Occupying Bamboo

Now how's this for occupying my blog.

I was sitting outside, thinking I should put some photos of our day up on Facebook, and then thought 'no.......I'm gonna put it on my blog instead!'  At least I can put in depth bits in amongst it, and it's going down on a lovely blog book record.  

Today was a very productive day.  We were going to finish the bamboo fence on the verandah, and we got distracted by bringing the washing machine inside, and creating a bamboo shelf for wool storage and recycling.  There's no rubbish collection services around here, and we've been doing all sorts of lateral thinking to get rid of our rubbish.  So we've been pondering permanent solutions for all of it.  For a start, we've got a huge plastic drum that we can compost our compostable nappies in.  *blush of shame* We've been binning our compostable nappies guiltily, but justifying to ourselves that it would at least compost in land fill, and excusing ourselves with our travelling lifestyles and the difficulty of composting them.  And between Paul and us have finally come up with a solution.  To slowly compost them in a closed container with added food and straw, and then bury them around the bottom of plants, thereby recycling and reconnecting the cycle of life and eating and waste.  Our composting toilet is coping beautifully with all of us too.  

And we also decided that we needed a big shelving system to do our general recycling, and that it had to be custom designed to go over our big toolbox, so we turned to our new friend.....Bamboo.  I'm just loving what's going on here.  Cause there's a shite load of Bamboo (it deserves the capital) growing here, and it grows so quick that it needs to be harvested regularly, and in order to open up spaces to garden and play, we need to clear it, and when we clear it we can use it to build the stuff we want to fill the newly cleared spaces with!!

We're in an awed kind of honeymoon phase with Bamboo at the moment, and I suspect it may not wear off.  So we decided to finally take charge of our recycling and wastes, and better manage the two rooms that we hadn't quite gotten to in our time here yet.

Here's Currawong starting off the concept, and working with the Bamboo at hand and the particular twist it has, to make it the most structurally sound.  And where he's working, with the blue splash on the wall, is where our new laundry is, with a shelf for all the tools and stuff that suits living in a laundry.

The really big advantage of working like this around the house, is that I get to look at a gorgeous Currawong in various states of dress, and here he's very handsomely displaying his builders crack.  Don't they all have them??

With one shelf up, and another one on the way, Balthazar helps Currawong, who's managed to make a costume change in between cutting down bamboo, cooking lunch, and answering a million childlike demands.

Finishing off the last details......there's always the last little bits that need a bit of final touching.  We're working with cable ties at the moment, but I'm seriously looking into making rope out of wool.  To tie all our creations together, combined with cutting notches out so they dovetail together.  

And here's a very proud Currawong standing next to an awesomely well done job (that I forced him to pose for).  We're starting to get a bit excited.  About all the furniture and shelving we can make to fit spaces, and details of how to do it, and I'm still stewing on an idea for the kitchen......

You'll have to wait for a photo of how good it looks stacked.  There's something so fulfilling about making something from our own hands, with our own labour and skills, and that it's also caring for the land at the same time.  

I think we've been bitten by the Bamboo Bug!  I can just see it now, Bamboo chairs, Bamboo beds, Bamboo everything!!!