. Up close and personal with a wild Devil. First night and everything. Yeah… riiiight.

You see, not long thereafter, a devil (Might have been the same one, might not) decided that it liked living room dining. So it killed something and ate it in my living room. I know this because there was a pool of blood and some Devil paw prints beautifully stained into my century old blackwood floor. Sigh.

Then there are the birds (Shudder). On my block I have european swallows, blue wrens, golden wrens, kookaburras, starlings, blackbirds, sparrows, and about a dozen other birds that I don’t know the name of yet. Now, those that know me will find it odd that I know about these birds. I am not really a bird watcher. But my cat (His name is Pigeon. Ironic, really) is a bird watcher. A keen one. And he’s also a bird catcher. And a bird torturer. And  – eventually – a bird eater. Apparently he’d quite like me to join him in his hobbies because he keeps trying to encourage me by leaving a watched, caught, and tortured – but not eaten (well, completely, anyway) bird in or about my caravan. If I am asleep at the time, he will quite thoughtfully leave it on my pillow so that I can find the bird when I wake up and open my eyes. If I’m working outside, he’ll leave it on the steps so that I can admire it when I pack it in for the day. Sigh. For a while there, I was getting five a week. Now it’s down to about two.

Here’s the thing. Given all of this… and the many, many, many animal related events that I haven’t mentioned, why on earth is it that I am planning on getting six chickens, four goats, a dog, and a Clydesdale?

Badger

A thousand little jobs

Tags

Humour, Renovation, Tree Change

It occurs to me that one of the really useful things that I could do with this is to offer up the lessons that I have learned in this insane venture project. If you decide to buy a ‘fixer upper’ be aware of a salient point: it is not one great big job. It is lots and lots and lots of small to large jobs. Many of those jobs don’t even register on your ‘jobs list’ or your ‘plan of attack’. Let me give you an example.

Access in and around my crumbling cottage was impeded by plants, piles of rubbish, bizarre egresses that effectively led to either nowhere or certain death. While I knew that cleaning up the messes and sorting out access was a priority, I failed to understand what labour that would involve.

So. Picture if you will a deck at the front of the house (Or better still, I will picture it for you). Now… see that three foot drop? That’s my main access point to the house. Given that I will be living in a caravan, if I want to nip inside the house for something, I can either climb a steep hill and loop around the house to the back door (While hacking my way through vegetation), or I can put up a ramp that will give me easy access.

The Perilous Drop of Death

Okay, it’s more the annoying and awkward hassle, but Perilous Drop of Death sounds better

Okay, ramp it is. Rummaging through the odds and sods and detritus around the property, I found some long boards that would span the distance and hold my weight. I also found some chicken wire that I could wrap around the boards to give me some grip when it was wet. I also found some round disks with prongs (A bit like gang nails) that could be used to nail down the chicken wire. Oh… and a quick rummage turned up some wood that could be used as backing boards for the ramp.

The gang nails and chicken wire

Took me three hours and an enormous amount of exertion just to find all of that junk. You see, none of this stuff was in the same place. I found the main ramp boards down the hill in the big shed. I found the chicken wire up by the studio. I found some of the backing wood in a hayshed and the remaining boards and gang nails in the house. Once I had all of the stuff, I had to clean it up. The worst bit was that the chicken wire was designed to keep genetically engineered super chooks safely under lock and key. Ordinary chicken wire is easy to bend and shape, this stuff requires someone like the Govenator to come and lend a hand or you will spend ages twisting and levering and sweating until you finally fold it into submission.

I could have driven to the hardware store and bought everything that I need. Probably would have cost me less than $50. But it would have involved a 100km round trip and the $50. It would have been easier, though.

The longer I am here, the better I will know my environment. I will remember that old bit of Ag-pipe in the carport, or the dozen or so old bricks piled up near the long drop. But that will take time. Cleaning the place up and putting things into a useful order will take time and effort.

There’s a rock I want to move down near the carport… problem is, I don’t have a tow chain. When I did my list, I wrote  ‘move boulder’ what’s not on my list is ‘drive 100km and buy great big scary chain’.

If – like myself – your tree change involves a complete change of environment and immersion into skills you simply don’t have yet, then your list will be longer and more expensive than you might expect. It probably won’t be the big expensive jobs that will drive you insane, it will be the little things; the jobs that should only take half an hour. But stick with it. You will get better at the little snarls. You’ll know where that handy bit of corrugated iron is. You’ll remember where that box of 6 inch spikes is lurking. You’ll anticipate that you’re gunna use 16 rolls of duct tape. Once you’ve mastered all of that, the job will only take an hour and a half.

That said, I am afraid that there isn’t much you can do for the short, sharp, nasty surprises that you may find that you sit on. Protective gear is wonderful stuff… but gang nails will still get right through them. My advice is to use loud and colourful language, lurch around bellowing while clutching your backside for a while, then go and staunch the bleeding. Remember to disinfect it with something medicinal, and then don’t admit it or tell anyone about it for YEARS. Unless you have a blog, of course.

Badger

Don’t sit on these

Ow.

Tags

Accident, Tree Change

It was about 6:40am. It was dark, the wind was blustery. Sporadic bouts of rain spat down unpredictably. The side of the road was very rough, hard, and frigidly cold. It sucked what little warmth I had right out of me. I laid there on my left side. My right arm was raised as much as I could manage. I was dizzy. My diaphragm felt like it was biting me with every breath. My back and right side hurt. I had blood all over my face, hands and arms. It was sticky and dirty brown from having mixed with bulldust. The fine desiccating dust had coated me from head to toe. Some kind of vehicle drove past; then another, then another. None of them stopped. I couldn’t see them very well. My glasses weren’t on my head. Couldn’t exactly remember when they’d come off.

Something big and rumbly geared down and slowed. It’s airbrakes whistled that it was coming to a stop: hard. After that, more vehicles slowed and stopped. First one figure, then another walked into my blurry field of view. I heard one of them talking on the phone. It was definitely a phone kind of voice. Police and ambulance were asked for. A description of where was provided. My dizziness swelled up and I started trembling a fair bit.

Then Andrew came along. Nice chap. Dark hair, Round face. Small beer gut. He was wearing one of those high visibility vests that everyone hates being saddled with. Andrew put a blanket over me. It helped a lot. He got a towel or a sweater or some such under my head. I bled over the blanket and towel a fair bit. I feel a bit guilty about that.

Someone walked up with my wallet and my phone. Someone else (Andrew, I think) was asking me if I knew my name. It all got very chaotic for a bit. I answered questions as best as I could and tried very hard to lay as still as I possibly could. It was a bit uncomfortable when I moved.

After a while, it occurred to me that someone – probably a police officer – would phone either my best friend or my mum (or both). I didn’t want them to be upset. So I asked for my phone and dialed my mum. She has caller ID and knew I was travelling on the highway. She expected that I’d phone through the day. “So where are you?’ she asked. I tried putting a bit of strength in my voice. Took a real breath, one where the diaphragm did the biting thing and answered: “Laying on the side of the road. I am afraid there has been an accident.”

I can’t remember much about that conversation. Basically I tried to reassure her that I was fine. Unfortunately, I was a bit of a liar. I had pain in my back in several places; pain in my lower abdomen, I was not really at my best. But I really didn’t want her to worry. After a moment or two, I fumbled the phone over to Andrew. I was dizzy and the biting diaphragm was kinda getting to me. I can recall phoning my best friend later and waking him up. I can’t recall what I said or what he said. I can’t honestly recall much of the accident or the waiting for the ambulance bit. It was cold, damp, I was covered in bulldust, and I was not at my best.

The ambulance arrived and whisked me off to Tailem Bend. From that hospital, I was whisked off to Royal Adelaide Hospital. In all, there was about two and a half hours of being whisked in an ambulance. Then I was at the RAH. I could wax lyrical about the various phases of the journey. The enormous beer gut on the ambulance medic, the complete lack of services available at the Tailem Bend hospital, I could talk about the discomfort of being whisked (Now somewhat controlled by quite a lot of morphine). But I am not really sure that all of that is terribly relevant or riveting.

The main points are simply: I had an accident while travelling at 110km/h. I rolled the ute (Pick-up truck) several times before the scrub and a strategically placed tree stopped me. Apparently what caused the accident is that I hit a fox and my rear wheel blew. I am mostly fine now. It appears that I cracked some bones and tore some muscles off their strands or some such. So while I have a sore back, none of my organs ruptured, split, exploded, or just generally ceased to function. I am an extremely lucky fellow.

This wasn’t part of the plan. This changed everything. Moving house from Adelaide to North West Tasmania was now terribly complicated. I wouldn’t be physically fit for who knows how long. I didn’t even have glasses anymore (Which, when you need to lip read is a bit of a bugger). My Tree Change had definitely thrown up a new adventure. BUT. I am alive. I don’t appear to have any permanent crippling injuries. While the ute is completely and utterly demolished, I am not. So the Tree Change continues.

I don’t intend to blog about the convalescence. I don’t even think I will bother to detail the kind of headaches and complications that all of this has caused. Badger’s Tree Change is about the Crumbling Cottage and what adventures I find there. There is not much in this particular adventure that anyone would much wish to know about.

Badger

The ute after the accident

“Ah ha geen shtung gy a gee”

Tags

Humour, Renovation, Tree Change

Picture if you will, a wild haired head with a nervous looking face. Give the face an odd open mouthed rictus. Now give the attached body some rather shabby clothes draped with leaves, twigs and quite a lot of dirt. Now have the bizarre visage lurch up to you and very earnestly say “Ah ha geen shtung gy a gee serrul tines and Ah ang allergic to theng.”

Unfortunately, the nervous face was mine. The open mouthed rictus; mine. You see, I had been toiling away at the truly astounding amount of weeds and plants that were laying siege to my crumbling cottage and had paused after a couple of very industrious hours to have a nice cuppa (mug of coffee). Unfortunately, a bee had settled on to the rim of the mug and then stung me. Repeatedly. I am allergic to North American bees. Apparently I am not allergic to whatever it was that stung me. If I’d been stung in the mouth by a North American bee, I would have a very few short minutes to get assistance. I live in a remote place, but the hamlet is only a couple of minutes away. So I kind of dashed to the local shop and sort of babbled my situation and asked if they would be so kind as to send for an ambulance if my face suddenly decided to grow seven sizes too large.

They armed me with stingose and nice cuppa. This was not a secret hope that the bee would have another go and this time get it right, it was the kind act of a couple of very nice people who then very politely waited until I was outside before they burst out laughing. Shame I could see them through window. And they’d gone to all that effort to hold it in, too.

Me, I would have started laughing pretty much immediately. Maybe that’s why the bee chose to sting me. It somehow sensed that I was not a really nice fellow. I suppose it could be argued that it stung me out of self defence; that I’d just splashed it with scalding hot coffee and was in the process of swallowing it. Regardless, I was stung and then a few minutes later found myself sitting out the front of the shop with a cuppa and a curiously numb mouth (Stingose seems to work).

I sat around for about half an hour and – disappointingly, I am sure – failed to do the man-with-an-inflatable-head trick.  Then I thanked them (having reacquired the ability to use syllables as they are sort of intended) and then headed home. I recount all of this because:

a) it was a bit of an adventure. A modest one, to be sure, but an adventure nonetheless.

b) it demonstrates that in times of distress or trouble I have people who I can get help from – and they will be the kind of people who will wait until after the peril and after I am out of sight before laughing their heads off.

And worryingly;

c) this does not bode well for my future endeavours. Harkening back to my intro, it may be that I am to be cast as the good natured bumbling twit who keeps getting himself injured.

Sigh. On the bright side, I did manage to clear up almost a tenth of the weeds and bramble and what not. The piles, if added together, would be about the size of a school bus. The sad thing is, this isn’t really an exaggeration. Now I just have to get rid of the garden waste. How to do so will take some thinking and planning. Perhaps I will go and make myself a nice cuppa and start the thinking and planning. White, two sugars, and no bees.

Badger

Mea Culpa

Tags

Humour, Tree Change

Okay,

Well, I suppose that I should admit that much of what you’re reading is about a year old. I am one year in and one year behind schedule. There’s a reason for that. That reason will be revealed two posts hence. Or maybe three. Four at the most. You see, I have to try and stitch these together in roughly the order that they were written.

I don’t want to make things confusing (that’s just an innate, unconscious super power of mine, I guess) so I will try to upload these where they fit chronologically. That said, there are certain contradictions. For example, I keep mentioning lack of electricity and lack of internet… but I am doing a blog? How’s that supposed to work? The short answer is that I had a generator and a laptop. But the time delay… well… the explanation for that comes soon. The glacially slow rate of progress? That’ll be rationalised excused spelled out, too.

For now I ask that you bear with me. The plan is/was taken in an unanticipated direction. Everything teetered precariously. Uncertainty was the emblazoned theme.  We’re almost to that point. Everything will become clearer (sort of). But for now, read on!

Badger

The cunning plan

Tags

Architecture, Renovation, Tree Change

G’day,

In the last post, I pretty much revealed through the magic of modern photography just what an insane nutter I am. With a crumbling, derelict house and a surrounding bit of land that has been essentially environmentally pillaged, it is fair to ask what on earth I was thinking. In this post, I am hoping to give you a sense of why I am undertaking all of this.

To begin with, the house was built around 1890. It is one of the oldest houses in the region. It’s a typical ‘federation cottage’. As is typical with federation cottages, it has had a couple of extensions whacked on.

What is a bit unusual about it is that all of the wood in it is blackwood. Tasmanian blackwood is now quite rare and rather expensive. What’s more, they didn’t have any mills around. So every board, stud, and rafter is hand shaped with an axe or adze. The nails were all hand forged.

The last owner decided that century old weatherboards weren’t fancy enough and ripped some of them off and replaced them with plywood and plastic cladding. Why? I really don’t know. If you’re thinking that plastic cladding is a good, cheap solution, STOP!

On my house, the stuff is less than a dozen years old and it is already badly degrading. Its insulation qualities are about on par with soggy pasta. It looks awful, requires more maintenance than plain painted wood, it’s subject to drafts, it is a terrible, terrible product. I would glue canvas to my walls before that stuff.

Maybe it is because the previous owner didn’t install it correctly. I don’t know. But I can attest to the fact that the piles of it that were laying around on the ground unattached aren’t in great shape, either.

Once I remove pretty much everything the last owner did, the house will be a pretty little weatherboard federation cottage. I can then put in plumbing and wiring and all of that stuff. I will encase the century old wood and preserve it. I will ensure that the heritage and character of the building are conserved. While I have neither the expertise or inclination to do a full heritage restoration, I can – and will – preserve what’s there so that further down the track someone  could. 

One thing that has been particularly interesting is that as the clean up progresses, old newspapers or bits of magazines come to light. When the building was constructed (and when modifications were made), newspaper was used as a kind of wallpaper. Layer after layer was glued on and then painted. Floorboards were smoothed out by putting layer after layer of newspaper over the top to separate the wood from the carpeting. So. Lots of old newspapers. My favorite so far has a story of a battle between Allies and the Japanese from WWII.

Another favorite is a job ad for a munitions tester with the CSIRO (This segues beautifully to my next point). Part of what I want to do is to restore the building by reflecting on the lives that were lived within its walls. I am contemplating applying for that job with CSIRO. I think it would be interesting to see how an organisation dedicated to developing tomorrow’s technology and knowledge reacts to receiving an application 70 years late. Who knows? I might apply for several of the jobs in these old papers. I might try buy some of the products from the advertisements. I think I will try to record the reactions and experiences as 2011 crosses paths – albeit oddly – with 1939.

Just as this crumbling cottage is made from century old blackwood, who we are and the world around us is made by the years and lives that came before. covering this house – or our yesterday – in today’s cheap plastic seems to me to be a terrible waste.

Badger