Project :: Caveman

small sunday harvest

2011-08-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

Maggots

2011-08-21T03:33:00.001-07:00

So aquaponics is catching on! There are 3 of us at Caloundra DEM who are into it, Emma gave me some of her black soldier fly larvae (maggots). He family generate a few kilos of them per day (?) and freeze them and feed them to the fish.

They go nuts on the household waste and chow through it all in a short amount of time, seems like a solid way of getting rid of household green waste and turning it via only a few short steps into quality food. Sensational example of a closed loop system to me, really excited about it! Just dont tell the missus... ;)

2 awesome auqponics videos

2011-08-17T05:30:00.001-07:00

Fresh from YouTube today:

Aquaponics setups made with recycled wood, boats and ponds, all aesthetically blended into your backyard. I want to do this soooo much.

Bonus video - some show from the US about Urban Farming

How not to invest

2011-08-17T05:24:00.000-07:00

Tried my hand (again) at day trading, after sucking arse at it several hundred times.

Why is it the ads show a relaxed dude in a pool with a laptop when in reality its anything but, requiring and intimate understanding of the technicalities and current markets for foreign exchange, world economics, needing to read every bit of national and corporate economic news, having an understanding of the products each company sells, an understanding of technical analysis, up to the second knowledge on where all the indices are, where all of the resistance and support is for each of these and for all the stocks you are looking at, etc etc.

I mean if ever there was a job that required about 20 hours of hard work each day, this is it. Combined with the fact that if you have a bad day, its not like you go home and kick the cat, you don't have a home...not sure how that translates to pool-side relaxing myself.

Then you have to learn execution and avoid getting horrible fills, and avoid (or make) all the mistakes that everyone makes - "I hate this company I'm going to short it because its crap, how come everyone can't see it, oops there goes my house", or "if i read more about this one company I can be better than it than everyone", never minding the fact its what you think, its what the market thinks.

Then you gotta dodge all the spruikers, the "wall street parrots", all the advertisments promising you "56765765% in the next five seconds", the hot stock tips, avoid putting all your eggs in one basket, avoid putting all your cash in at the beginning and having nothing left, dodging margin calls, avoid the mistake of hanging onto your losers, or having the balls to ride it out for months-years (only for it to rip the moment you sell), and avoid getting bored with things and doing things out of boredom, avoiding doing things just because you can "hety I just got access to the NYSE, sweet, lets buy a shitload of Google" (me).

Its a feeakin' nightmare.

Having said all of that, I had a goodnight with "The Goat" (twitter.com/gtotoy) at www.daytraderbootcamp.com last night. Having a chatroom full of dudes telling you to pull your head in, having old hands leading the way, available to answer questions, makes the whole thing eminently within the realms of possibility after all. My insanely tiny trades were a point of mirth for all, but it was good to learn without too much stress, and a small amount each night/week will hopefully add up in the long term.

Here's to not cocking up (much) more.

Make a wind turbine from scrap metal

2011-08-14T12:28:00.001-07:00

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Build-A-wind-Turbine-From-Recycled-Scrap-Me/

Primitive Aeroponics with a plastic box

2011-08-11T01:43:00.000-07:00

Quick video on a home made aeroponics setup from a plastic tote / archive box, some cheap hoses and sprinklers from a local hydroponics shop. I uninstalled it coz I wanted to put in my floating raft instead but was good to go through the process.

Floating Rafts

2011-08-11T01:34:00.000-07:00

After reading what must have been a million times, on how good styrofoam is for floating rafts, I finally got off my arse and made one. I guess I was thinking that it must be possible to buy a full-sized styrofoam raft of some sort, not only cheap, but cut and made to measure grow beds of all sizes, and that these must even be stocked at Coles or Woolies. I made my way to the home maker aisle of wooolies and was shocked that this product was not on sale next to the diet coke and the Handy Ultra - outrage! :) I dunno what I thought.

This literally set me back about 6 weeks until the other day I thought "why not just cut up some styrofoam boxes" - they sell for $2 at a local greengrocers, who cant get rid of them fast enough it seems. It took about 5 minutes to cut them down and put holes in them, and they fully float in the lower bathtub of the BathTub setup. Each one can carry 10-20 net pots, thus adding about 50 extra plants to the bottom bathtub. Easy as!

Deep Water Culture Hydroponics

2011-08-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

Primitive DWC Hydroponics design:

This setup is made with some fence palings from Bunnings and some builder's film. The palings would be about $15 and the builders film about $5, another $3 for the hinge. The pots were obtained free from a local nursery's "pot exchange", and there is a $15 aerator from a local aquarium, so $40-$50 all up?

Basically its full of water, threw some seaweed extract, volcano dust and some worm juice in there, and that's all the nutrients the plants need. The aerator keeps the water full of oxygen and its completely dark in there, so no risk of algal blooms. Its got some lettuce, basil, chives, broccoli growing in it, the chives especially seem to love it.

If I were to do it again I would get some "net pots" from the hydroponics store, which are smaller, and I could fit 3x as many pots in there, with only 16 slots its not really an effective use of the space, I recently fit 10 pots on a aeroponics rig about 1/8 the size. Setup right, it could hold about 80 pots, thus being a rad little food production unit.

Bathtub Aquaponics

2011-08-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

So I've recently had 5 weeks off work, I was initially fishing but moved on to getting some bathtubs up from Brisbane, where they were making bathtub-shaped holes in my mate's lawn. Having no proper elecrtics on the tow-bar this inevitably involved braking more of Australia's road transport laws, but you know, totally worth it and whatnot.

Last year I got a bathtub kit from Murray Hallum at aquaponics.net.au and I used this in the bathtubs, it was dead simple to install, the most challenging bit was moving these 100kg beasts off the trailer and under the house single-handedly, then up onto 3 bessa blocks - sounds easy but excrutiatingly painful and time consuming.

From there it was a matter of loading them up with gravel, getting the system cycling, and eventually adding a simple fluoro light screwed into a fence paling running down the middle in order to provide some extra light - really dark in there, flirting wit the idea of moving it all, but $25 at Bunnings solved the problem.

The system is a self-peretuating plant-growing beast at the moment, just throw seeds in with careless abandon and they can't help but germinate as the water floods and drains.

Eventually it'll have fish in it but for now its being powered with human wee, my wee to be precise. Recently the thought of infecting dinner guests with E.Coli occured to me but we'll see how it goes!

At the moment its growing lettuce and parsley, just added some chives and random seeds from the kitchen. Early days but the signs are that the whole bathtub system could be the way of the future for me. considering I've never successfully grown a lettuce yet, also something that actually works for me.

Money Farming

2011-07-12T19:21:00.000-07:00

One of the goals of project caveman is to become self-reliant -> self-sufficient with money, by reducing my reliance on money for buying things by creating my own, and to also invest/trade in shares, thinking of this as "money farming". I've been doing this about 9 months now, and this is a bit of a progress update.

The Project Caveman detractors point out how un-caveman this approach of trading shares is, but its a way out of the capitalistic/consumeristic life I've landed in, with the added bonus of adding nothing to the economy, taking other's hard earned work for their employers, and money other people spend consuming, turning it into cash for me, so please keep buying more cheeseburgers, maxing out your credit cards, and using 50 months interest free at Harvey Norman please, I'm loving it!

The first step was to create an account with www.interactivebrokers.com - they are a big international stocks/futures/everything broker, with the lowest rates (for about 10k trades) of any platform, and you get free access to all of the markets in the world, not just Australian, and not just top 100 Australian.

I then created an account with Strategic Capital Management (www.strategiccapitalmanagement.co.nz) - Andrew is an old friend from school, and we've spent a year talking about what he does and how he does it - he basically does "systems trading" with "futures", which is to say that he has an automated system for ....zzzz .. .

...anyway, he makes a number of trades each month, takes small losses and small wins, gets it to work slightly in his favour over time, and ends up with 50-100% improvement each year. It can make money when the market is tanking as well, which is good. Its like skimming off the top while adding no value whatseoever to the world economy, which is also good, as its all a bit bollocks really.

Futures are wildly volatile, crazy derivatives, that it takes balls of steel to consider touching, so big hats off to Andrew for making this work in the long term. Still I'd rather give 50-100% a year a go, than go down the 6% (- 5% inflation) cash approach, get royally fucked by Storm Financial, or consider Colonial First State's my -5% over 10 years, which has been the return on my superannuation - useless twats. For an idea of SCM performance go to http://www.strategiccapitalmanagement.co.nz/performance/ - note the bollocking he has copped this year...

Anyway, the plan is to implement the above with about half the money, and trade/invest with the other half ourselves, though mainly PK. It turns out that Sez/PK is a gun at it, and I suck arse (though still think I can come good...no wait, I'm useless) and we invest/trade with the other half of it, on a more medium term time-frame.

In terms of information, it can be hard to find and took us about 3 months of searching to get good sources - there are a number of traders on www.stocktwits.com who send email alerts for trades, for about $50 per month - we've tried twitter.com/traderstewie and twitter.com/gtotoy - they send out emails when they make trades and all you have to do is check them out and decide if you want in.

They come through in the middle of the night though, which is painful, though now that Will is here and we are up anyway, might. just. work. Sez goes onto www.hotcopper.com.au for her stock gossip, seems to be all about the mining, but that's the whole country anyway, so whatever. Other good sources are http://finance.google.com, http://finance.yahoo.com, http://www.stockcharts.com, http://finviz.com - there's not much in Australia though, the best info comes from the US on their market, which is frankly akin to the wild west, run by Goldman Sachs insiders, automated high frequency trading robots, and dominated more by world events than the companies themselves.20% swings every month are par for the course, its a bit of a nightmare.

After 9 months, we've broken even (almost) (which feels like a win, given the amount of mistakes I've made), but now that I'm out of the road, its going a lot better, and rather than it take ALL my time, frees me up to do everything else caveman anyway.

So in terms of progress, the "money farming" system is now up and running, time will tell how it all goes! The plan is to get this working, simplify everything else, grow more of our own food, and slowly exit modern society.

more fishing

2011-07-09T02:00:00.001-07:00

6 July 2011 - More fishing

In another bold experiment, I decided to try to do some dawn fishing, to experiment and see if that would make any difference to my non-ability to catch fish.It was 5:30 by the time I stuffed around and rowed out from a new location, after leaving home at 4:30.

As someone who never gets up before 10, it was a surreal experience being up so early, only trucks and trades are about at that time -not even crazy joggers and cyclists are in motion at that hour. It's a combination of eerie and serene. And cold, very cold.Rowing out in the pre-dawn river was pristine- it was quiet, occasional fish leapt out if the ocean, it felt truly virgin and clean to be out, even if I was in the middle of McMansion central, with oil-spilling multi-million dollar yachts around. Most of which are for sale, my inner caveman wryly noted.

So, a little later than ideal, I was on Cartwright reef, and the fish were jumping onto the hook. I must have caught a baby of every species, each one returned apart from a brief flurry of sand whiting, 3 of which were kept, with one escaping.Unfortunately I know nought about gutting fish, so I'm just keeping them for bait down the track. Geoff, the bro-in-law-to-be then awoke after a hard night of tour de franking, and we went out to inner gneerings, where I actually found reef, tho not a bite in sight.even tried kayak trawling for the first time, which was technically successful but failed to produce anything, other than a lecture from passing water police on tiger sharks.

Then imagine s montage of: A quick swim to Mudjimba island, snorkelling to see if i could see any good reefs, was pretty sparse. Then staring vacantly out to sea, only to note the boat drifting off it's anchor, a mad swim/kayak kit to save it after being knocked by a wave into coral and cutting the shot out of my hand. Good times!

Fishing for dinner

2011-06-16T02:59:00.000-07:00

I went out on the boat today to attempt to catch my dinner, and find some spots to do so on a more regular basis. The plan was to take the boat, finally ready for such adventures after weeks of work, out on the water, do some fishing, and then get back as quickly as possible. I left the house at 3, and got out on the reef just outside the river mouth at 4. The fish were going mental, bites within 30 seconds each time. I totally wasn't expecting any bites at all, consistent with the hundred previous attempts. I caught one bream within the first minute, a second bream a few minutes after that, however that was waaaay too small, so went back. Many bites and lost bait later, the sun was setting, and it was time to bail. As usual it took about an hour to get the roof back up and unpacked, the next plan is to reduce that time for the quick trips, try to get it all done in 2-3 hours would be ideal. So, ultimately I finally had some success in getting food sorted out, hoping for more successes over the next few weeks.

The battle with credit cards

2011-01-14T05:32:00.000-08:00

There are a few fundamental points in caveman history when it comes to money.
1. The invention of currency
2. The invention of banking
3. Founding of the visa corporation
4. The partnership of the banks and Visa, to screw people over.

While the invention of money is a great way for the caveman to exchange his skills for goods and services, the use of a high interest debt vehicle to pay for things was not such a good idea. Or a genius one, depending on your shareholder level in Visa corporation...

One of the goals of Project Caveman is to reduce and simplify things, with money it's about eliminating pointless debt, all of those fucking 2 year contracts, and above all - credit cards. This post is about how I got rid of my credit cards, and what it's like to live without one. as they on Twitter - #firstworldproblems

I'm not sure when I progressed to having a credit card, when I became deemed enough of a responsible citizen to earn a role as a cash cow for Visa Corporation and my bank. And it seems like everyone has one now, when previously only a select few were permitted to by the banks. Cerainly growing up I don't really remember anyones parents having one or anyone talking about their credit card debt?

It was originally my then girlfriends idea, to put bills on it then pay it off at the end of the month, and I think that's how we all get sucked into the concept. And for some reason I was supposed to care about frequent flyer points, so it came with that, along with a vague uneasiness.

And things were generally okay, but recently as a student again i racked up the limit while the bank still thought I was gainfully employed. And I used it more and more while I was a student. I didn't think it was that much but it kept maxing out, and became an issue with the monthly repayments a few times. While I resolved them, they were stressful and enough to keep me perpetually paying them off, never quite making it. Trapped like a fucking rat on a wheel, running faster and faster to stand still.

At one point last year I had a 14 grand limit and had it maxed out regularly, which sets you back about $500 a month, which was most of my post - mortgage income. More than it in fact! Not cool, and during this time, my anger of the concept grew. The amount of fucking time I spent stressing over credit cards and the amount of money I spent on the things is just plain stupid and insane, in hindsight.

So i set out last year to rid myself of this cancer, and escape the clutches of the Visa corporation. Eliminating the credit card was actually a long and difficult process, there were procedural delays and in the end they offered me $150 not to close it for a few months, coerced me with "just keep it for emergencies" and the like. Sneaky muther fuckers. I got angry on the phone a lot.

After a few weeks of stuffing around I finally did it, and it's had quite an impact, with budgeting and the like. I get about $1300 a pay, pay out $1000 on rent and live on the rest. By keeping it simple, it's pretty easy to get by, and it enforces frugality in it's very nature. Advertising washes over you when you have no money to spend. All those little compulsions to spend just evaporate. I feel free of the expectations of modern living, free of societies expectations to spend, help the economy, try to impress people i dont like with stuff I can't afford.

I get to keep all my money, small though it may be, and I don't have to give any of it to Visa or the bank! Every paycheck I receive, this continues to feel immensely satisfying, you have no idea.

Having a limited budget changes your priorities and your focus in a big way. You rapidly learn to hoard and save, and appreciate what you have a lot more, both in the material and also the non-material sense.
Like The other day I went to the bank to complain about $5 per month fees, and had a win, getting like $30 back from them. Laughable I know, but satisfying nonetheless, and I can do a lot with that $30 right now, so fuck it I'll gladly do an old man and complain at the bank!

So yes, its a mild struggle in the scheme of things, and full of first world problems, but in the first world context of things, it's been interesting to escape the more disabling parts of the setup, to regain some control over my money my soul and psyche. So, no big deal, just one step closer to Project Caveman and my story on how I eliminated credit cards from my life!

2011 Caveman Goals

2011-01-09T23:06:00.000-08:00

So Im planning to make some serious headway this year, after a few years of learning and planning and scheming and plotting.....

Food
To grow my own food, by the end of the year. To do this Im gonna grow veges, potatoes, pumpkins, and fish in the backyard with a small bathtub aquaponics system, get (a lot) better at catching fish and raise some chickens. I'm gonna starve...

Transport
To use my car 1 day a week, with the array of bicycles at my disposable the rest of the time. I can only get fit, sweaty, stinky and wet right? Oh and hit by a car and end up in hospital.

Money
To invest the money from the house wisely but fairly aggressively, and try to save enough to pay off Sar's house in a few years time. Make something from it throughout the year.

Energy
Ideally I want to get OFF THE GRID. But with cash bound to be tight this might have to wait till 2012. Which gives me time to draft that letter to my electricity provider. The one that just says "SUCK IT". This year Im just gonna play with my little camping solar setup on the boat and when we go camping.

Shelter
Obviously a biggie. We are renting at the moment, and the investing is aiming to pay of Sar's house in a few years, but this one will take time. So no end goals, just a progression to getting her house paid off.

In the meantime I'll get my fill of, and share, ideas relating to the EarthShip concept - that would be the ideal, even if it just mean retrofitting the ideas into a regular Queensland house.

2011 - the year of the caveman!

2011-01-09T16:47:00.000-08:00

So its been an age since the last post, but I promise things havent been idle - Ive been hard at work trying to pursue Cavemanning, I promise. I made a lot of progress in a number of key areas, which while they dont necessarily make an exciting story, are important to the progress of the Caveman.

More significant progress will be made in 2011 as well, with fundmental steps currently being made in food production, transport, and money (dirty word yes, but actually important to the Caveman).

I'm going to try to make an entertaining video podcast as well this year, with my experiments and failures on it for amusement.

New Gardens

2010-01-19T21:26:00.000-08:00

So while away I decided to pursue a few new things this year - add some fruit trees to the side of the house, and get a garden bed down, down the side of the house!

I got about 12 m2 of garden bed bricked off, and I think it will be enough for now. After we rent out the house I'll just throw some mock oranges on it or something, but in the meantime, it'll be good practice.

UPDATE
The extended garden bed has been abandoned.... just gonna plant on the existing one for a bit.

Philosophy by Maslow

2010-01-18T14:57:00.000-08:00

Project Caveman is based around Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is basically a psychological principle describing how we structure our needs, as the psychotic apes that we are.

This blog kind of concentrates on the bottom levels of this pyramid, as that's all that Cavemen knew :) I guess Maslow wasn't around yet....

Higher levels will be discussed, but they are more inferred, bit more boring than the rest of this "interesting" stuff (sorry).

Beees!

2010-01-07T15:29:00.001-08:00

With all the plants flowering around the place, I'm happy to welcome a new addition to the place - BEES!

Just dont tell Sara.

AquaPonics Fish Tanks

2010-01-06T23:14:00.000-08:00

So I dragged FatLoserBoy all over Ipswich today, on the quest to find some suitable containers for holding fish. We looked hi and low, and on the way attempted to find a recycled house stuff warehouse (theyve ALL shut down apparently!).

A few quick stops were made at Bremer Tafe, for FLB to enrol in an Arts Diploma, and ""Town and Country" where the attendant proceeded to tell me how little research I'd actually done. Get stuffed, attendant.

After an extensive search, including much discussion on making them, looking at raw materials for it even, we ended up at Bunnings (again) and saw they had a 500L tank there for $79. To my mind, starting out on the whole enterprise, it would be the way to go - as opposed to making our own out of wood, cement or metal.The other thing I've *just* found out about is "IBCs", you can 1000L tanks for $100 from eBay. The only other thing I saw was a Raised Garden Bed made from corrgated iron, but this would set you back close to $300, but looks pretty good.

Chickens and Soap

2010-01-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

Im keen on getting some chooks. Having only a small yard and limited cash to spend, I might start with a simple A-Frame chicken coop and go from there, down the track. Will probably start with just the two and see how that goes!

There is some great information on doing it at the Down To Earth Blog. She also writes on a whole host of items, baking bread, making soap, all that stuff that I want to get into.

So ideally we would have a few egg-laying hens, and a few for growing and eating, but to start with we'll just get a few for eggs, and go from there.

Guard Your Mango Trees

2010-01-03T16:15:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't like (free) mangoes? In my wanderings around Annerley, I have over time, noted that there are many mnay mango trees in vacant lots, on council property, all just sitting there with tons of unused, juicy, delicious mangoes hanging off them, being ignored by the local population.

So, to that end, and in the spirit of dumpster diving (I've only done it ONCE) (but I thought it was pretty cool), Ive been going on some late night raids around Annerley. If you see a suspicious individual wearing black, with a headlamp on his head, and carrying a massive rake, just casually walking around the streets of Annerley, minding his own business ladeedada, give me a wave!

My friend doesnt seem to think that people should need to "guard their mango trees". I have noted that he has since started actually picking his off his tree though, maybe because he knows that I know where he lives :)

Its also given me an insight into what its like to sneak around suburbs late at night. Its pretty cool/creepy. No-one really notices you, most people are inside watching telly, only the odd house will have people hanging outside at night, everyone else is watching telly or on the computer. Yes I have been watching *you* mwahhahhaaaaaaa.

I, paradoxically, call it the "Caveman mentality" - we all like to get inside at night where its safe and warm, and free from harm from maruding invaders or wild animals. I even have friends who won't venture onto the streets at night in the suburbs, for fear of something bad happening to them. But we'll happily to into the valley, where something bad *might* actually happen to you.

Shelter - more rendering

2010-01-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

It wasn't long after Caveman discovered fire that he discovered the bathroom, and then how important it was to have a nice one to attract Mrs Caveman, after all when most caves are bought its the cavewoman who makes the decisions!

So whoever did the work on this place before that, either didnt understand this pronciple, or was a jailor who wanted to bring his work home with him on weekends, because, as you can see, the downstairs "bathroom" looks like it could be at home at Guantanamo Bay or the lower reaches of hell, such is its tragic disgusto-ness.

It has for a long while seemed a bridge too far, but with most of the other major work done, its time to give Godzilla a facelift. The plan is to convert the room from something you might keep your gimp in, to something that you won't have to watch the Blair Witch Project to get desensitised to.

So I want to basically, render it, paint it yellow (or maybe another colour Sara), paint the celinings and the exposed pipes white, and put some tiles down - in Phase I. After that I'd like to put in a vanity or a shower, but being a bit cash-poor at present, that will have to wait a bit.....! For now, its all about making it half-decent.

Project Caveman - detailed goals

2010-01-03T02:06:00.000-08:00

With the new year, I was thinking about what I'd really like to get to with Project CaveMan.

1. Solar Electricity at the house, about 4kW worth, to get off the grid
2. 3 compost bins, 240L each, 720L all up
3. 40 m2 of garden, proving veges (472kg per year apparently) for 4 people
4. Growing fish in a backyard fish farm
5. A chicken coop with a dozen chickens, for eggs (and "chicken").
6. Water Tank, maybe 10000L
7. Greenhouse for nurturing the seedlings
8. A few worm farms, about 60,000 worms all up.

That's housey stuff anyway.... it would go well with a good camping setup, 4WD and a small boat for adventuring!

So its early days for the housey stuff, but the adventuring is down pat. WIth the house renos kind of just done, its all just getting started but looking fun for the future, will just take a bit of time.

Lessons learned about germination

2009-12-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

At the tail end of the germination process. leave the seedlings in there for an extra week or 3, so that they are *physically* big enough to survive in the pots or the garden beds. I transplanted a bit early and the rain physically smashed them into smithereens.... *sigh*

Its a pain, but you have to really look after them after the transplant process for a few weeks making sure that they are fully protected from the elements for a while until they are big enough to go into the outside world on their own, go to school, get a job and start a family... bless their little cotton socks ... ;)

Fruits of our labours

2009-12-28T15:18:00.000-08:00

A few months after beginning from scratch (the very beginning), the original crop of tomato plants have begun to bear fruit, after flowering for a while.

Even the smaller plants have started to flower as well and are beginning to show the same desire to grow fruit.

There is still a lot to learn about how each plant grows and what they do after they reach maturity, but its a good feeling to see some success and results happening at this early stage!

The general process is that after germination, they start to mature, then they will flower. Depending on the plant, they may need another plant to pollinate them, or they may be able to self-pollinate.

Given the close proximity of so many tomato plants, these have been able to have sex with each other in some sort of tomato-based plan orgy.

Of course, no doubt everything will produce at once, and we'll go from no tomatoes to a thousand in the space of a week.

Um, tomatoes anyone?

Food Introduction

2009-12-27T22:38:00.000-08:00

Part of the challenge of Project Caveman is to start growing my own food, using seeds sourced from shops, bought food from the Markets, and seed saved from the garden, with an eventual reliance on saved seed over time. I'd like to get to about 50% of food production from home.We started with some herbs in July, and they actually didnt die, thanks to Sara's presence. During Surgery rotation, about October, after getting back from Texas (Australia) I started getting the gear needed to do it, and its actually been really cheap to get it all set up.

Worm Farm: $100
2000 worms: $100
150 pots (ugly but cheap): $15
Random other pots (nice ones): $100
40 bags of potting mix, $3 a bag: $120
10 blocks of Peat: $30
8 Germination trays, $8 each: $64
Seeds from Eden Seeds: $70
Miracle-Gro x 2: $30

And that's it for a complete (initial) set up, to allow a whole heap of veges to be grown at home, for kitchen scraps to be recycled and used as fertiliser and establish a germination system that can be close-looped after a certain amount of time. If I was going to do it even cheaper, I'd get rid of the nice pots, maybe blow off the worm farm, and it would be possible to be up and running for less than $300.

Eventually I'll get all nice pots and put in a raised garden bed or three, and spend some more money on it, but this is a decent start, and Ive got a coomplete closed-loop system up and running in only 2-3 months.

From the second last photo, you can see the latest crop that's in the process of being transitioned from the germination trays to pots. Its the bit that take the longest actually, but mainly coz Im filling the posts with mix for the first time each time they get transferred.

At the moment there are about 70 plants in pots, and another 50 waiting to be transferred across from the germination trays in a few weeks time, once they get a bit bigger. At the moment, we've got carrots, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, watermelon, onions, beetroot, corn, lettuce, herbs in, with some more to come!

Im trying to avoid things like hydroponics, aquaponics at this stage, just trying to make the growing as primitive as I can, within the constraints of living in the city and needing to move house in a few months. Ideally I'd have a few acres and go nuts with raised garden beds and flat ones, but with only 300 square meters to play with, I cant do what I'd ultimately like to do, but that gives me a chance to show whats possible in the city (not that I know what that is).

Camping at The Wrecks, Moreton Island.

2009-12-27T21:09:00.000-08:00

They said we were crazy, to drive the boat over to Tangalooma from Redcliffe, when we'd never ventured into the bay before and had only just bought the boat, and we still learning its limits. The road over had its moments, with a bit of choppiness, a max speed pf 10 knots at times, the discovery that in choppy weather the motor had a tendency to want o go either 2 knots and languish on the waves, or 30 knots and leap off the top of the waves, and we kind of varied in a semi-controlled manner between the two, getting slammed by waves, drenched in salt water, beaten by the sun, stressed about survival and lazily wondering about life jacket accessibility.

Then it was over. We arrived into paradise, drenched and stressed, people were drinking beer on the sand as we scrambled off and kissed the ground like crazed shipwreckers of yore. No-one cared that we were alive at all.

Shipwreck reefs, snorkelling, sand tabogganning, fishing, cooking, camping, watching the stars and the lights of Brisbane, seeing ocean liners cruise liners steaming up the bay, slowing down and getting into the rhythym of the tides, the sun and the weather; we'd entered paradise and there was no looking back to the city, well unless you happened to look that way and you could see the city buildings, Mt Coot-tha and the Glasshouse Mountains all from one spot!

The second day, we decided to head up to the resort to have a look.
While we where there, it began to POUR. Rather than stay at the pub there, we thought we would head back to the camp to keep an eye on the campsite, to make sure it wasnt rained out.

What we saw was total camping disaster. The campsite was GONE. The gazebo had been demolished into a million pieces, the boat was offthe anchor and filling with rain water! Several hours of madly tying tarps to the boat (I'd left the canpy behind) in the rain and bounding waves, then several more hours of fixing the campsite ensued. The next day we had to make a trip up to Bulwer at the north of Moreton Island to get some supplies to resurrect the campsite, or face a rainy few days of no hot meals, constantly pushing rain off the tarp, and just general misery. But we got some extra stuff and we were back in business!
After that, it was clear sailing, apart from another mission to Bulwer for fuel, lugging 50 kg 400m over hot sand with no shoes..... that sucked. But after that, we got back into it, some fishing, snorkelling an dolphin watching at the resort with our new-found friends, Barry and Jill.

Project Caveman Shelter - A 2 year update

2009-12-17T15:44:00.000-08:00

So its been about 2 years exactly since I moved back into the house, to be confronted with the negelect of tenants (was I this bad when I rented?) (or did I just not notice), and I embarked on a quest to learn how to do some renos spent a truckload of cash, and proved I have *some* capability in the process.

Its been a challenge, involving many late nights of renovations when I should be out drinking and socialising, but its also been very rewarding, empowering, and fun as well! So here is a rundownof everything thats been done in the past 2 years, in excruciating detail.....

So the first 3 photos on the left were taken about Jan 2008, after I first moved back in. The first is on the day I moved back in and saw all the neglect of 3 lots of tenants, the second is after I started to expand a bit.

This is a Google Street View shot taken in January 08, with Aunty Bron's car out the front, and the backdoor neighbour's care permanently parked on the nature strip, along with their washing machine, general rubbish and 3 foot high grass.

This is a similar shot of the place today. Hopefully it looks a bit better!

Knocked down the old fence, chopped down and dug out the trees in front of the fence, dug out the fence posts (they were deep and heavy and a mission to actually lift into the skip), and commandeered some land in miltary style in the process.

Painted all of the bottom story of the house - after much experimentation of a million shades of slightly off white (they all looked pretty much the same), we settled on "Peplum". It was a bight of a Tyler Durdon moment yes. I'm only now finishing this off by painting the window frames.

Construction of a new fence around the expanded land to prevent beagle escape - involved digging out the holes, cementing them in, building the fence and nailgunning in the pailings, then many late nights of painting the fucking thing - thanks to Sara, Cat, Mark, Geoff, Mum for their help! Construction of the doors was an interesting challenge, and there was some "door fail" involved.

Planted a "mock orange fence" near the footpath, moved the garden bed blocks out to in front of the trees (to stop the neighbourhood kids running over them with bikes, and in the process ruining their fun).

Dug out all of the dirt around the aforementioned palm trees, removed the paving near it, dug it all out, put fresh dirt on top of it and turfed it to expand the grassy area and make a little bbq area out the back big enough for a gazebo.

The front corner of this land needed raising and a bit of manual landscaping, this involved digging out the dirt, piling it, putting blocks in front and filling in behind it.

Chopped down a paw-paw tree, chopped down and dug out 3 palm trees, 2 bouganvillea, 1 random tree down the side of the garden.

Sanded back and re-oiled the front and back decks.

De-palettified the front stairs by putting some boards in front of it - measuring, cutting, painting, nailing, puttying, sanding, re-painting.
De-rustified and repained the front stairs and the railing, and convinced a vine to run up it.
Planted some decent plants in the front garden to solve the problem of that being a perpetual desert. Put in some mondo grass, yucka trees, and mock oranges. Along the way also tried to put in some flowers (dead) and sweet potatio (still alive) and potato plants (eaten by dogs).
Dug out all the old turf, got rid of all the weeds that were everywhere, and re-turfed the entire lawn with some Walter Raleigh.
On the inside, I painted all of the dodgy and scuffed trimming in every room. I watched 3 test matches this way, back when Andrew Symonds was playing (well).
Painted the wardrobe in the bedroom, which was purple for some reason.

Completely re-did the downstairs lounge-room and bedroom, involved many weeks of rendering, painting, repainting, putting in ceilings, lights, cornicing the corners, creating gyprock boxes around pipes and on different ceiling heights, putting doors on the inbuilt cupboard, gyprocking the back of the cupboard, installing railings and doors, installing blinds. This whole thing has taken about 18 months of the 2 years by itself.
Rebuilt the fence out the back oft he house after the retarded neighbours (now left) repeatedly smashed into it with their "car".
Cleaned out the back shed after the tenants had filled it with all manner of spider-laden blocks, old desks and wood.
Removed the crap "water feature" on the side of the house that had always pissed me off. It was a moment of "this is my place, I can do whatever the hell I want!".
Painted the laundry.
Turned the back door into a barn door (badly).
Re-sealed the bathroom after it decided to leak.
After the storms in November 08, I had to seal with concrete, all of the seams in the downstairs jail toilet after the downstairs of the house flooded, this was a whole day of concreting after the storms and the day before going overseas on holidays. In these storms, the back deck also fell off and I had to hack into some ceiling to prevent it all from getting waterlogged. This has finally been fixed as well (insurance job) (shame).

Um, thats about it. Gladly, its all coming to an end over the next few weeks!

Introduction to Project Caveman

2009-12-16T17:29:00.000-08:00

Project Caveman is "a project related to Cavemanning". It's about connecting with human endeavours of those who have gone before me, exploring nature and biology, and regaining some human spirit through the following main endeavours:

1. Farming, hunting, gathering my own food
2. Getting off the power grid and supplying my own energy (electricity)
3. Supplying my own shelter and having a comfortable and functional space to live in
4. Exploring my local region and appreciating the natural wonder that surrounds me
5. Trading, for money, and to lessen the reliance on any one employer for income

The idea of this is to try to decrease my reliance on cash, corporates, supermarket chains for my living. Im still of course beholden to banks, employers, Brisbane City Council (mafia) and the general ideals of capitalism of course, but I want to add in elements of naturalism along the way.

I do love technology and will continue to utilise it as much as I want, but on the way I am trying to simplify and take pleasure in being a tiny but self-sufficient and gain an understanding and appreciation of what it takes to not only survive, but to live well on the way and attain some joie de vivre.

This project will encompass many aspects, including: renewable energy, farming, permaculture, worming farming, composting, DIY, renovations, technology, hunting, fishing, markets, trade, dumpster-diving, gathering resources and food, but won't be limited to any one type of idealogy, other than the art of "Modern Day CaveManning" (whatever that is).

This project has been going for a year now, and the first few posts will be a mixture of the old and new, to catch up on the last year and also current endeavours, which build on what has been happening for the last year.