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This article appeared in Grass Roots No.281 February/March 2024 How would you like a clean, organised shed with dust and rodent proof storage cupboards that cost next to nothing and repurpose items otherwise sent to landfill? Our farm shed has over the past month received a make-over that has transformed it from a rat-infested, dirty, …
Continue reading “The Ultimate Organised Shed…Repurposing Old Fridges!”
Sadly, independent media are increasingly finding it uneconomical to operate, and we have now lost the Australian Owner Builder magazine, after 40 years as an institution for inspiration and technical information. I was invited to contribute to the final issue and wrote two articles for that occasion. Lots of love and best wishes to Lynda, …
I’ve not added to this blog since pre-pandemic times, and am also taking a break from writing DIY articles, and deadlines in general. There is an article called Harness The Winter Sun in The Owner Builder No.218 (June-August 2020), in which I’ve looked at effective passive solar heating – in this article, with a special …
In newsagencies this month I have articles in Grass Roots No.256 (Nelly & Benjamin) and in The Owner Builder No.216 (Owner Building Without The Divorce). Nelly & Benjamin is also running in the December edition of the Canadian Donkey & Mule News, as a cultural exchange item. You can see Nelly & Benjamin, with bonus …
A version of this article was published in Grass Roots 256 in Dec 2019/Jan 2020. In late 2018, I had an unexpected telephone call. The man on the line said he knew from a friend that we had a group of three donkeys courtesy of the Donkey Society – and would we like two more? …
As part and parcel of owner-building our strawbale house, we spent four months living on-site in a caravan. That summer is now half a dozen years in the past, and I’d like to commemorate that time on my blog. This is the original manuscript of the article published in Grass Roots 251 in Feb/March 2019. …
In newsagencies this month I have articles in Grass Roots No.255 (Roadside Rehabilitation) and in The Owner Builder No.215 (Embodied Energy Revisited and Coloured Glass Designs). Roadside Rehabilitation takes a look at the work we’ve done at Red Moon Sanctuary to protect and bring back the native flora in the roadside reserves adjacent to our …
We’re looking forward to finally making another trip to Tasmania next year, for the first time in ten years… having meanwhile bought a farm, built a shed and outbuildings and farmhouse with our own hands, planted thousands of trees, looked after animals, planted an orchard and permaculture garden, etc etc. In celebration of that, here …
It’s magazine time again. In newsagencies this month I have an article in The Owner Builder No.214 on Successful Downshifting. It’s about how we found ourselves in our 40s, suddenly waking up every morning on a gorgeous little farm in the country (complete with 50 hectares out the back of extraordinary Gondwana which we will …
In newsagencies this month I have articles in Grass Roots No.253 (Podcast Pandemonium) and in The Owner Builder No.213 (Low Waste Building Site). Podcast Pandemonium is an article aimed at the less technology-savvy part of the DIY / self-sufficiency community, not all of whom have grown up with IT, and not all of whom understand …