Hows the start of 2021 looking?
When we wrote the last article “The cart before the horse” we gave a brief outline of why we came to starting a “flatpack” style house before we secured buying a piece of land.
We started this year with full force clearing the land and planting. Having found the piece of land that we feel fit our overall goal and aspirations it was full speed ahead. However clearing and start planting on a 3 acres of land with just us two and a few pieces of equipment is not a small feat, did i also mention with potty training a 2 year old and life schooling a 5 year old? We wouldn’t want it any other way though!
Theres progress everyday, we have cleared and are working on 1 acre now. This update on how and where we are with the land will be a 6 monthly update. In this 6 month update section i will be breaking it into this small overview:
- Why the update & a brief outline of the lay of the land. (this post)
- Trees as a form of generational wealth.
- landscape update- Overall grounds plan of the initial three acres.
The reason for us sharing this and making this mini series is to share our journey and keep you up to date.
The order in which we decided to tackle the set up was important for us. Seeing as we are doing practically all the work ourselves, we are taking our time in the way we are managing the work load. Doing the flatpack style house enables us to balance our everyday life with the children whilst clearing and planting. The other part was to get a heads up on the the building whilst we were looking for land and finalising on it.
The first thing we started doing was to clear the initial homesite. We have drawn up a ground plan and knew where we wanted the house, the vegetable gardens etc. The land was bush, complete with a whole lot of rocks and roots to clear out. The first couple of months was clearing the bush out and de rocking the general area. As the land started to clear and more of the soil was exposed we started to change things like the placement of the vegetable garden. This is one of the things that can only be learnt through presence. Even though thorough planning and draft after draft of the design is a saving grace there are some things that life only brings that you only figure out by living through it.
The main changes to the land in this time has been:
- the well that has been hand dug- we have been using the water already for the plants and the construction of the utility building. With the kids having a few showers during the days with some of the buckets that come up, its been a whole lot of fun splashing around.
- the toilet hole completed- franks set up all the pipes so once the house is up, its a plug and go right away.
- the majority of the fence done- We’ve used reject wood, left overs from the house, to build the immediate fence around the 1 acre were currently working on. We then went ahead and start torching it as another means of bug prevention.
- the utility building started this month, the rammed earth pillars are the first lot to go in. This is the first rammed earth element on this one acre. The subsoil (marl) we are using for the pillars is what’s come up from the well.
The landscaping and vegetable garden start and on going progress will be covered in the next post as there has been a lot of changes on that front as well.
Although we have and from time to time do face challenges i hope your main take away is to never give up. No matter what curve ball comes your way keep an eye on your goals and keep going.
Blessings,
Asli
