Despite our earnest efforts to forge a self sufficient suburban lifestyle, we’re pushing the envelope further. We’re going rural.
We’ve grown enough fruit and vegetables to feed not only our family, but occasionally our street during abundant seasons. We’ve fed our worm farm daily, made our own bread and have upcycled anything from a disused cable drum to a wilted Christmas tree. Hardly a food scrap is wasted, we fix, we build, we forage in our suburban Auckland backyard.
It’s been wonderful yet we have yearned to take a step further away from being another cog in the wheel, another car to add to Auckland’s traffic woes.
We’re leaving Auckland for rural Waikato.
No street lights and no neighbours albeit one, some 60 metres away. We’re delighted.
It will mean a 30km round trip to do a supermarket run, fresh country air and rainwater collection, mother nature and guttering willing.
With my Englishman, we will have around a hectare of land – mostly flat good growing soil, a gully with wetlands and a stream, and a ready-made fruit salad orchard. We have the intention of creating at least a 100 square metre veggie patch, building a greenhouse, wrangling a few chooks, and installing enough solar panels to allow us to recharge our batteries to keep connecting to the world should there be an outage.
We have the skills to make, bake, sew, fix, forage, plow, grow, imagine, build, nurture, appreciate. We plan to use them all.
We have absolutely loved our character, 1926 original bungalow in suburban Auckland that has whistled in the wind and oozed personality. It has allowed us to learn, put into practice and finally take that big leap into the unknown.
Suckers for punishment (we jest) we take on an even older, early 1900’s villa.
We can’t wait. We’ve got the Red Bands. Time to bundle up the cat. Packing begins.
We hope you continue to enjoy our journey to self sufficiency and more rediscoveries to come!
Oooooh, I’ll need to change my title to ‘Waikato Blogger’ now.
