Hi,

[Max and Mandy]

Hi everyone, just browsing thru and found this site, so thought i would join up to see what i can learn about permaculture. Max and I (Mandy) have been on a journey of 10 years to buy our dream block and build our straw bale house. We had the land for 9 years before we finally got to start the house just over a year ago. We are still poking away at it, there isnt a big rush on it as we are also tied up with a motel business in KEW NSW. So while we are here we only get a couple of days a week to do stuff on the house. If you are interested you can view our place on our website at http://www.ourstrawbalehouse.com We have only just started blogging about this, so the workshop part of the building is as far as we have documented so far.

We have also just started growing clumpling bamboo as a crop for bamboo shoots, nursery plants and eventually down the track for timber. We still have two years to wait until we can start to harvest the shoots. The timber component has a long way to go (about 5-7 years) as there arent enough people growing bamboo in australia to supply the amount needed to warrant a manufacturing plant to produce timber products. So that could be a bonus crop in years to come. You can see more on this at http://www.hobbyfarmstips.com we started this site as an interest to documenting our journey to regale the ups and downs and thoughts we had along the way to owning our property and trying to find something to do on it. We have finally found bamboo. We feel that this will suit our lifestyle and allow us to live on our farm in our house without having to go to town to work. Until now we have been working away trying to make enough money to allow us to eventually do this. Which is why its taken so long to get to this point. Its also a crop that requires no chemicals to grow, which is very appealing to us.
Anyway thats us in a nutshell. I look forward to meeting you here learning all everyone else has to offer on permaculture as we also want to learn to be self sufficient as much as possible once we move home.

[Michaelangelica]

Hi and welcome Max and Mandy
We have a few blogging/documenting their Permaculture journey here too
You might like to subscribe to those threads

Did you see the BBC "Grand Designs" show on straw bale building
on ABC TV last week?