Beak House

Before we build our own perfect home, someone else was first in the queue.
Rose takes us through her labour of love:

I love my girls! The last hen house I built was with the old timber taken from the demolition of the verandah at Woodside Road. It had its flaws so here was the chance to improve and up scale-not that chickens really give a damn as long as their house is dry and they can perch off the ground.

We had a long discussion about placement and we finally settled on a sheltered spot in the front paddock, near the stream and facing east.

Al’s dad helped us put in six good strong 4” x 4” treated posts. In the interests of recycling the rest is constructed from the old packing crate that had been modified to form the pig house at Woodside Road.

  The floor went down next and fitted beautifully (well almost) and then a little framing, walls and a roof. I have to admit to the plan for this being in my head- I knew it needed to be raised off the ground to limit the hiding places for rats and hedgehogs-the natural accompaniment to feathered friends, the roof needed to slope and there needed to be a window and an exit but beyond that it was very much design as you go!

The framing meant that there was a natural space for some insulation- the Wairarapa winters can be fierce. I had a ready supply from work and so filled all the available spaces between walls and corrugated exterior with polystyrene squares. For some reason the girls love to eat this stuff so the battle raged between keeping it in position while I put the tin up, it blowing away and the girls taking every opportunity to peck at it.

 I put the pop hole on the Northern side, but realised after a few days of strong winds-mainly from the north that that wasn’t going to work, so it is now in the front access door-a door within a door!

 The girls (and boy) now have a well insulated, dry, watertight and if I do say so myself beautiful home. Just needs a lick of paint now...

Dog eared

The power of the Bark Side...

The Garden of Eden had its serpent – Little Bush (it’s the registered name of our block of land, so let's get the sniggering over with now) has dogs. Specifically, farm dogs owned by a neighbour who is surely completely deaf. Farm dogs whose frequent discussions with one another sound like Cujo and the Hound of the Baskervilles carrying out thorough and enthusiastic sound checks on AC-DC’s concert speakers. Quite how they generate the volume they do is still a mystery to us, but we suspect it’s something to do with the placement of their kennels and sound reflecting quality of nearby walls. We’re planning a trip to visit this neighbour, to discuss a drainage matter, and may finally discover how he managed to perfectly position his dogs for optimum neighbourhood misery. Maybe we’ll even discover what they seem to be so unhappy about.

We like dogs. Rose grew up with them and I don’t dislike them - although a couple in the past have certainly disliked me. The most memorable was a hound who took a bite out of the seat of my trousers (and me) while I was collecting for the SPCA.

I’m not holding a grudge; I just don’t see myself ever owning one. Rose and I are now both confirmed ‘cat people’, preferring a sometimes complex, slightly feline-favoured partnership to guileless canine servility in our household pets.

Our last happy home in Wellington was occasionally plagued by ongoing conversations between the neighbour’s dogs on either side of us, goading me to regular friendly visits and less friendly bellowing out the window. Fergus and Chester, you were nice dogs and we know it wasn’t your fault. Maybe you were bored, perhaps not brought up to live so close to other dogs, and maybe you were a little neglected as the children who used to put you at the centre of their worlds grew older and spent less time with you.

Its taken time, but I now no longer feel like howling myself every time I hear a canine long-range broadcast.

Our current situation is of course, a different matter. One of the first things every city dweller looking for a slice of rural paradise should heed is that the countryside isn’t actually that quiet. It is, in fact, a working environment, full of enormous and sometimes mystifying-looking machinery, herds and flocks of large, vocal beasts and, at the heart of it all – dogs. Occasionally you will encounter the Fergus/Chester situation, where a previously urban family will make getting a dog a mandatory purchase (usually a large, loud dog), along with an outdoor furniture set and a ride-on mower. Sadly, it doesn’t always mean that these poor creatures will end up any less neglected.

Farm dogs - working dogs, are quite different. They are deliberately kept hungry and alert, and their bark is encouraged as an essential part of their function. They are also often extremely-well disciplined, but evidently this doesn’t seem to be the case with our neighbour.

Our options for improving this situation are extremely limited, to say the least. We’ve lived in this area for ten years, and know that the very thought of ‘life-stylers’ asking a farmer to keep his dogs quiet so that they can enjoy their glass of sauvignon in peace is a cross-cultural atrocity right up there with running a kissing booth in Dubai.

If we can address our drainage quandary, and establish some kind of friendly relationship with our neighbour, then perhaps we’ll find a way to make some kind of progress. But, on the other hand, because these particular dogs can probably be heard all over the district, perhaps we just need to get over ourselves and get used to the occasional explosion of ‘barking madness’, as everyone else obviously has.

Postscript

As it has transpired we’ve established a friendly relationship with our neighbour and happily resolved the drainage issue (more on this later). However, he doesn’t actually own the dogs and yes, is somewhat hard of hearing. They are actually owned by his farm manager - another very nice man who I met recently.

The thing is, it’s been weeks since I originally wrote this entry, and Rose and I hardly notice the dogs now. Country living is all about adapting, an ability which is going to be crucial in the months to come...

Eco Worriers

Monty's permanently vexed expression makes him the perfect 'poster boy' for this entry

Speed wobbles are inevitable on our headlong flight into energy self-sufficiency, and our resolve is already being tested

Writing these entries has been useful not only in keeping others informed of our progress and sustainable living options available, but also keeping myself ‘in the know’. Rose’s mighty powers of project management can sometimes lull me into stepping too far back from things, confident that it’s all in the best hands and there’s little left for me to do. But this time I need to have a full understanding of the processes involved – for obvious reasons involving divisions of ‘labour’, decision-making and shared responsibility. We’ve always joked that the ‘apportioning of blame’ is the crucial first step in disaster control – and it can hardly be my fault if I’m not involved. (Actually, that’s not true – have I learned nothing in my life?) Being fully informed also enables me to write about our adventure here, and hopefully sound as if I know what I’m talking about.

Writing can also be cathartic. I like to think that Rose and I are both positive by nature, and so this blog will focus on the more exciting, enjoyable and hopefully humorous aspects of living in our box, and building our off-grid home. But I also want to present an honest and balanced account of what we are attempting, so it’s only fair to admit that sometimes we are scared.

This entry comes with a warning: it might not be the happiest one I’ve ever written, but at least it might make me feel better.

Living off-grid and producing our own clean energy sounds noble and if in some in small way might inspire others to try something similar, then it is. But as I’ve mentioned before, it is also initially very expensive; at least twice the cost of connecting to the grid. We’ve made our peace with this, confident that we will save both money and a tiny fraction of the planet in the long term, but in the short term it means diverting cash from our actual house build. Solar panels, photovoltaic panels and batteries, a power inverter converting AC to DC - sometimes relatively new technology is expensive, requiring constant maintenance and periodic replacement. And even after all this; we will hardly have power to burn. Two minute showers and being forced to regulate when we can use certain appliances will become part of our daily regime. We are prepared for this adjustment in the way we live, or like to think we are, but it’s harder to happily make sacrifices when it actually costs you more to do so. It’s going to be difficult enough to realise our dream home on our budget, without our ‘energy solution system’ gobbling more and more of our funds.

OK, that’s better, and even as I write this it occurs to me that I’m probably wrong to make a distinction between the two, living sustainably means that your home is an energy solution. There we are, this is working already – I’m feeling better and Kevin McLeod would be proud.

The next worry is a connected one (literally), but has been resolved and deserves an entry of its own, probably because people don’t think about this subject enough. Did you know that in designing a septic system allowances have to be made for a human being producing 180 litres of ‘waste water’ per day? Installing a self-contained waste disposal system is an absolute given when you live in the country. We used a septic tank system in our last home for a decade, and found it extremely efficient. The catch is that our beautiful block of land becomes very damp in the wetter months. Factors involving land contours and soil type means that the ground becomes water-logged in the lower parts of our property. Or house is sited on one of the driest areas (we’re not silly) but unfortunately the local council still insist upon a secondary aerated system to avoid the very unpleasant consequences of a standard unit failing because of excess ground water. Not only is this more expensive, but requires a pump which needs to run constantly to aerate the waste.

Producing our own largely solar generated electricity, this would be a constant draw on our power which we would find impossible to maintain. Literally finding ourselves up that famous creek without a paddle, the answer has materialised, thanks to a combination of Rose’s diligence, a very clued-up consultant, a failed Australian company and humble legless creatures found in everyone’s garden. More on this later, but suffice to say that it is an ingenious system using 95% less electricity than other set-ups and relying upon completely natural and staggeringly efficient natural processes. So, at this point, I can again write our own happy ending to this one.

The last issue might be more of a cosmetic one, but is still unresolved. Our future ‘life-style choice’ has also meant that we have had to be thorough in choosing the most energy efficient appliances we can find to populate our new home. In truth this challenge has been fun, acquainting ourselves with energy star ratings, LED lighting and the insidious gratuity of digital time displays. This has started well, but we seem to have come unstuck with the heart of the heart of the home – the kitchen stove. We have been reliably advised to forego an electric one because of its draw on our power reserves, and look at a gas or wood-fired option instead.

Initial forays have revealed that gas stoves are regarded as a thing of the past, and are a little more difficult to source. We won’t give up easily, but once again our sustainable energy choice is causing more difficulty, and probably money than if we were simply paying power bills like everyone else. And even if we do decide to choose this option we are starting to question becoming too reliant on natural gas. It’s a necessary evil while we live in our container, but ultimately probably as much of an affront to the conservation of natural resources as anything else we’re trying to avoid.

Rose had aspirations towards one day owning an Aga-style wood burner stove, and I must admit the ‘steam-punk aesthetics’ of these metal behemoths appeal to me. These same aesthetics don’t really compliment the sleek, modern kitchen which we are currently having designed (more on this later, too) however, and would probably look as cohesive as a steam locomotive engine pulling a Japanese bullet train. Then there’s the hassle of lighting the stove, the impracticality of using it on hot summer nights and, as always, the cost – which is comparable to the price of a Japanese bullet train.

So, will the lure of a sexy, inexpensive electric stove cause us to rethink our whole off-grid master plan? Will we shackle ourselves to a power company for the sake of a shacklock?

There’s no elegant solution to this last quandary as yet, but I’m sure we’ll find one. No-one said this was going to be easy, but we’re determined to hold the line.

From the inside of a dark box, you can still glimpse a rainbow

A sting in the tail

A cautionary story about living too close to nature

Despite having lived in the country for over ten years, I had somehow avoided two inevitable painful treats which rural living has to offer: a jolt from an electric fence, and a wasp sting. These are mundane and common events to most, but my own initial experiences, within a week or two of each other, possibly deserve sharing.

I’ve always been leery of farm fences, and tend to treat them all as ‘live’ with such care that I’ve been accused of ‘big girls’ bloused-ness’ many times, mostly by Rose. I’ve hardly led a pain-free existence so far, but have never seen the point in suffering any more than is absolutely necessary, either.

After a recent sustained period of rainy weather, I spent a day digging to widen the banks of one of our streams which had overflowed. My modest landscaping effort was enthusiastic enough to open up a large space under our boundary fence that could possibly allow sheep to escape through. So I began threading plastic fence standards between the wires of the fence to hang down above the water and make this a less attractive proposition for roaming romneys. Running out of standards I found a long branch to fill in the last gap, so stood in the stream and began attaching it to the fence.

Unfortunately, this piece of wood was not only much longer than the standards but also soaking-wet, and as I was concentrating on the lower wires, it touched the top-most, electric one.

I’ve read that wood isn’t a conductor, but the sentence must have continued over the page to say "unless it’s wet". For full effect, it might also be recommended that you stand in a stream, while making yourself part of an electrical circuit.

Let’s just say that this was no little sting - it actually felt as if someone very heavy had suddenly dropped out of a tree onto my shoulders, Robin Hood-style, kicking my arm hard in the process. My only consolation is that the sound of running stream water masked my loud, girly squeal.

But speaking of ‘stings’ the main event happened several days earlier.

I’ve always tried to maintain a live and let live relationship with most creatures, insects included. The first time I ever became aware of a wasp nest on our previous property, I decided that it was far away enough from the house not to cause us a problem, and left them alone. Shortly afterwards, Rose began to keep bees and then we became quickly aware of how devastatingly destructive wasps can be, as they began to raid and finally completely exterminated our first hive. Sadly, this wasn’t to be the last time Rose lovingly nurtured a beehive only to see them fall prey to these rapacious marauders. Needless to say, our attitude towards wasps changed. They had invaded and wiped out a peaceful neighbouring state, and we had no choice but to declare war. Transmittable poison was out of the question, as this can also destroy the very beehives which you are trying to protect. The best advice we had found was to locate the wasp nest (not always easy), then return at night when they’re relatively dormant, drop a petrol-soaked rag inside and sealing up the entrance to let the fumes do their work. I’m not proud of this, but Rose and I were so angry and grief-stricken at the loss of our first hive that this method seemed too passive by far. We introduced petrol into the wasp nest alright, and then promptly dropped a lit match into the entrance and ran. This isn’t to be recommended, but the eyebrow-singeing gout of flame that erupted and then burned for some time afterwards was enormously satisfying – and effective.

Despite similar encounters with wasps over the years I have never been on the receiving end of the delivering end of one of these vicious flying syringes of venom, until recently. The Wairarapa rail timetable means that I often have to leave the container very early in the morning to catch my train, in pitch darkness. I’ve always tried to disturb Rose as little as possible during this process – so leave my ‘schoolbag’ packed and my clothes folded up on a chair, enabling me to dress by torchlight and leave with the minimum of fuss.

Quietly getting ready on one dark morning, I was shocked to feel a sudden sharp pain as I pulled my underpants on. Still partially asleep, I stood dimly wondering how a sewing needle could possibly have fallen in there, before a sudden, angry buzzing issued from my crotch, and I was instantly wide-awake. I debriefed at lightning speed and to my absolute horror, the much-feared, black and yellow shape of a wasp fell out onto the floor and began to crawl away into the shadows.

Clearly it had flown in at some point through the always-open cat window and thought it had found the perfect, soft bed for the night in the folds of my underwear. Very fortunately for me, the combination of the dark and cold meant that the disturbed insect was also partially asleep – if it had been wide awake and I’d suffered a ‘multiple stabbing’ I’d probably have needed a wheelbarrow to get myself to work.

The initial sting was bad enough, but gradually the venom began to circulate and I spent the entire day gingerly padding around, feeling as if I’d been kicked in the groin. I can testify that wasp venom has none of the qualities of Viagra – quite the opposite, in fact.

Looking back, I can afford to be a little philosophical - after years of petrol bombing wasp nests perhaps I had this coming. And as doubtlessly unpleasant as this situation had been for me, I still wouldn’t have wanted to swap places with that wasp for anything.

Drop Box

How was the container delivered?

On an enormous truck!  So enormous, in fact...

... that it needed to circle around Roger's paddocks to gain access
- and avoid breaking our over-head branches.

The site had been carefully prepared (OK - mowed) by me,
so now Rose and Dad spring into action.

 

Huge arms extend from the truck and several tonnes of
shipping container is craned into position.



Despite Rose's vigilant application of the spirit level...

 

Our new home has a slight, permanent West-East lean. (level is boring, anyway).

  

Toasting a successful delivery - all we need now is furniture.

The Generator Game





You light up our lives - our sexy red generator.

What about power and water?

Living in a metal box seals us off nicely from the elements, but also from a power and water supply. Lighting, heating, refrigeration, power for electrical appliances and water are all everyday aspects of life which we could no longer take for granted, in fact, we didn’t have them at all!

We knew from the very start that an electrical generator would be an essential purchase for the actual building for our new home, as well as a back-up in the future whenever our own energy production might not be sufficient. Royal Wolf adapt their containers to be powered by generators, via caravan-type power connections at either end, so we now needed one as soon as possible. Fortunately, an Energy Consultant (Greg Hoskins) who we had met with to plan our new home’s energy requirements contacted us with a very good deal on a Honda EU30is Inverter*, available for a limited time for under $5000 including GST.

Already included in our over-all budget for the house build, we jumped at this opportunity and were delighted to find that not only was it compact, easy to operate and a rather sexy red, but also extremely quiet to run. The last thing we wanted was for its motor to shatter the silence of our rural idyll (or anyone else’s, for that matter). Once installed outside in Rose’s former bantam house (complete with angled corrugated iron roof to keep out the weather and an access hatch – originally for reaching eggs but now for switches) its running sound was muffled to a soft, background growl.

At present, we only run the generator for a few hours each evening; while cooking, dining and then relaxing afterwards with a book, some music, or carefully-rationed computer time. (Our PCs battery endurance time is currently rubbish and will need addressing at some point, to avoid so much reliance on the generator). Our remote connection to the internet comes via the magic of a telecom T-stick which, as surprisingly as our cell phone coverage, works perfectly well inside a metal box in the middle of the country.

When the generator is not running, lighting comes from the various LED torches we have scattered around, (but can often never be found when they’re really needed) two of which are suction-cupped above our pillows as adjustable reading lamps.

As mentioned before, the container has a heat pump installed at either end, but so far we have rarely used them. Getting the dust and spider-webs blown out of a long-disused Delongi gas heater, we can keep our entire 40 foot-long space comfortably warm without having to use any electricity.

Cooking is all done on a gas-powered camp stove, meaning that Rose is now even more of a master in the art of one-pot cooking. For those quick to accuse me of not pulling my weight in this department: you’re probably right. But, as has been the case for the past ten years, the commute back from Wellington would result in us eating at a ridiculously late hour if I was to cook the evening meal. And besides, Rose is a Chef of unparalleled skill, whereas I have only recently mastered poaching an egg.

A much-smaller, stand-up gas hob accommodates our stove-top espresso maker – there’s no reason why we can’t still be civilised!

Refrigeration could have been our biggest problem (many thanks to all of you who kindly offered us fridge and freezer space!) – Obviously we couldn’t run the generator 24/7 just to keep our wine chilled! The ever-resourceful Rose came to the rescue by tracking down a gas-powered fridge-freezer on Trade Me. Designed for use in yachts and in camping situations, they can be connected to exactly the same kind of gas cylinder which our heater uses. I still struggle with the fact that the same gas we us for heating and cooking can also be used for refrigeration, but it works perfectly. A pilot light at the back produces just enough warmth to make the top of the fridge Juno’s favourite sleeping spot. The only concern was the fact that the system uses up oxygen, and comes with a strong warning never to install the fridge in a sleeping area. We have little choice in this matter, but with our bed at the opposite end of the container, the cat’s access window constantly open and the other three always ajar; there have been no cases of oxygen starvation so far.

Water was initially an issue. On the same day that the new owners were due to move in, I was guiltily filling every plastic bottle which we had from our former home’s outside tap. Completely on edge, I suffered heart palpitations every time I thought I heard a car slow down - in case they had decided to arrive early. Just picture it: what could I possibly say to make that scenario less embarrassing? So my final view of our beloved villa was a furtive glance over my shoulder as I scuttled back to the car with the last arm- load of water bottles, before high-tailing it over our cattle stop and vanishing from 168 Woodside Road’s life forever.

Simply put, we had no drinking water at all except what we bought, and it’s astonishing how quickly you go through it – like water, actually. Our shipping container also has a fitting for a water pipe, and this is where, (not for the first time), the boundless generosity of our friend, neighbour and former owner of our land – Roger Barton – came to the fore. This man and his remarkable family deserve a blog entry all to themselves and will certainly get one, in the near future. On this occasion, completely unbidden, Roger offered to connect us to his farm’s water supply – specifically a nearby stock trough. Because stock doesn’t graze this part of our land anymore the water is clean and far tastier than the town supply we used to drink, coming straight from the Stonestead stream in the foothills of the Tararuas.

We’ve come to appreciate how vital a water supply is to farming, and the generosity of this gift cannot be underestimated – just so that we can have water when we turn our tap on.

Daylight saving came to a close at the end of our first week in the container. Gloomily contemplating the sudden darkness outside the train window as I travelled home on a cold, wet Monday evening, I began to have doubts about this whole idea. Cycling along a treacherous gravel road - something else which had become harder since we’ve moved to the unsealed side of the railway track - I was feeling pretty down by the time I reached our driveway. At least, I was until I saw the lights of the container through the trees, and heard the gentle throb of the generator. Opening the door, a wave of warmth from the heater and delicious cooking smells washed over me. Inside, a picture of domestic contentedness awaited; a smiling Rose, dozing cats and music playing on the stereo. It will be a long haul, I reflected, but I think we can make it.

The livestock equivalent of the office water cooler - now our delicious water supply.

* A link giving more technical information for those interested
http://www.rvworldstore.co.nz/honda-generator-eu30-3kw

Poultry in motion

Henry: a prince among roosters

Rose writes about ending up in the coop

Meet Henry, he’s the most beautiful gentleman rooster you are ever likely to meet. He’s the boss of our current coven of 6 mostly black ‘girls, Gladys, Desdemona, Henrietta, Hermione, Jezebel, and one un-named (because we were going to eat her but haven’t!)

We started 10 years ago with a rag tag bunch of chickens who were gifted to us (thanks Remi and Nichole) when we moved to the Wairarapa, and keeping chickens seemed de rigueur for the lifestyle we were leading. I fell in love with their wonderful language, behaviour and soft feathers. There is nothing like stroking feathers - soft, warm and strong. And I’m sure there is a book to be written on the meaning of chicken language, they are so expressive when communicating with each other.

We started with four and over the years have kept roosters (Russell Crow was the first) and their offspring, giving away a few, managing to decapitate and eat a few and all the while having a group of two-legged bug-eaters, egg-layers and fascinating entertainers. They had made themselves completely at home at our previous property, wandering the grounds and frequently popping into the neighbouring paddock when it suited them. They could always be relied upon to assist when we were digging holes or gardening with daring forays under the swing of a grubber or shovel for a revealed bug or worm.

The current bunch which numbered ten needed to be shifted, when the time came, from our home to the new block. We left this until the last minute, as I still needed to construct the hen house for them to shift into, having sold the old one to the new owners of our house. I had also promised four girls to stay behind.

The night came when we would move them. Some had taken to roosting in the large Totara tree in front of the house while we had been so busy shifting. We collected together boxes and lined them with pea straw. I had done a recce to see where the tree dwellers were roosting while it was still light and we returned in darkness to ‘chicken nap!’ The girls and Henry from the henhouse were easy. Chickens can’t see in the dark and tend to hunker down, so were easy to collect and box up - protesting all the while. The tree-dwellers were another story, but accomplished with little fuss, generally by me climbing a ladder to reach the branches they were perching on, while Al steadied it and shone the torch. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one hen who had moved from her location in the tree between my initial scout and the final collection!

We drove the packaged chickens back to the new, semi-completed house and installed them on their new perch under the cover of darkness - but there was still one in a tree!

We had left three behind in the original henhouse for the new owners and assumed the tree-dweller would be the fourth. The only problem was that they were all over-keen on roosting in trees at night, and needed to be re-trained in the way of the henhouse. This involves laying eggs and roosting in there at night, so they could be shut in and kept safe from cats and other predators. I’m not sure why they had chosen an arboreal lifestyle, maybe the house was too small for the numbers, or maybe the hen hierarchy, clear-cut to chickens but an eternal mystery to humans, had led them to alienate themselves.

The following morning, knowing that one girl needed to be moved from the tree to the hen-house I left in darkness. Just as dawn was breaking, I found her as high up as possible in the tree. Teetering on the top-most rung of the ladder in near darkness, while pulling down on a branch to reach her, I did wonder about the wisdom of such an action - picturing myself crumpled on the ground with an indignant chicken on my chest! Managing to lift her claws and having her sit on my hand while I descended the ladder, I realised that this was Jezebel (my favourite) and debated long and hard about leaving her behind. She really is the most beautiful girl, black with iridescent aubergine-edged feathers, dark legs and a lovely little face. I went back and forward to the hen house, put her on the perch, but in the end, just couldn’t do it - so chicken-napped her back to the new block on the promise that I would take one of the others to replace her later - yeah right!

So there you have it - one rooster and six girls, regular eggs and endless entertainment. Henry and his coven seem to have taken in their stride the endless changes of livestock which occasionally share their new paddock - and continue to wander about as if they own the place!

The author of this entry watches over her flock