CHAPTER 22. A SLOW, GROUNDING SANCTUARY (P.2)
The recycled ironbark timber side entrance to the house. This was made using the remaining timber from our friend’s pig farm as well as some identical timber I miraculously found on Gumtree that an older bloke in Ararat pulled from an ancient farm house out near Tatyoon. Getting a heavy ironbark truss structure more than two metres off the ground solo certainly presented some interesting gravitational challenges. Despite the serious weight advantage the truss had over me, I was able to come out victorious with the help of our big fibreglass ladder.
The recycled redgum and hardwood timber pergola. The redgum posts for this were pulled from an old factory in Stawell and the hardwood framing timber came from an old shed in someone’s backyard in Horsham that they had recently pulled down and I had immediately pounced on.
The recycled hardwood and stainless steel string clothes line was made entirely from some of Dad’s leftover timber, it had been sitting around for years, waiting to be given new life.
The colorbond outdoor washing machine box had been on the backburner for years, never quite reaching high enough priority as we were still able to use the washing machine down at the shack. It’s time finally came right at the perfect moment, the motivation had started flowing through me again which resulted in possibly the most glamerous purpose built washing machine “house” ever created… overkill? I think not.
With the help of local earth mover, Jimmy, dropping off a small truck load of rocks each week, I began the incredibly slow, yet, immensely rewarding process of hand carting the rock mulch for the garden. Wheelbarrow load by wheelbarrow load the rocks gradually started to surround the plants around the Nook. All the rock was sourced locally from St Arnaud and was a byproduct filtered out from the grading process for road base. The choice to use rocks as mulch for the garden was multi-faceted. While certainly aesthetically pleasing, it also served as a fire break around the house in the possible event of a bushfire; not to mention it providing excellent habitat for lizards!
