bed alcove inspirations

http://remodelista.com/posts/bedroom-paneled-alcove-bed-roundup

video spam

Jackie French's garden

http://www.jackiefrench.com/garden.html  Looks like that.  I love it.  I read her book "Backyard Self-sufficiency" last night and it is brilliant.  Previously I had only read John Seymour's self-sufficiency books and they are very different.
Jackie does gardens that require work to set up, planting and waiting and caring, while I am young and active, but by the time I am too old to prune trees, mow lawns, pick fruit from the tops of trees etc most of the garden should look after itself.  By planting groves of trees and creating an artificial forest that nonetheless takes advantage of the way actual forests grow she has managed to grow coffee bushes, avocados, bananas, and many many other plants in a similar climate to here (if anything more extreme as she quotes temperatures as low as -9 C and as high as 52 C) that I never thought I would be able to grow.  In my visions of the future things like that were things that would have to become very rare (or if TEOTWAWKI happens as I think it will non existent) and to think I could still have avocados, as a regular thing not a treat!  Even now they are a treat but it is concievable to have them all year round planting and gardening the way Jackie French does...  Unbelievable. 
The other brilliant thing about it is that it matches the type of garden I see in my head.  I have such a clear picture in my head about how my house looks and how the garden looks.  Now I have a block of land it is even clearer.  And a garden as productive as that that looks like a jungle just fits.  It matches a vague memory I have of my great grandmothers garden.  I can't have been any older than 4 but it was wonderful - full of little nooks and crannies created by well established plants and a wonderland for a small person. 
I just have to get over my gardening block.  I have always read gardening books and been totally overwhelmed.  Crop rotation, companion planting, fixing soil, rules about what works and what doesn't...  just completely outside my realm of experience and completely intimidating. 

So my gardening block is slowly melting, and my head is full of ideas.  Into a delirium of lists and plans - but I'll put those in a seperate post for ease of finding :)

Linkspam

http://beautifulgreenlife.com/2010/03/28/cobbit-ville/

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.119717531427566.20024.100001679607910

http://www.barefootbuilder.blogspot.com/

http://www.artisanbuilderscollective.org/index.html

ideas and ramblings and lists

don't know if I posted this gallery before http://www.cultureartist.org/Cob_Gallery/cob_building_gallery_page_1.htm

and things to do list so I don't forget...

 - find surveryor and get surveying done
 - get design drawings done
 - get design drawings drafted
 - get sample of cob mix
 - get engineers report
 - planning permission

 - collect things that can be stored easily - bottles, small windows, oil lamps, candle holders, small amounts of wood, tiles
 - find out if alternative oils can be used in oil lamps other than kerosene
 - estimate how many electrical appliances are NEEDED and how to minimise electricy usage with those
 - look at earth on site to see if contains clay
 - find out sand pricing
 - gravel pricing
 - start collecting tools


Obviously this is a list of things that will happen over time, but it is good to get it going and out of the whirlpool of my brain!

We have the potential for a bit of land now on a rent to buy arrangement - we are currently living in a share house and the owners have generously floated the idea of sub dividing off a corner of the land for us...

The stove

I want a wood fired stove with a wetback for the hot water.  There are a few reasons for this.  One is that I want the least amount of electricity use possible so having my stove used for cooking, heating and hot water helps achieve this.  The blocks of land I am looking at will most likely need some trees felled to make them suitable to build on and this will provide wood for a while, and I plan on planting trees to cover the rest of my wood use so hopefully there will be a minimum amount of time when I am buying wood and the rest of the time I will be self sufficient.  The third reason is purely selfish - I find a wood stove comforting and aesthetically pleasing.

In an ideal world the stove I get will be this one






http://www.pivotstove.com.au/products/p-266-esse-esse-ironheart-wood-stove