The Ripe Ark

New Bedroom

2011-11-24T13:24:00.002+11:00

We finished the new bedroom a month ago, but finally here's a photo. Note the old chest of drawers that used to be in Robert's and my bedroom when we were kids - I've given it its 100-year service with a new coat of varnish.

Front Step Railings!

2011-09-01T14:44:00.003+10:00

Yes, they're finally up, though not painted yet:

Also of course spring is well underway now and the first thing to go in is the potatoes:

Like the rest of the garden they are grown by the no-dig method, which means the seed potatoes just go on top of the first layer of mulch then more layers are put on over the next few months as the potatoes develop.

Autumn Harvest All In

2011-05-15T08:14:00.002+10:00

Thanks to the regular summer rain and the efficacy of the vege enclosure (Fort Veg) we had a good crop this year:

Caravanning with Joyce

2011-02-25T11:45:00.007+11:00

A month or so ago we bought an old 1970's caravan and named her Joyce. I took a couple of weeks off work and Lesley and I went off to the South Coast for 9 days. Eden via Canberra, Cooma and Bombala, then up the coast to Batemans Bay then home via Braidwood then straight across back-roads from Bungendore to Murrumbateman and Yass The numbers indicate where the nights were spent:

It rained quite a bit at Eden and Joyce began to leak, so we bought her a tarp, which did the job. We were stuck there for 3 nights due to mechanical (alternator) problems. On the middle day of the tour we set off with problems solved and found an amazing waterfront site in Regatta Point Caravan Park on Wallaga Lake north of Bermagui:

Alpacas Shorn

2011-02-25T11:39:00.005+11:00

Actually this happened in January.

Dropbox

2011-01-31T14:00:00.005+11:00

I've started using an amazing new technology on the main photo site called Dropbox. It's a program you install on your computer that creates a folder in "My Documents" that is automatically mirrored on the web so that you don't have to bother uploading anything. It can be used to store your own stuff privately, or you can put stuff in the public folder to be viewable by anyone. So I've put all the photos for the website into the public folder and re-coded the site so that your browser gets the images from my folder on the www.dropbox.com site. It comes with over 2gb of storage, which is enough for about a hundred years of adding to the site at the present rate, as compared to 100mb, which I've already used about a tenth of. The site is still at the same address, ryepark.triorbit.com but that doesn't mean the photos have to be there - your browser gets images from wherever the web page tells it to.

Let me know if you want to know more about how to use Dropbox...

Fort Vedge Complete

2011-01-26T08:57:00.006+11:00

We tried shade-cloth over the tunnel throughout summer and winter and found that in both cases it improved plant growth (less harsh sun in summer, less heat-loss and lighter frosts in winter) so we've made the roof out of low blockage (30%) shade-cloth.

Meanwhile Lesley has been forging ahead with the front garden:

And you can see why the Buddleia is called the "Butterfly Bush":

Also, I've updated a few pages on the main photo site:
1 - the old "Vegie Tunnel" page is now called "Fort Vedge"
2 - I've added a "Cluckingham Palace" page
3 - I've updated the "Tanks" page

Companion Planting/ Sheet composting/ No-Dig

2011-01-06T10:46:00.008+11:00

I put the 3 concepts in the title because they go together. They are permacultural ideas that seek to reproduce the way plants live in nature. Nature adds material on the top of the soil and lets it rot down in. Nature mingles different species in the same space so they complement each other with their differing needs. This avoids the need for crop rotation and for leaving beds fallow, which nature doesn't do.

In the picture there are pumpkins on the right and potatoes on the left, which don't like to be beside each other. Beside the pumpkins is new corn, which combines well with pumpkins. Between the corn and the potatoes I've put beans, which like both corn and potatoes. They all should be happy.

Notice the paper shreddings (I get from work) beneath the half-rotted compost. I mix the new compost in a heap and cover it for a few days to heat up and kill weed-seeds before spreading it on the garden.

Wettish

2010-12-12T18:08:00.004+11:00

We've survived the rain so far, but things got a bit wet around Rye Park:

Plus in other news, the residents of Cluckingham Palace are feeding well. So well in fact that we had to expand our vege tunnel into a rectangle, thus re-naming it The Vege Enclosure:

Happy Xmas to all,
Steve

Cluckingham Palace

2010-11-11T14:31:00.004+11:00

It's been quite a while since I've posted, but we've been busy all the same. 3 main developments:

1 - We've finally got our chooks and they're housed in an old dog-kennel that was in the back paddock:

2 - I've finished Lesley's half of the new shed, which she is using as a craft studio:

and 3 - Ryan has moved here on a permanent basis and will be doing computer studies through the correspondence arm of TAFE.

Alpacas

2010-08-13T20:35:00.006+10:00

We've finally acquired our much-planned alpacas Archie and Monty. More photos to come...

Very Nice Holiday

2010-05-08T10:11:00.003+10:00

Here is where we stayed in the Megalong:

And here is where I'm up to with the shed:
It was great to see Mum and Dad on Dad's Birthday - pity about the surroundings, which were un-planned owing to a mechanical breakdown. But the car was fixed and we made it home to Rye Park that night...

2010-04-13T15:08:00.004+10:00

We got our first frost this morning, a very mild one, so Lesley brought in all the tomatoes:

Also, in order to get hdtv on the wonderful set-top-box I got for my birthday we had to get an antenna up really high. I've finally fitted a special swiveling bracket to the chimney so I can swivel the antenna up and down to make adjustments...

Shed Progressing

2010-03-20T16:08:00.005+11:00

Finally I've finished the outer shell of the shed:
This meant that I could start pouring the dirt floor:
It's fairly clayey soil and probably would have been okay without cement, but I gave it 1:10 cement to be on the safe side.

Meanwhile, after Kath's Cabin went next-door to become Gary's cabin, I was able to continue the alignment of the toilet pipe that we put between the septic and the cabin. To cover it while gradually inclining towards the house I built a retaining wall behind which we have herbs and veges. The pipe now only has 3 metres till it gets to where our propose inside toilet is to go:
You can see the end of the pipe taped over at the bottom of the photo.

Best wishes to all,
Steve

Fountain installed

2010-03-04T17:50:00.002+11:00

We bought it a month or so ago and took a little time putting a garden around it (Violets). We put a picnic pergola over it for the time being to cut down on evaporation, but later will build a metal dome for wisteria to grow over it...

Good on Lesley for insisting on getting a fountain - it's lovely to hear the water trickling.

Kath

2010-01-10T12:14:00.001+11:00

Kath has now moved permanently to the nursing home at Boorowa Hospital. Unfortunately she hasn't bounced back from her bad spell at the time of my birthday, so we decided she needs to be in full-time care. It's great that she's still close by and we can visit her whenever we like.

We got a few great photos with the kids:

She only got to spend a few weeks in the cabin:

But at least having Kath here meant we upgraded our water supply (the gravity-feed from the "old" new tank that went up the back is brilliant - especially in our all-too-frequent power-cuts when the pressure pump wouldn't be working!) It looks like Gary next door will want to buy the cabin as he's currently living up the back in a very small caravan.

Also, thanks to Andrew for a great shot of the new verandah, which is now on the front page of the main website, and on the "verandah repairs" page:

More juggling of tanks

2009-10-23T21:21:00.002+11:00

We're getting a granny-flat (relocatable) for Lesley's Aunty Kath to live in, but the only decent place for it is behind the house where the tank we bought in April is:

The only way to move it was to buy a new tank (which we needed) to drain the old one into so we could drag it away. The added benefit of this is we can have the old one up the back where it's high enough above the house for a gravity-fed water supply.

Here's the new tank:

Once the old tank was drained out I moved it onto the driveway on logs, then it was ready to drag

I used reverse partly for its low gearing, partly for better traction with front wheel drive - and partly to see if the tank was going to smash into something. Here it is in its new position:

That all went well, but had I given myself enough room to get the car out from behind?

Yep...

New Mouse-over background!

2009-10-16T20:17:00.005+11:00

Exciting news! I was playing around with the style of my story's website and I hit upon the idea of having a slightly lighter shade of background image for when you hover over a link! Have a look at the difference:
Did I mention the site for my story? here it is...

Back shed taking shape

2009-08-30T14:23:00.002+10:00

It's been on the back burner a long time, but noticeable progress is occurring:
It'll be divided into two halves one for storage and workshop for Steve, one for storage and studio/craft room for Lesley.

Hope everyone's well,
Steve

Broadband at Last!

2009-07-10T11:57:00.009+10:00

Our Satellite dish arrived on Wednesday, courtesy of the government's Broadband Guarantee, so I'll load a few photos up.
First of all the dish:

Next here's Lesley's garden shed we got from a freebies website, sitting on floorboards we had previously got from the same site:

Also we had a neighbour it to cut down a big dead tree at the back, giving us a couple of years' firewood. Plus I pruned a couple of big plum trees so it's opened it all up nicely:

We've put in a new bed beside the vege tunnel (which is all planted out now):
We've put 6 fruit trees in the orchard:

And of course the verandah, which just needs the railings now to be complete:

I've re-built the website (not visibly, but it's coded a bit differently and the photos are on the same server as the web-pages now, and it loads a lot faster). The link at the top of the blog ("Main photo Site") has changed address, but everything behaves the same to visitors - IOW, I needn't have mentioned anything about it, hehehe...

love to everyone,
Steve

Verandah nearing completion

2009-06-13T09:34:00.002+10:00

Uploads are slow, so you could go to the Verandah page on the website here:
http://ryepark.triorbit.com/verandah.html
Also. I'm now hosting the site with a really good free Australian host at http://www.triorbit.com/
which I reccommend to anyone who wants to host a small website rather than just upload files to somewhere.

Rain!

2009-06-04T09:19:00.004+10:00

Yes, it's raining excellently now, light and patchy, but very wet, the most since Christmas, with more forecast. And I hooked up the front verandah to the main big tank the other week, so it's all collecting:
Also here's the front garden - it's all Lesley's design and work, and it's looking fantastic already:

All moved in

2009-05-08T13:39:00.005+10:00

We brought the rain with us - we had a week of patchy rain with a few decent falls the same week we moved, in fact we had to do a couple of loads in the rain, so the place is all bright green. A bit late in the season for any real growth to come of it though, but our new 10,200-litre tank is over half full already. You can also see that Lesley has made a start in planting out the new front garden.

We couldn't find the camera for several weeks, which is partly why it's been so long since I've put any news here. But we found it thew other day. I haven't put any full-size photos up as we're still on dial-up for the time being and the web is painfully slow.

New tank, no photos :(

2009-03-13T18:02:00.004+11:00

We took heaps of pictures of our new new tank. It's 10,200 litres (around 3000 gallons, not big but we needed one less than 1800mm high) - but when we got back to Eagle Vale the whole memory card was "inaccessible". But I did get a photo of our current garden at Eagle Vale, which we are about to transfer to our trailer to move it to Rye Park in preparation for our move there. We hope to be moving within the next 2 months.
It should make an amusing photo sequence, ie, web page, when the transfer is complete.

love to all.

Fixed the front page of the site

2009-01-10T19:38:00.002+11:00

I discovered that the front page of the site looked awful in Internet Explorer even though it passed the web-standards-compliance validation by %100. The only browser I use is Firefox. So I re-coded it slightly and now it looks as it should:

A productive Xmas Break

2009-01-05T17:13:00.011+11:00

It's been a while since adding anything to the blog, but we've still been pottering around. Especially during the week we spent there between Xmas and Jan 4. The main achievement was to demolish the floor of the front verandah and put in new posts: The new page for the verandah on the photo site is:
http://ripeark.googlepages.com/verandah.html

We also harvested a very large zucchini, a whole lot of broad beans, and Lesley made the yummiest meal we've ever had - zucchini fritters, salad with potatoes, and beans:
Something we did a couple of months ago but didn't put here was a new gateway from the house to the vegie garden, which makes it a pleasure to go to the garden without having to straddle the fence:

Broad- beans and shed both sprouting!

2008-11-05T13:27:00.003+11:00

The Maximum size for a building not requiring a Development Application is 25 square metres, so this shed is 5x5 metres, and going up nicely so far. No estimated time of completion as yet, it just has to be finished by the time we move:
The broad beans are happy in the vegie tunnel. It's a bit frustrating that we can only be there every second weekend, but at least some infrastructure will be in place for when we move there.

Finished the Vege Tunnel!

2008-10-07T15:43:00.004+11:00

Lesley took a couple of weeks off work so we managed to have a couple of extended stays up there. Ryan spent most of the school holidays at Rye Park.
Also we made a retaining wall for where the plum trees are at the back of the house to make a bit of garden to be level with the new shed (when it goes up...)Thanks to John for all the materials and building stuff we got from Canberra - it will all come in handy.

Steve and Lesley

Productive weekend

2008-09-10T11:27:00.006+10:00

Three main things achieved: First, we did some burning off, which included some old prunings from over the past year plus while doing so we cut down this huge prickly bush which had been leaning on the back fence:Second, we got a neighbour, John, in to make a level bit of ground behind the plum trees for our small shed:
And lastly we did a bit more on the vegie tunnel. There's some incredibly rich soil up the back from an old chook-run as well as humus from under the prickle-bush and the (recently removed by Geoffrey and Alfonso over the back) tree-lucerne. We'll bring a trailer-load of it down to the tunnel:Sorry we didn't get to see Vicki, Andrew & co on Sunday. Hope all the Dads had a good Fathers Day!

Steve and Lesley

Vegie Tunnel Started.

2008-07-09T11:59:00.003+10:00

We've just got back from a 4-dayer with Ryan, who's up for the school hols. I've started a new page on the site for the gardens, here:
love to all,
Steve and Lesley

A Brief Visit for June

2008-06-17T12:13:00.002+10:00

I've been working on weekends till May 24 June 29th So we haven't had much of a chance to get up to Rye Park. Our previous trip was on May 17-19, the 19th being Lesley's birthday. This weekend we went up on Sunday night and came back Tuesday morning. We just felt like relaxing on the Monday so we went for a walk in the morning then we lit the fire and watched Lord of the Rings.

Lesley's been really busy at work as her colleague, Hong, is off work for 2 weeks following the birth of his baby Lachlan. Once he's back Lesley hopes to get a week off so we can head for the Park for a bit longer.

Steve

Not Much Done but Nice Lunch!

2008-04-15T16:21:00.002+10:00

One thing we did achieve was to finally get the gas hot water heater mostly working. We left the correct shower nozzle behind and used a smaller one which (hopefully) is why it was either fully hot or completely cold. Also connected up the grey-water output from the bath to the front garden, so our carrying of buckets is further reduced.

But the highlight of the weekend was a great get-together with Vick, John, Kate and Emma. Lesley cooked a beautiful Italian dish which everyone loved

"Moving The Tanks" now loaded to website

2008-04-10T10:03:00.003+10:00

And we're heading up this weekend. Hope to see you Mothers Day...

Steve

No New Photos Yet

2008-03-31T09:53:00.003+11:00

Hi. We got back on Sunday after a whole week up there which was really great. We didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but I'm always a bit ambitious. We did manage to move both of the big tanks from outside the kitchen up to the back. The larger of the two is full, but the other one had a leaky bottom, which we'll have to fix. While we had the swimming pool up to store the water while moving the tanks, we also drained the "high" tank and replaced the tap which had a big split in it from when it froze at some time in the past. We also bought an instant gas hot water heater, which turned out to be fiddly to install so we didn't get to have a shower this time - but hopefully it'll be ready in a fortnight.

We attended our first event at Rye Park on Saturday - the Harvest Festival, which was a really fun auction followed by a dinner. We met heaps of the locals and Lesley bought a whole fleece of alpaca wool for $1!

I'll put up another item here when the photos are up on the web site.

Next visit: Sat 12 - Mon 14

Love from Steve and Lesley

Wood, Bath, Tank-Stand

2008-03-18T16:52:00.004+11:00

Hi fans. We've just got back from another visit. We bought a load of wood for the verandah from a demolition yard in Goulburn, I swung the bathroom door, I made a platform for the tanks to go on (didn't take a photo but I'll put a new page in about the Moving of the Tanks). Also we painted the bath:

New Site

2008-02-13T17:54:00.000+11:00

Here's the new Website, but I'll still be putting news in this blog...

How we found the house

2008-02-07T20:30:00.000+11:00

When Lesley and I first met in 2006 we found straight away that we had similar dreams about making a "tree change". Quite early in the relationship we started looking at land, mainly around the Bathurst/Blayney area. The prices were not what we could afford, but the process of looking honed our desires and got us talking about what we really wanted, and what we wanted to do with the land.

After I moved into Lesley's house in Campbelltown (from Katoomba) We concentrated on our new life together and didn't think so much about land. But after about 6 months or so we ran out of room in our little half-house and started looking for a bigger place to rent locally. We were disappointed in the prices and availability, and on a bit of a whim Lesley went back to looking for properties. She found a half-acre block in a town called Rye Park (never heard of it) near Boorowa (never heard of it) near Yass (yes! Knew Yass!). When I rang the agent, he said there was a house on an acre in the town for $60,000. It turned out that the owner had only told the agent he wanted to sell the place that same morning - it wasn't officially even on the market yet. It sounded too good to be true, but we went for a drive anyway and we were amazed at what the place was. This is how we first saw it:

The inside was pretty bad:

And there was a possum in residence in the bathroom...

But there were plenty of water tanks:

And it had phone and electricity. We could start staying over straight away. For a while it would be a bit like "camping with walls" as Lesley said, but we knew it would only be until we made some improvements, and it was a lot better than having to start with a tent.

We made they guy an offer and he accepted $57,000, which the bank agreed to so it all happened!