Category: Bus Building

Young

We’re still here. Hoeing the garden. Feeding the ducks. Chasing cats. Spotlighting possums.

Testing our solar hot water. It works.

Finding tunes to work by.

Another lovely view from our roof.

I was doing this. It’s done now! And painted. It looks handsome with a hat.

This hen is no longer. A fox got to her. The last of the thirty that once were…

Somehow the ducks live on. Probably because they are inseparable.

I love ducks! They ‘quack quack quack’ and wiggle their bottoms into their pen. Cute.

Anyone for cheap insulation? We are stuffing the foam from banged up fridge doors and wind surfboards – of all things! – into the walls and filling the gaps with expandafoam. It works.

Our grey goose. Top is white and the side is just hanging in there until we get around to it. All in good time my friends.

This lifestyle is nice. I was tramping the wheelbarrow past the duck pen through the wet grass and wholeness filled me. If you’ve never tried this kind of lifestyle, don’t knock it. It really is fulfilling. Being involved in nature – that place that is essential to survival, that place from which all our nourishment comes from, air, food, water – is extremely grounding.

Hard work of the physical kind eliminates boredom, makes us use our bodies for what they were made for – just to be used! To do things! – reduces depression, stops us thinking about our problems and withdrawing into ourselves. I can’t see anything but good to be gotten out of hard work and caring for the things the people the land the animals all around us.

Anyway, it is fulfilling and I am finding it a refreshingly honest way to live. I could see myself tramping around a paddock to feed the ducks, muck out the pigs, grow some crops. It’s fun getting dirty. I’d like to turn some of this lovely soil into food before we hop on our bus and tootle off.

June 19, 2013
Bus Update

I know so many of you want to know how progress on our bus is going and although we are taking bets on when she will actually be ready, I will have you know: things are coming together and we may yet surprise you all…and ourselves.

Here is the children’s playground of choice while Henry and I work. I like having them so near to us while we work and I try to involve them when I can, but when the job involves toxic fumes or power tools then it’s definitely a no-no to even think it.

A big job, which took me all of a day to do, was to get into every crevice and vacuum up the accumulated dust of 35 years. It was only slightly rewarding as most things looked the same after the vacuum.

This has been a time of firsts, first time angle grinding, first time using a table saw, first time drilling, first time belt sanding, first time using that paint chiselling power tool thingummyjig and first time using a rivet gun. Using the rivet gun was rather fun and I now know how rivets work – never knew that before – I likened it to craft, but the boys did not like that at all.

Here below is our fantastic insulation and my(then Henrys takeover) job of riveting a panel BACK ON, no way, we are up to that stage! eee.

My main activity over the past week has been bogging, sanding, vacuuming the floor and then rebogging, resanding, revacuuming the floor.

But, in the end all those patches turned into one large patch of white. A clean slate. That floor is now ready to build onto.

For the moment my driving ‘cab’ now looks like this:

But, be not deceived, this is actual partial progress. Even though this looks worse than it did it is actually better off as it is being improved.

We are now focusing on the roof, here is our ladder to the sky:

Henry’s plans, being sketched out on roof paint, and it did not take him long. In less than a day he designed, drew up and pieced together our decking base. A few days later his mate welded it, and but for a coat of paint on the roof they are ready for installation!

Here are the draws to our bed. Just a’waiting.

Have you ever seen a country home basement?

Well.

Forget Country Style, Real Living or Vogue. This is the real deal:

That is one practical, lived in, full of ‘stuff’ basement.

Dear Aunty Glenda had a home day today and she and the kids curled up and got cosy.

Why so engrossed?

Oh, the one and only of course! They went on their very own ‘Dora’ explore. Glenda drew up a map which even had the Dora formula of three locations: Home. Creek. Park! It was brilliant. Then I joined them and we all went on this explore together. Mid way I asked: ‘Where do we go next?’ and this is when I discovered this map. ‘Wait a minute,’ said Sophia so matter-of-factly, ‘I will just look at our map.’ And so she did and next we had to go over the creek. Which we did. Then we found the creaky, squeaky park and had a play. The kids have been missing our next-door park which we had in Sutton. We were there every evening during Summer, so it’s a big deal not to have one here. Not that there is any lack of fun to be had around these parts.

Finally, today and tomorrow we are doing roof work. We are hoping to get all of this done by about midday tomorrow because…

…these babies arrived today!

Finally! We are a proud Solar Owning Family. It actually feels really good to own our very own power generators. It feels amazing. We were the Computer Generation. Our kids are the Renewable Energy Generation! That is absolutely wonderful.

(a bit squinty, the sun was shining right into our eyes, and right onto those panels, just where we want it.)

May 1, 2013
Have Bus Will Travel!

Here it is!

Beautiful Big Bedford. It has come in the nick of time, at the perfect time and is exactly what we were looking for. After doing over 3000 kms up and down the south east of Australia (from Taree to Melbourne) in the past week we ended up finding our ideal bus only 15 minutes from Henrys familys place, where we have parked it for all the adjustments we will need to make to get it registered and in running order. In the end we did not compromise on any of the essentials that we wanted which were: Fair price, Bedford, Diesel Engine in good condition, sturdy rust-free body, and minimally fitted out – as we would strip it anyway.

We are not kidding ourselves, this is not the end, only the beginning! There is a lot of work to be done, & still lots of research (though we are pretty informed by now!), finally though, action can be taken. We can begin kitting it out, moving out and moving in.

Apart from repainting the exterior we will also strip the entire interior, except for the framing which divides the main bedroom from the bunk & bathroom area and the kitchen and living area – all of that just so happens to be in the exact spots we were planning on putting them – fancy that! We are going for a clean and neutral look with all of the inbuilt furnishings; light wood floors, beige walls. We are thinking textured wallpaper for some feature areas (the curved part of the roof), most of the character will come from rugs within and the adjustable furnishings. Because it is such a small space it is completely necessary to keep things streamlined, light and bright in there. We are looking forward to buying our own stove and cooktop, LED Lights, solar panels, installing our own plumbing including a composting toilet and Henry has ideas for a passive solar ‘air conditioner’ he is inventing, and basically being able to alter things to be exactly the way that we want them. What a luxury after six+ years of renting!

It’s a lot of fun to be able to do all this debt free within our budget. Though home ownership is sometime in the future for us I am trusting that the time to rustle up the money for that will come. With houses and land so expensive in Australia I feel good about looking outside the box in order to move forward whilst having an adventure at the same time.

Living in a bus will suit our family down to the ground. I watched my children running and jumping around our bus when we brought it home (‘home’ which is now less about ‘where’ and more about ‘who’), and I thought, ‘this suits my kids perfectly!’, with their wild hair, their boundless energy and inquisitiveness.

Sophia shouted ‘Oolevoir’ (Translation: Au revoir) out the window and we really will be saying that in just a few months. But not yet. And not here in this space at least.

January 15, 2013