Friday, February 22, 2013

Forever House recorded stories

Here are a couple of recordings I have made over the years... D x

Currawinya audio conversation - Donna Byer and Christine Castrikum (with Harrison Castrikum) 2004

Forever House Digital Story 2009

A stitched panorama taken from my humpy by Jeff in 2007

Forever House (#5)

Early days on our (Gould's) verandah
9th February, 2013
You may have noticed that it has taken 5 blogs to cover my ruminations of the 9th February. I actually spent both evenings by candlelight writing in the van while I was there - and I wrote a lot. So bear with me.

The first cob
When I first decided to build the Forever House, I had a different vision in some ways, to what I do now. But, so much of the dream is the same now as then. My kids were 10 and 11 - I thought I was building for them as well. My original floor plan had three bedrooms. that has been reduced by one, and the dining lounge area is smaller than originally planned. Sometimes I wish I had just done a shack - but I didn't, and what I have done, when it is finished, will be a great size for sharing with other people. That's my more enduring plan these days. To get the place liveable and bring small groups here for a long weekend or whatever. Live in the mud house, swim in the river, walk, read, be catered for, starlit baths. I have my little caravan to hang out in, and facilitate the group's enjoyment. Fires, Camp ovens, candles, no technology. Mudding workshops, writers retreats, photographers, yoga, painters, cyclists - there's lots of tracks in them there hills. So that's my motivation To spend my working days looking after people in a place that I love - in this finished house. Jeff and I, and our friends and family will come and be here as and when we can. Long weekend in October 2014 - that will be ten years since the firt cob of mud was laid. That is my goal.
 

10th February, 2013
As I contemplate my departure, listening to the birds, I think among them are a good number of bell birds. My knowledge of bell birds is far from comprehensive, but I think it would be better in the landscape if I could not hear them at all. Trees die when bell birds are around - I must google and remind myself of the reasons why. It's close to 9 and I will be gone by ten. Again I contemplate a walk to the front gate, which is 8k round trip up and down significant mountains. But I have already eaten poached eggs and promite on toast - the first actual meal I've had since arriving on Friday; and I had a bit of a stumble in Casino on Friday and have damaged my left foot - the joint at the big toe. So I've managed quite well on that toe so far this weekend. Might leave well enough alone. The walk is quite a mental and physical workout.

I noticed on my way in on Friday that at least four of the rock statues I built on my walk last time I was here, are still standing - withstanding flooding rain no less. The kids and I started building them years ago - just stop the car and all jump out and build a statue or two on the way home from school. It caused a bit of grief with one of the shareholders at the time - he was convinced we were dabbling in something we didn't understand and that we could be calling anything in to Currawinya.Bad things, bad spirits. I explained that for the kids and me, it was all about making rocks balance on top of each other and the aesthetic of the finished statue. Funnily enough, that share holder Peter became a regular satue builder himself.

I first came across rock statues while away on a ten day Vipassna meditation retreat in the Blue Mountains. That was actually the last thing I did before my 2nd husband Ian, the father of my children, and I separated. Anyway, it was a non talking retreat, and no eye contact. We meditated for a total of eleven hours a day, and in between times, apart form meals, we could find a place in the bushy grounds and sit. No reading or writing materials allowed. I used to walk a path there for exercise and I noticed a few small rack statues to the side of the path one day. Each time I passed there would be more, and I added to the growing collection. The collection was scattered after a while, they were seen as a form of communication... a distraction from the purpose of our being there (I heard whispered when we were allowed to talk to each other on the last day.) But I am very glad to have learned about them and the way they do communicate something. To my eye, they always take on a persona. And the general feeling is happiness when I see them no matter who has built them. They leave me wondering about the builder. A bit like wondering about the artists, writers and songwriters who create works I relate to.



For about a year I have been leaving the caravan all packed up to deter rats - because or one occasion I arrived; I won't describe the disgusting invasion I found of my little home away from home. I think enough months have passed where there has been absolutely no sign of entry or festy droppings, and so a tarp over the mattress  will do and I the lounge can stay as it is. Everything crossed that's how I find it next time.

Danika Peita and I by the camp fire one morn
Lots of cicadas and the odd crow calling. I've not been outside except to empty my bucket. The van is probably twenty-five metres from the drop toilet, not a place to visit in the dark - and most particularly for a wee. The toilet was burned down in the fire that also burned the house in 2004. My brother-law Andy threw up a bush carpenters dunny around the hole int he ground back in 2004. And finally, I have concluded that I need to give the job of building a new outhouse to hopefully Dave. This last storm, and probably a random trespassing cow, have pushed the existing structure too far. The slab around the whole in the ground is too small to allow a mud wall to be built on three side. Well, the walls of the house are about two hundred and fifty mils wide, and eve though I co them narrower for the toilet, I could never do them narrow enough to leave a decent amount of space inside. So I'm thinking either timber or metal poles and the recycled courrugated iron from the current loo, which was recycled form some part of the burnt out building before that. I'll need to make a small stained glass window and find a door of sorts. Though its kind of nice sitting in a doorless dunny as it is at the moment. But if I intend to bring visitors out here, not everyone is as comfortable as I am with such things.


The dunny at its best
So I'm off to take a couple of pics of my progress this trip, and then I'll be gone in my poor old flooded car home to host a meeting on Jeff and my deck at 3pm. I am part of the Milling around Events Committee for the Rous Mill Hall - we're planning this year's events. The other lovely community I am committed to.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Forever House (#4)

9th February, 2013
thinking it might roll I made a quick exit passenger door left
a reccy of the changed crossing may have helped
My swim that afternoon was a skinny dip, against a reasonable current. a long slow swim up stream, with azure kingfishers swooping the top of the surface, flashing the most amazing colour and markings. Not in the least bit concerned about me. My favourite dragon flies sitting atop rocks and buzzing me - red, yellow, blue. Then, when I reached my regular turning point, a reedy island, release to a long slow float downstream.

The river crossing at my swimming hole is a bit wild at the best of times, and I noted that where there should have been a track emerging from the rocks on the far side, to head left to Phil's place, or right to Kent's, there was an impenetrable sand dune, a couple of metres high of pure white sand. It has been flooding in recent times - I felt bad that while in town dealing with the flooding there I hadn't wondered about Currawinya, where the Cataract River was quite high and fierce I was told, and the evidence of it clear when I saw it for myself. A good byproduct of this flood is that the rocks that had settled at the entrance of our swimming hole in the previous flood are now returned to sand - my happy feet.

Jason and Stan and the saved car, draining
A bad byproduct of this flood is that I mucked up crossing my friend's river crossing (changed from the flood), and got stuck in the river with water up to the right side of my driver's seat..and just below the air intake on the motor Jeff showed me later under the bonnet, after seeing these photos...
Bloody hell - poor Daff and Stan - they were taking turns to bathe and dress during my visit, to go for dinner at Lyn and Steve's. I was leaving so they could leave... but none of us got very far. Stan tried every which way to get me out with his tractor, but nothing. So thank God, Jason, a guy who lives half an hour away by tractor, drove down to save me. As luck would have it he was at home, and had the use of a massive tractor for two weeks. Otherwise I fear my car may still be in the river now!

Currawinya is always an adventure - I love that about it.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Forever House (#3)

Saturday 9th February, 2013
Sifting mesh & dirt pile covered in iron to keep grass down
The one full day I had last visit was quite productive - even without the cement (mud) mixer. The old corrugated iron I'd laid around the digging site killed the grass and stopped more growing which made life much easier. The sifting mesh was in tact (sometimes it can be disrupted by unwelcome cows that randomly wander wherever they want to go on the farm). My tools were as I had left them; the wheelbarrow, crowbar, shovel, and a couple of mattocks. I brought out my docking station that Jeff bought me for my last birthday - I can Bluetooth my phone to it, and so had music to work by all day. That was very lovely.

Before I could start digging I had to shovel the previous pile of dug dirt into the house. Sounds ridiculous, but I thought it through and trust me it was the best place to store the dirt for the next time I'll mud. Those random cows had spread it all about on the outside of the house. Next time I go out I'll set the mixer up inside and barrow the mud everywhere it needs to go internally. It is a worksite...
It's been a worksite for nine years. I have invested huge effort, good money, and some big experiences in this place, as have my kids. My second family is here - ten years in a community and your life and those of the other shareholders are indelibly linked. They are like relatives, because you don't get to choose them!
Lifting the tank onto the trailer to transport to my share

Preparing the site for the tank
The hardworkers: Pete, Jess, Billy, Susan, Meegs, Jeff and me
I shoveled the pile then dug and sifted another just as big, and shoveled that in on top of the other. The barrow goes in under the sifting mesh. I crowbar around the edges of the digging hole and then shovel the dirt on to the mesh. I bang that with the shovel until there is only rocks left - which I push off onto another bit of corrugated iron on the ground, and then barrow the load to the front of the house and tip it out. I've dug a lot of dirt and although there can be long gaps in between, its always satisfying to get back into the rhythm. Once I'd had enough of that I got a forty-four gallon drum of water set up alongside the dirt. I thought a metal drum might not be a good idea - it will sit rusting till next time I am here. There has been a blue plastic drum sitting by the digging pile for a long time - I think my cousin Jess might have left it here when he and Kat moved back to town. It was full of lime and water - which is part of the mudding process at some point - to do with rendering the walls. I tipped it over - with quite some effort - and scooped all the lime out. I set it up inside and got to filling it with water. Some time ago with the help of a group of friends, a twenty thousand litre tank was dragged down from where Jess and Kat had been building their place. They had given up the idea for various reasons, and sold off the infrastructure to those of us who were interested. We set the tank up at the corner of the house, and it is permanently full of water - at this stage it hardly every gets used.

To fill the forty four it took twenty trips with a full bucket up hill. Told you the exercise is good. And to complete the day's work, I started on the straw. I moved the straw chopping station from where it has always been up in the corner of what will be the main bedroom, down into the loungeroom alongside the dirt and water. I filled a metal forty four with chopped straw. Using a very rusty and blunt sithe of some kind - reminder to self - bring a decent axe next time.

No need to go and collect sand from down at the river, I already have a good few containers full. Pretty happy with that several hours of work - started at ten, finished at four - and the stash of materials I have means I can just get on with mudding next visit. I am aiming for that to be on the Saturday 2nd March.

Time for a swim in the river - a bath as much as a swim. Fresh river water, deep wide and long enough at our swimming hole to swim over a hundred metres.


Monday, February 11, 2013

Forever House (#2)



Saturday 9th February, 2013
The humpy
Well today has been big. I woke when I felt like it this morning. I had slept under a sheet overnight but was wishing I had another layer by this morning; ended up doubling the sheet over and trying to stay within the narrowed cover. Didn't work... Thought about walking up to the letterbox and back, but decided 'I am here to work and I will get plenty of exercise if I just start'. I left my favourite sprouted date and walnut bread in the fridge at home, so opted for mango, yoghurt and slivered almonds and a pot of tea for breakfast. I have a tea pot out here. It came with the caravan. It's about a two and a half cupper, white china with a touch of gold trim. Matches the laminex!             
The dirt pile 2007
This evening, after my big day, I'm sitting at the table with an Ecco and two candles. I don't really have a great light out here. I did have a couple of gas lights which also came with the caravan but they ran out of gas, the bottles are way past their use-by date and can't be refilled. So usually I bring the rechargeable battery camp light but it was locked in Jeff's workshop. He's away; so I packed candles.

After breakfast I dressed in farm clothes and headed off to the dirt pile to commence digging by about ten. When I look at how much of the original dirt pile is gone, I realise how much mudding has actually been done. I only have a small amount left in comparison - of both dirt, and mudding to do. I just need to do it; regularly. That is the only way it is going to happen. I have committed to one weekend out here a month. But looking at that list would indicate I need to come out more often than that. I have come to the conclusion that I will ask Dave, a new guy living out here with his wife Gabbi. They recently bought the share that I was renting for fifteen months when I lived  here with my kids between 2004 and 2005. Stan's too busy it turns out after catching up with he and Daphne today. They thought Dave might be quite keen. I reckon I could budget about one hundred dollars a week - that would add up over time and there is heaps of time for that work to happen - Dave lives here and the housewarming is twenty months away. Yep... I'm on a mission!

The owners when I rented Dave and Gabbi's cottage were Shirley and Ron Gould - Shane Gould's Mum and Dad. They built it and lived there for twelve years, right up until the kids and I moved in. It was a doll's house when they left it - maybe not quite that when we left it. Shirley built a gorgeous stone dwelling up behind this house out of river stones. She used to stop in the Cataract River at 'Gould's Crossing', collect a bucket of rocks, usually give her car a bit of a wash at the same time, then she would go up and lay the rocks, a bucket at a time. The building was called 'Shirley's Temple' and hopefully always will be. I had an email the other day from one of the original Currawinyans, saying that Shirley is poorly, and suggesting that anyone who wanted to should write her an email. I did. I hope it is not inappropriate to include it here.


Gould's Cottage 2005
4th February 2013
Hey Shirley,
Donna here – I lived in yours and Ron’s storybook cottage at Currawinya in 2004-2005.
How are you... although that may be a rhetorical question because I heard through Murray that you are weak. I am very sorry to hear that you too, along with so many, have been bitten by the nasty cancer.
I hope you are as comfortable as possible.
Gould's Crossing
Thank Goodness you have been able to live an incredibly full and varied life. I wanted to send you a few words to acknowledge you and your kindness to my children, Spencer and Danika, and I, nearly nine years ago. I was then 46 I think and this year I will be 55 – my children were 10 and 9 – they are now 20 and nearly 19. To be able to move into that lovely little cottage for the 15 months we lived at Currawinya was such a relief – and I learned so much about fending for myself and my kids, and about my capabilities during that time. Considering I was a bit of a mess when I arrived – I think I was pretty strong and resilient by the time we had to head back to town in the July of 2005. You were a sweet support to me during that time – sending me little notes of encouragement.
Your lovely crossing and Shirley’s Temple were also ever present in our lives at that time – and your efforts were inspiring to me. I still have not finished my mud forever house – but you know all about Currawinya time, and I will get there. I have set the October long weekend in 2014 as the house warming – so I have a good 19 months to get it to lock up and able to be inhabited. My kids are living independently now, and I have remarried a couple of years ago – so I can again get out to Currawinya regularly and chip away.
All the very best to you and your family and I hope you are content with everything you achieved and experienced in your life.
Blessings to you, and again thanks for your part in our lives,
Love Donna Spencer and Danika xxxxx
 

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Forever House (#1)

Friday 8th February 2013:
I am sitting in the half light of 6.53pm, in a place that I will share with you. I'm writing on a rickety caravan laminex table with a gold twig pattern. I arrived a couple of hours ago and have been immersing myself in my surroundings. The van is set up with what I brought out with me - food, books, esky, farm clothes, and candles, as I was unable to put my hand on the camplight at home. My cozzy is also packed in case I can't find a window of opportunity for a skinny dip. I usually have the swimming hole at the bottom of my share to myself. You generally have to go looking to run into anybody round these parts. The western sun is sinking below the mountain opposite. The sky whites, blues and greys as opposed to pinks today. I do love this place.

I bought my twenty acres ten years ago, very soon after my second marriage break up. The previous year, the year of our break up, we traveled around Australia for 8 months in a caravan with our two children. It was during that trip that I became a free camper. Pulling up and making camp alongside rivers and in remote places. This experience enabled me to see in Currawinya an opportunity to continue that lifestyle even now that we had returned home and were getting on with the business of breaking up and life beyond that.
The whole property is six and a half thousand acres. Twenty four shareholders have twenty acres each, and the rest is common land. Very few people live here unfortunately, but of recent times more have come, some have left, and the culture of the place is going through transition. In the forty years of it's existence as Currawinya Pty Ltd, this pattern has repeated numerous times. There are one or two of the originals left - four in fact - all men in their sixties now, one of whom lives at Currawinya and three who are interested but rarely present these days.We won a ten year long and painful court case about a year ago that resulted in the departure of one particular shareholder and her cattle. The reduction in the remaining group's stress levels is palpable; we can all get on with our relationships with Currawinya, and each other as and when. The financial contributions we pay to Currawinya will flow into our infrastructure and future rather than into the hands of legal people.

I came here because my first cousin Christine and her family were buying a share. It is about two hours from home, so accessible, although another world completely and a landscape that requires tough cars and people, and a commitment and preparedness to do it tough and live a bit rough. I was so taken with the landscape that I filed the idea of this place in the back of my mind... During the lengthy and rocky relationship I was a part of for seventeen years, I daydreamed about running away to a cabin in the bush. When I was introduced to Currawinya on the second occasion, the Christmas after the marriage had ended, I realised this was the place in my mind's eye.There was a vacant share (burnt out actually) that drew me in - and I offered thirty five thousand dollars for this caravan and annexe under roof, along with a small colourbond shed, and a cement slab on which the burnt out remains of someone else's dream home were scattered. I was feeling pretty free and mistress of my own destiny-ish. It took a year for the owners and I to get the sale together; them coming to the decision to sell, us agreeing on a price, and me waiting for the financial settlement from my marriage. By the time we had settled on the share, the vendors were a bit dirty about the delay - but that is water under the bridge now.



Ten years on, there has been so much water under the bridge. But I have hung on to my plot at Currawinya, and my dream to complete my "Forever House", built from mud (cob) and various other materials, is as strong as ever. I can't give up now, when I have every possible chance of reaching my goal if I make it happen. I have plans for this place when it is finished. Last year I came up with a deadline - a date for the housewarming - as a means of giving the project a wriggle on. The date for the housewarming is the October long weekend in 2014. I have twenty months to orchestrate a long list (shitload) of work. The reality is, I can't do it on my own; my third (and final) husband Jeff can and will come out and help - but not as often as me. There are three new men living at Currawinya who would most likely be able to do some of the work for me at a cost of course.

This trip out to 'the farm' as I call it, will not achieve what I intended when I set the weekend aside. But that's okay. Currawinya time teaches you patience. The cement mixer in which I mix the mud, is at home at Tuckurimba. I tried to manhandle it into the back of my ute on my own. As it lay on its side in the carport, having slid quite gracefully and in a controlled way down the ramp I had put from the ground to the back gate of the car, I was reminded that at fifty four, my body has limits and I must respect those, or pay the painful consequences and risk permanent disabling injuries. So I left the mixer splayed there with a note to Jeff apologising that it was in that state, and headed to the farm cement mixer-less. Without it, I can't make mud which means I can't lay mud. At the point where the mixer rolled slowly off the plank I decided to ask Stan if he has one I can use, and if not, I can dig and sieve more dirt; another job that is always on the list.


Speaking of lists, I make a lot of them - it's the way I get things done. I wrote down a stream of conscious list this arvo then split it up to reflect who will do the work (in this my yet unuttered latest plan). I wrote a list in a previous piece of writing about what I hoped to find in a partner. The tutor marking the piece said that until she got to the list she had felt quite empathetic towards the character, but as she read the list she was perplexed about that character's expectations. Nonetheless, that is not enough to disuade me from including this list.


The Forever House List @ Friday 8/2/12 - to be complete by 4/10/14
Things I can do:
  • clear lantana/catsclaw
  • Finish Mudding
  • dig drain from top tank overflow to pond
  • Electric fence - get one and put it up
  • Bedroom windows - strip, paint, replace glass panels, put timber surrounds, flyscreens
  • Tile bedroom floor
  • Bag block wall outside
  • Find french doors x 2 pairs
  • Find front door
  • Tile bathroom/laundry/mud room floors
  • Tile behind wood fired heater
  • flyscreen for all windows
  • paved area along the front of the house
For Jeff and others to do:
  • Build loo
  • Install gas stove
  • Install gas water heater
  • install water pump
  • put tank (from shed) on house tank stand
  • set timber stove in with chimney
  • put plumbing in shower, sink, laundry tub, and kitchen sink
  • slash
  • put corrugated iron around mud walls in shower recess
  • Line bedroom walls with Casino timber
  • Install french doors and window in lounge dining
  • Hang all doors (6)
  • Metal frames and corrugated iron above block walls
  • Help Donna with bedroom windows
  • Cut down closer trees
  • Put green tank from top of block on sand bed at right hand corner of house
  • polystyrene ceiling