So I was talking to a friend the other day, she was wondering how well we are settling in to our new home. I didn't immediately gush about the wonders of country life and just said honestly that, even though this is amazing, it has been an adjustment.
It isn't just a new house, it is a completely new way of living.
A lot of the things I took for granted living in the city and the suburbs just don't happen here, or you have to work harder for them.
Take rubbish collection for example. We used to sort rubbish from recycling and green waste, put the bins out every week and have it all magically taken away.
We don't have any rubbish collection here, so we have to sort into 5 bins:
- Compost (and we have 2 compost bins outside but I think I've been putting things in there that you're not supposed to like citrus and bread)
- Paper and cardboard- this goes into the wood fire
- Green waste- which is either composted or burnt off
- Recycling- bottles and plastic containers that I cannot re-use
- Rubbish- mainly plastic packaging
Interestingly, we now seem to only accumulate about one small shopping bag full of actual rubbish (sometimes not even that) per week and about the same of recycling. We take this with us when we visit someone with rubbish collection and put it in their bin usually, otherwise it would have to collect until we had enough to take to a tip somewhere.
Then there is the water. We are on tank water, this means using water more carefully (not taking excessively long showers), and filtering all drinking and cooking water through a Brita Jug, even to brush your teeth. We have an electric pump to push the water through the pipes and we can turn it off at night or when we go away to save power.
The mail delivery is different here, twice a week the postie does the rounds of the letterboxes on the main road (which is a dirt road too narrow for cars to pass in some areas). We had a charming little dilapidated letterbox until last week when someone took a corner too fast in their car and took out our letterbox in the process (our neighbour believes this was not accidental and was rather annoyed). So we collect our mail once a week at the local post office in Mirboo North, which is a 15 minute drive from here.
The last really obvious difference, particularly now in the middle of winter, is our heating. Our entire house is heated by a slow combustion wood heater. This works quite well and gets the house surprisingly toasty for its size but of course, we need to supply the wood for it.
Our nearest neighbour dropped over a few barrow loads full of hardwood and kindling when we first got here, which was a really nice thing to do, but that lasted about 2 weeks and the small supply of wood left by the previous owners was dwindling fast. We could buy it, which is an expensive exercise at $180+ per cubic metre, (about enough for 3-4 weeks) and that's when you go and get it in your own trailer. Or you can cut it up yourself, from wood available on your property.
On our small farm of 11.5 acres, we had 2 dead trees that needed chopping down and could be used for firewood, so we bought a chainsaw and after a few u-tube lessons, my husband got to work chopping one down. It all went really well and fell where it was supposed to, not damaging anything else in the process. He cut it up and we all took it in wheelbarrow loads back to the hayshed to stack up ready for use, which really boosted our depleted stores.
Some of it was huge and wouldn't fit in the heater, so we had to buy a splitter (an axe with a different shaped head) to chop it apart. I had a go at this and it is hard work. The cyprus falls apart fairly easily but you can hack away at the gum for ages before it breaks.
So the first thing I do every morning at the moment is to empty the ash pan outside, grab some kindling and larger pieces from the wheelbarrows full of different sized wood parked on the veranda, bring it inside, scrunch up newspaper and start the fire.
I'm not yet longing for the simplicity of turning on a switch and having instant heat, but all of this gives you a greater appreciation of how easy it has been to enjoy modern home comforts available in the suburbs.
