Forever House #9

Sunday 24th March, 2013

Morning sky

Yesterday's mudding clothes...

I suppose there are worse things than getting dressed in yesterday's mudding clothes - but at 7 o'clock this morning I couldn't think of too many. Silly ole' me set my alarm for 6am with good intentions of getting an early start... of course it was pitch black and how on earth could I start mudding if I couldn't see what I was doing? So I rolled over and slept till daylight and then wondered how the locals would appreciate the genny starting early on a Sunday morning. I figured most of them are early risers anyway, and they'd appreciate hearing the sounds of productivity coming from my block. My lentil burger from the night before was still sitting in my gut - so a cup of tea and into it by 7.30am. I'm loving the genny, starts first time every time, And I had made six loads of mud and was just  on the last bit of laying it when my new Jack of all trades Dave appeared with his two sweet dogs and a walking stick - not the usual walking aide kind, but the kind you carry in case you come across a snake or a rogue bull or something. This was our first meeting about the work I need help with in order to meet my October 14 housewarming deadline.

Slashed block thanks to Dave

Dave slashed my paddock on Friday, but had not yet wandered through the Forever House. I gave him the grand tour in random order and he can do everything I need.What amazing timing that he and Gabbi have arrived and had time to settle in and get their own place largely sorted; now when I need assistance he is able and willing. I am blessed.

He is going to start with the dunny. He'll cut down four iron bark saplings from among the many trees that are too close to the house and need to be go as part of the fire plan anyway. These will be the uprights, and will sit in stirrups on the concrete slab that exists already over the pit. I have some left over roofing iron for the walls and roof. I'll paint it green to match the house and other shed. Dave will find a couple of windows over at Quans to add light an character. I think our arrangement will work out great for me. I hope it does for him too.Off he toddled to have a swim and then he and Gab were heading to town to stock up on juicing vegetables . They are one week in to a two week juice detox. They are feeling great - although the first few days were tough - Dave said now he wants to run everywhere. They both look lean and well, clear eyed and fresh faced. I wonder if I could follow suit...

I got on with the last bit of mudding, expecting Mum and Dad to arrive around eleven. But that's all done, I've cleaned up ready for next time, and returned to the caravan to make a cuppa and wait... If I disappear down to the river for the swim wash I am so ready for, what's the bet they'll arrive. But it's now twelve and still no MaD. Mmmmmm...... I've just had my final sit on the dunny that is - wonder if it will be the dunny that was next time I come out... Better take a pic just in case. Dave is going to save the rose that is growing up the front of the dunny. I'll kind of miss this funny old thing.

I wrote MaD a note and pegged it to the trailer and headed down for my swim. I swam freestyle against the current up to my tufty grass island then let go to float back down. These moments in this place are my gift from above. I didn't dally though in case MaD had arrived after all. they aren't particularly punctual but they generally do what they say they'll do. As I crawled up and into my block there was no sign of their car- and then I notice the note had gone from the trailer, and as I pulled around the back of the humpy there they were tucked into the shade.
Mum had read my mind and arrived with a towel and no cozzy. So we all got into my car and headed back to the river. I was not passing up the chance of a special moment such as that with my nearly eighty year old Mum. Thunder was rolling around the hills and the sky was looking interesting. I parked the car behind a bush for a bit of privacy and Dad stayed in the car doing his crossword. Mum peeled of her gear and I dropped my towel and we tucked them in under a tree root to keep them dry. In we walked across the mostly sandy bottom. She took her time getting in and the raindrops began to fall, till the surface of the river was alive with the rain.

The drive home

Forever House #8

Saturday 23rd March continued

The minute I started today I was instantly filthy. Water and mud slopping all over my clothes and boots, in my hair, under my nails. I took my jewellery off and gave myself over to the mudpieness of it. It's fun. I made six loads of mud between two and six o'clock, and laid it. I placed a special glass prism and two blue bottles in the wall. My friend Billy made me the prism back in 2005 from stained glass and mirrors sikaflexed together  and today it found it's spot. It's quite close to what will be the ceiling but it catches enough light to give a lovely glow.

Redfern Terrace Interior

I also mudded across the top of a piece of glass that sits in the middle of three panes of glass with mud about four rows deep up either side... that's it you can see through the laundry/bathroom window in this pic (below). I closed it in by first laying a couple of bed springs across the gap for reinforcement and some support for the mud to hang on to until it dries.

Laundry/bathroom window

There are quite a few bottles and pieces of coloured glass in the walls, including the first stained glass panel I ever made back 30 years ago. The design is based on the interior of the Redfern Terrace in which I lived at the time with my first husband Paul. It features a staircase to the attic bedroom and bathroom, and a doorway under the stairs into the dining room with the table apparent and the windows behind.

Once the work was done I drove down to my swimming hole for a swim and wash. Always a tonic. dinner was a simple lentil burger with sweet chilli sauce, lettuce and tomato on a toasted bun cooked on the caravan gas cooker which is a little beauty. When I arrived today the caravan was clean and just the way I left it last visit, and Dave, my newly acquired helper, had kindly slashed my house paddock yesterday. He is coming over mid morning Sunday to talk about the work I need help with.

Mum and Dad are also coming out so I'm hoping to rise early and get a similar amount of work done as today before all my visitors arrive. I'll be really happy with that. I'll get MaD to take a few pics for me tomorrow - it's hard to handle the iphone while covered in mud. I'm hoping I might be able to entice my dear Mum, who will be eighty in August, to come in for a skinny dip in the river. She and Dad have enjoyed taking every opportunity for that over the years. Dad's not so able to manage the sandy bottom any more, but Mum can... We'll see...

Now for a bit of Cloudstreet before falling sleep.

Forever House #7

Saturday 23rd March, 2013

View west from Hogarth Ranges en route to Forever House

Finally I am again at the caravan table writing at twilight. A plume of smoke has just sprung above the trees across the river at Daph and Stan's - one of their two fuel stoves alight for the evening. I was at their place by ten this morning for a Currawinya General Meeting, to set the budget and the levy we shareholders will pay for 2013-2014, among other things. There were nine of us around the table in Stan and Daph's shed, and enough proxies from most other financial shareholders for the meeting to go ahead as planned.

Daphne and Stan's punt across the Cataract River

It was two o'clock by the time I was ferried back across the Cataract River to my car, and I spent the next four hours mudding, It's been so long you'd think I'd forget how... but I had a very productive afternoon. Unfortunately the cows that range through Currawinya illegally had broken into the house and stomped my pile of previously sifted dirt out across the lounge room, shat everywhere, and I assume it was they who drank half the forty-four gallon drum of water I filled last visit.

Bloody cows...

Jeff woke early with me at home, and helped me (or I helped him) to get the cement mixer into the trailer and tied on securely for the 2 hour drive to the Forever House - the last forty minutes being dirt roads of varying condition. I left home at half seven, bought fuel and oil from my independent petrol man at Casino, a coffee from Macca's because it was the only place open at that time of the morning, rang Mum and Dad from Macca's carpark to encourage them to drive out and say hi tomorrow; then was on my way in earnest to reach the meeting by ten. Jeff and I had a practice this morning as to how I would get the mixer off the trailer by myself. It worked a treat and is now set up in the lounge room alongside all the ingredients.

Checking the tie downs along Paddy's Flat Road

Before getting into making mud, I filled the watering can and clamboured up onto the scaffolding to wet down the top of the wall ready to lay the next layer of mud on. This is necessary so that the new and old become one so to speak. I watered it down three times to get it wet enough. I'm so close to the roof now that the watering can will hardly tip up enough to shower water out - I tipped it this way and that around the metal framework (top hats for those who know about such things), and as the skillion roof got closer to the wall I just tipped the watering can sideways and tipped it out of the hole at the top. (A skillion roof is a flat roof that has been inclined slightly. The house is split level so the roof gives various heights inside.)

Inside the wall where I am working

I filled the genny with fuel and hoped I would remember how to start it... The first couple of pulls got no response, so I looked again for what I might not have done - found the ON switch, flicked it into position, and the next pull started it easily. I shovelled dirt into the mixer, remembering fifteen shovel loads is the recipe; but then recalled it pays to have the water in first. Half a bucket of water, a tin billy of sand, four handfuls of chopped straw. As the straw took its time to bind through, straw soaking in water came to mind, and I did this ready for the next mixer load. With two mixer loads in the barrow and that noisy genny off, I wheeled the barrow through to where I am working, three metres off the ground by now. Alone on this occasion, I manhandled the mud out of the barrow in 'cobs' as large as my hands can manage, and stacked it up on the plank on which I will stand when I get up to mud. I have to place it as close as possible to where I need it while also leaving myself room to move when I get up there. There is a forty four gallon drum at either end of the wall upon which a plank lays; some besser blocks for more height, and another plank. The top plank is just below my shoulder height. Underneath are four pallets stacked on top of the other to step up.

Outside the wall where I am working

All the scaffolding inside and out has been refreshed of recent times to see me through the remaining mudding. I collected about eighteen pallets from around Lismore over a couple of days mid last year after deciding to name a housewarming deadline. Jeff came out with me and helped me cut down lantana that had grown through the existing scaffolding, and replace anything that had gone rotten. So here we are in March before I have actually used it... Currawinya time. And there's plenty more lantana growing up around it again. However the scaffolding feels good - safe - and I only have a few more rows of mud to go. I thank my lucky stars that I have regained my fitness over the past year - this work requires core strength.

Forever House #6

Cataract River in Flood (Photo by Kim Wiseman)

Monday 4th March, 2013 As I have already mentioned, Currawinya time is a lesson in patience. My next visit to the farm was to be last Friday 1st March, to spend the day mudding on Saturday 2nd. I had taken the trailer to the tip on Friday in the rain, to get rid of the results of the yard cleanup I had done back in November at our place near Lismore. Ridiculously, not only do I have the Forever House project to complete, but Jeff and I started extensions at our place in about August last year. We have a wonderful extended deck that was complete enough for fifteen family to be here for Christmas. And we have the roofed bones of an extension which will eventually be an open plan kitchen dining room. In amongst pacing my self with the Forever House completion, I will be chipping away here too doing my bit to get this house built and painted.

Our fantastic verandah ready for Christmas 2102

The trailer had to be emptied so that I could put the mud mixer in it to take out to the farm. And then I thought, with all this rain maybe I should check how things are out at the farm. A couple of weeks earlier I had rung Dave, the most recent Currawinyan to move out to his share with his wife Gabbi, to talk to him about my brainwave that he could work with me on my place and be paid for it of course. He said he was happy to take on whatever work he could to assist me to meet my October 2014 deadline. We made an arrangement to meet on Saturday 2nd March to discuss my ideas and check in with him the how what and when of it. So on Friday I rang Stan first to see how they were all fairing out there. He sounded pretty stressed really - he had been flooded in for a week and a half and when I was speaking to him he was busy trying to sheet the shed wall to keep the rain out. He is on the Western side of the Cataract River, and I am on the Eastern side. Dave and Gabbi and Brian Beetson are also on the western side - and when the Cataract comes up, and the Clarence beyond that they are all on an island - unable to get out other than by helicopter should the need arise. There have been stories of helicopters taking people out, and doing food drops over the years.

Cataract River near Daphne and Stan's (K.Wiseman photo)

Poor Stan was on his own because Daff was in Qld having an op and couldn't get back because of the flooding. Dave Gab Brian and Stan had been looking out for each other and tramping between each others places for the odd lunch and to assist each other. Daff has an amazing vegetable garden, and Gab and Dave have done wonders in their garden in a short space of time, so with the stores of dry and tinned food they all keep on hand, they weren't going to starve.

Half of one of the Kitchen Windows I am making for home

Suffice to say, there was no point in me venturing out there to the farm to do my mudding - I probably wouldn't get past Emu Creek on the way out along Pretty Gully Road anyway, and then Yellow Creek on our driveway in would have been impassable as well. So I decided to do something proactive towards the home extension - and did some stained glass for one of the kitchen windows. I am doing a pretty simply designed series of windows around the new extension. Leaving clear glass to enjoy the outside, but making sure there is colour for the sun to shine through and brighten up my days. I do love coloured glass - I quite like simple designes - it is the colour that I am most interested in, and the satisfaction of creating what I think are items of beauty.

I also put together some pre-cut and copper-foiled pieces of glass that were intended for making earrings at some point - they are now a mobile which I will post to a brand new little bundle called Eva - she makes me a stepnana and my kids Uncle and Aunty, 

The next date I can get to the farm is  the 23rd March. We have a Currawinya General meeting that day so I hope the weather is on my side to get out there for the weekend and make some mud. In between times I will revisit the tip where I saw a couple of gorgeous old solid timber doors - one may become the front door of the Forever House, the other I may put glass in and sell.

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.

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.