Survegalist McCoy

"On several occasions I've had customers show up to by recycled building materials while I'm bare ass inside the garbage can."

Recycled materials biz,now that explains your camping spots.
Yeah we live out bush in Australia and the black poly-pipe for heating water is already in use,while not our primary heating source it does for an outside shower.Thats where I want to put the 12volt pump..between the poly and shower head.Further down the track(Our bush block is new to us)I'd like a solar heatbank set-up for primary hot water,after all we get wicked sunshine out our way,even in winter.

We store heaps of food,canned,dehydrated,pasta,rice and tinned food as well.We live out in the bush where the bugs and animals carry a knife and fork around(Smug little buggers),the way we have got around a safe critter free storage system was to use old "thrown out" refridgerators/freezers to store our supplys in.We clean 'em up good and modify the shelving if needed to accomodate differen't size's of things,put a haspen staple lock on them and fill 'em up.The temp stays stable and the bugs don't get in.

Tinned food always gets a thin coating of olive oil from a spray can to protect from rusting.

I've read a fair bit of what you post Dale,most interesting has been that most of your camping is done at demolition sites within the city .

I like the thought process behind the hand pumped sprayer,I deffinately will be trying this one out..allbeit for fun.I was thinking of gravity fed outside bath/shower,solar heated with a 12volt solar pump to aquire pressure,not a huge amount but,pressure just the same.

G'day ediblecities,fellow Aussie here,
My understanding of trees with tap roots is,they usually go down to a depth 1/5th or so of the average expected hight of the tree in question.Saying that,I have planted trees that were only ment to reach 3m but,actually achieved 8m.You say you filled 1.5m,is there any trees that you can plant that only grow say,to 4-5m(Dwarf varieties) which might give clearence of the swampy underbelly?
If the trees you want are to be fruit trees then maybe a dwarf variety?.Where in Oz areya.

G'day Mike,Ya sound a bit like us,cept we are in Australia.
Don't know exactly what pumkins are worth in the states but,they are prolific little growers and don't take to much trouble to aquire a substancial cash crop.We got a thing down here called "Honesty Box's",basicly it's a tiny little shed type thing 3mx2m that sits out the front of our property that we put produce in for sale,Pumkins are just a gold coin,either $1 or $2, donation.Sure can bring in a lot of cash that way.The honesty box does have a lock on it though because well ,you know!

We only have two ac's and mostly it's about feeding ourselves,no kids..too old .
On our place we have plums,figs,peaches,apples,necterins,blackberries and olive trees,though not enough of either to make heaps of money from..more or less just for preserving.Although we are worlds apart it's allways exciting to be in the same situation,Y'all work hard now and it'll be easier in the long term.
It sure is a great site 'eh.

Thanks for your reply Robert,I've only ever used top quality bales befor and wasn't really sure.

Survegalist.

G'day folks,newbi from downunder.
We have just bought some acerage(2ac) and have several slopey spots,basicly it's not flat but workable.On some of the slope areas I want to put raised beds,the sides to be made of corrogated iron(although what the sides are made of is irrelevent) so anyhoo,I need to bulk the beds up substancially because of the gradient and have been offered a LOT of grass bales that were damaged in the floods we have been having down this way.Well there is mold on most of them as you would imagine,it's not all mouldy but it's there.Is there some reason or logic as to why I shouldn't use these bales to bulk up the beds.We plan to put heaps of horse/sheep/chicken manure on top with the final layer being mushroom compost.

The mould is that grey dusty stuff.

I really love this site and read it for hrs(Thats why I joined)Anyhoo,thanks for an informative forum.
Survegalist.