Of clocks and bedside shelves.

When we first bought our van I guess we thought we'd use it for a few years and then trade up. During our first shakedown trip, a gallop up to Brisbane taking in the newly weds of the time in Sydney and then back again, we really fell in love with our little home, and K began upgrading and customising both the internal and external set up to make life easier. Each of these makes it harder to think about starting again in a new home. (A bit like moving house I guess)


K worked for a watchmaker as a holiday job as a teenager, which is why he has a watch from one of the backpackers on the table ready to service. He loves clocks, so one of the first things he did was to put a clock hanging spot out in the annex. The original clock, a souvenir Ford clock of course, still gets hung up as soon as we park the van.
Sometimes it stops. Perhaps it should be replaced. But no!......maybe it is a battery or is it the ants who hide in the warmth of the battery box and short it out. Throw it away. Not likely. It gets cleaned or whatever and off it goes again.

So there is one clock ticking outside and two inside and if he can get away with it the wind up travel clock finds its way onto his beside table as well.  All of these tick at a different time. Drives me mad. At least they don't chime or play music. That might precipitate one of my famous impressions of a nuclear explosion.

Clock, barometer and thermometer rebated into the wall
 between the bed and shower.
And fancy shelf, routed and fitted
with decorative edges.

 

 

There have been other improvements to electrics and water and  other critical functions that I will leave for later but the thing I appreciate most each night and morning is my removable bedside table.

You see I was very short sighted when I chose the left side of the bedroom as mine. In our caravan configuration the bedside unit is on the right. I get the back of the kitchen chairs and a long reach to the table.  I have commented on this unfair distribution of critical bedside real-estate, gently of course, on a number of occasions.

Imagine my delight when after a day or two of mysterious activity involving wood, a router, hooks and other bits of metal I find this beautiful creation next to my side of the bed. Stained, sealed and removable. And I only nagged a little bit.

Removable bedside table
attached to back of kitchen seating

 

 

Life is good!

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When small is just right.

We are watching Better Homes and Gardens TV show tonight. The chippies in the family are not fond of this programme. I think they resent the "just do this and you will have a wonderful...what ever." Like it can be done instantly.


The feature build this week is a house made from a shipping container. At 40ft long it is twice the length of our caravan. So while it is tiny to some it is huge to us. Take a look.

Our bathroom lives in two sections across the back wall. The wardrobe is in the centre, two door with drawers. Perfect for winter clothes, good shirts and my yarn stash. One side has a shower cubicle with a curved sliding door. 

The other side has a cassette toilet and hand basin. Getting in to the toilet room is a bit of an art. Sideways shuffling is necessary but once in....
K has added a full length mirror to the toilet door, and nifty stick on storage baskets to the mirror above the hand basin.



Over the door towel hangers allow towels to hang on the wardrobe doors.


Unused towels are rolled in the shelf above the bed.


All the mod cons.


Who needs a 40ft long palace?


Cheers Sue


A Ferg on the Move

 

 

 

Staying in touch. Or the things I have to do to get mobile phone coverage.

I recently spent a week in a community with no mobile phone coverage. This made me very conscious of how dependent I am. We have family spread over half of Australia and use SMS to chat, email and Facebook to see the grandkids, new cars, holiday and event photos and  just plain gossip.
Banking, online shopping and of course blogging is conducted over the internet. No landlines here.


At one of the schools I visit regularly there is one spot on the basketball court where "one bar" is possible. There is often a huddle of staff and community members jockeying for position to get reception and download something.  Strangely reception will happen elsewhere for no apparent reason and for random amounts of time. One day at this school my phone beeped at me in the class room. I was so shocked I turned quickly next to a chair and landed in an undignified heap on the floor. Later on yard duty I was treated to a replay by the year one kids, in language, complete with very convincing acting.


Here where we are parked at the moment reception can be very patchy. K has been known to have an extension USB cable attached to his internet dongle. The dongle lives on the roof and the cable come down from the roof vent  to the computer on the table. Placement is critical. I am unpopular if I use the vent for its original purpose, light and ventilation that is.

I could get lots of exercise roaming the caravan park looking for the best place to download  a book to read.

Bats on the move just before sunset.

 

 

At our daughter's NSW farm phone reception happens at the gate. That is for everybody else who can lean on the gate ordering Chinese dinner or something. Not me! My phone refuses to give me any bars until I am standing in the middle of the road preferably first thing in the morning...... Something to do with signal skip I've been told.

Picture me, early morning checking for emails and SMS or doing the banking standing in the middle of a dirt road in rural NSW hoping that I spot the dust cloud indicating approaching vehicles. Or more importantly that no one comes along to see me in the middle of the road in my jammies with a phone held to my ear.

On a more serious note, I am grateful for the technology that allows me to live in wonderful places in our grand land and still stay connected to the people I love.

No need for mobile phone here. What K does while I download a book.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move.

 

Home is where the heart is. Or wherever the road takes us.

So the conversation goes like this......


At home on the farm in NSW

"Where do you live?"
"In the caravan," I answer.
"No. Where do you really live?"
"In the caravan," I answer.
"Ok where is home?" they ask with some level of frustration.
"In the caravan," I answer with a grin, settling down for another lengthy explanation of our lifestyle.



At home with visitors in the Northern Territory

It is true that for the past few years our registered address is at the tourist park here in Northern Australia where we spend 7ish months working. It is also true that we have NT drivers licences and the vehicles are registered here but that is a life style choice rather than an anchor.


At home helping with the renovations

Home for us is our caravan. After a day out in Katherine NT, Goulburn NSW, Brisbane QLD, Broome WA (you get the idea) we go home to our tiny house.



At home behind the rain water tank

We are at peace inside its walls or sitting under its annex. Everything we need is here, wherever here happens to be.

Home is where the heart is and with the one who has your heart. (That's you K. I think I just earned  a coffee in bed one morning.)







At home with K

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

 

Crafty evenings in the caravan



There's not a lot of housework to do in the evenings in a caravan. We usually spend our evenings together here in the van or out under the annex mosquitos permitting.
So most nights in the week K "works" on his computer or puzzles over the latest thing he is bringing back to life.

I read lots, and lots and lots.

And when I'm not reading I crochet. I knit as well but I love to crochet.


Crochet Granny Squares surrounded by stretchy rib
 

One side of the wardrobe in the van is filled, not with clothes as was our plan when we bought this particular layout in our van, but with acrylic yarn I have bought or saved.

I was very wise, or something, to know that seven years later I would need a place to stash my yarn.




Shades of grey and green in a rectangle crochet pattern. This one is in the UK with K's aunt/

Why acrylic you ask? Because it washes and wears.

The finished products live under the bed until they are sold or given away to a good home.



Crocheted  tulip.
Painting with rows of dc *(sc in America)
Present for family member

 I love to play with colour and to create rather than follow a pattern so I research a stitch or series of stitches, grab some colour and play. Off the hook fall bedspreads, afghans or baby rugs.

Yarn scrap circles with black stretch rib
Still living under the caravan bed waiting for the right owner.

Mind you since I started blogging a bit less reading and crocheting is happening.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move


Frugal Tasks

Last night I made yoghurt for the first time. Which was pretty nice of me considering that I hate the stuff.
K however loves it and it is very expensive here in our local shop. Close to twice the price I would pay in Darwin. So I bought a EASIYO system for $16 and a couple of  sachets of mix to get me started. Buying the sachets is half the cost of yoghurt at our local shop. But I found directions for how to make yoghurt from scratch in an easiyo yogurt maker  so that will bring the cost per kg down to less than $2. K can experiment with flavours for himself.



My first batch of yoghurt. Berry flavoured EASIYO mix.

 

 K needs to keep his salt intake down. So we have always  bought low salt butter spread. There is no such thing in the local supermarket so this is another of things we have to do a 200 km round trip to buy.
My daughter makes spreadable butter for her family and taught me how in the summer this year. I love it because I can make a small batch each week. No-salt butter, water and oil, I use olive oil, and whiz it up until smooth. This also works for me because my stick-blender runs on the battery and inverter so I can do this even if we are travelling. I make just enough to fit in a reused Lurpack butter container.  This is one of K's special foods that I like as well.


Ingredients for homemade salt-free butter and olive oil spread.
100gms salt free butter, 50 mls water, 50 mls olive oil

 

Another frugal thing I did today was to prepare sticky lamb ribs. Every year before we come back to the NT for work we fill up the fridge freezers with a lamb that our daughter and son-in-law have grown on their NSW farm. Great meat and really cheap. Lamb costs the proverbial arm and leg here.  This is beef country thank you very much!
Using lamb ribs from the camp freezer, the ends of bottles of tomato sauce (ketchup) and chutney, and a few teaspoons of a gluten free spice mix these ribs will spend an hour in the BBQ oven . With Potatoes baked along side, a salad and a glass of red. Not bad for a caravan dinner.

Sticky lamb ribs
Lamb ribs, tomato ketchup and gluten free hot spice mix.
 

And I did the washing in the twin tub and hung it on the caravan line.

Coffee and a book now.

Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move



















Battling the ants

Sitting reading on the bed and I feel a little tickle. Ants again. What they think they will find as they travel across the window behind me I don't know.

Maybe they just wander off on a road trip and drop into Fergsville for a break.



Relaxing in the annexe

They get in the food. Yuk!

On cold nights (yes  we do get them in the NT) they hide in anything warm, like a  clock next to the battery or inside the lights. They get into the relays in the car, especially the fuel pump relay, which I am reliably informed is the one in the middle of a bank of them and stays warm the longest. Anytime something electrical doesn't work a cry of  "It must be ants," can be heard.

Just get them out of my caravan!

Begone I say. Begone.

In case that doesn't work here is a site with some ideas.

8 ways to keep ants out of your caravan to keep ants out of your caravan

Off to hunt ants.

Sue
A Ferg on the Move

 

 

 

Our ways of being frugal. Or making sure we have something to live on in the off season.

What we earn here in the peak tourist season in the north of Australia has to fund the travel and family visits later in  the off peak times. So we need to be frugal or at least as self sufficient as  we can manage. Otherwise the need to earn money will  overpower our desire to live simply and be mobile.

I read with interest, and a measure of envy,  the wonderful things people do in their frugal lives. They cook everything, grow everything, make everything and reuse things as well. 

I would like to grow everything ... and the wallabies and local birds would like it if I did too. The quarantine guys at state borders would get a kick out of confiscating my pots of herbs twice a year as well. So dried herbs and shop bought vegies for us I'm afraid.


Wallaby lazing in our annex munching
on a sweet potato

 



This very sick wallaby joey crawled out from under the caravan step
She was not able  to hold food in her paws.
K is helping her eat a pear core.
She survived and comes back to visit most nights
even though we don't feed her.

I would love to make all my own soaps and cleaning products, but in my tiny caravan there is nowhere to store either the ingredients or the end products. So I clean windows  and other surfaces with vinegar, spray stains on clothes with dish washing liquid and treat the portal-loo  toilet waste with biodegradable  no brand nappy sanitiser. The last item is $3.50 for four weeks treatment as opposed to $30 for the same   amount of fancy and nasty chemical stuff. No money going down the loo for us.

Do not waste money on expensive toilet chemicals. 

I try to remember that a special bought in in Woolworths 109 km away is not cheaper than the same product from the local mini mart..........unless I have to make the trip for work and then someone else pays for the diesel. This is a hard one, sometimes the urge to see the "big smoke" is irresistible. 

We cook just what we need.  In another  life the left overs made lunch for the working men who took them to work. But no one wants a hot lunch in over 35 degree heat so its best to cook smaller amounts. And we take advantage of the staff meals provided at here for K. When the meal is something we like we get it. And the serve is a proper outback size. Plenty for two or even three maybe.

Staff dinner of roast pork and veg.
Big enough for two. We often share a pub size meal.

We buy small quantities, just what we need. This is a hard lesson to learn. Its not frugal  to buy in bulk and give it away before it goes off. Generous yes, friendly yes, but not great  for the wallet.

We make own power when we can from the sun the wind. We use the twin tub and reuse and save water when we camp.  And of course K fixes and reuses things as well.

Frugal or simple, but fun.

Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move

---

Tiny living basic pantry goods

I've talked about where and how everything is stored, and showed you some pictures. I had to do some major tidying before I was game to point a camera at my cupboards, so thank you all for helping me do my housework. Small does not always mean tidy I'm afraid.

 

So what pantry goods do I carry?

A lucky find a few weeks ago. Gluten free.
Sticky date is K's all-time favourite desert.

Small amounts of normal and gluten free flours, corn flour, baking powder, sugar in very small amounts as the ants just love sugar, and

Mustard and curry powder, a packet of gluten free gravy mix, gluten free cereal, oats and a variety of nuts are essential.

Given the importance of coffee in my life there are always coffee pods and coffee beans. These live in my caravan oven which I refuse to use as I can't abide cooking smells in my bedroom which is a metre away. Doesn't matter if it is cold or hot I do my baking and frying  outside.  I'll show you my outside kitchen another day.

Loose leaf tea (yes I am fussy about my tea too), sugar sachets, vegemite, peanut butter, dried peas, gluten free pasta and packets of precooked microwave rice complete the very basic dry stores.

 

I decant olive oil that I buy in a larger container into three small bottles. One is left unflavoured and I make chilli flavoured and lemon flavoured olive oil in the other two bottles. Sometimes if the local market has chilli or lemon I use these. Otherwise dried chilli and bottled lemon concentrate have to do.

In the box under the sink there are always a couple of tins of fruit, small tins of corn, mushrooms, tomato and a good tomato puree. K likes to collect sauces and chutney from the towns we go though so there are usually a couple of these ready to put in the fridge when they are opened.

 

The current selection of souvenir sauces and chutneys.

Gunning Wouster sauce. Wild lime chutney

and a pickle from a roadside stall

That list looks pretty boring!  But believe me combined with fresh veg and some meat we can eat pretty well and economically from this lot.



Mushroom and chicken soup with rice.
 

 

However not all is lost because  I cannot resist the temptation to buy new or different things when I do get to wander around a good supermarket or town market.  So sometimes things just leap into my trolley or are  assisted in there by K. Well what else do I expect if I take a man shopping with me!

 

I think K is being a bit optimistic!

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move 
 
 

My home. My haven

Today I'm the only one home. K is hard at work moving stock with the forklift attachment on the tractor he fixed yesterday.



K hard at work on the old tractor

Yesterday I made an emergency run with the ute to town so it could do a "transformers" like morph into THE SHED and disgorge a vital  part. Mr Fix It worked his magic again. Good thing too, or he would be unloading three pallets of alcohol for the pub by hand.
Anyway back to my thought for today. I am on my own in need of a peaceful couple of hours. What makes a personal haven?  And how do I create one in our tiny mobile space?

Camp armchair.
So comfy with the footrest up
 

Sometimes my haven is my camp lounge chair with the footrest up, facing the trees while I knit or crochet and enjoy quiet interaction with nature
Or maybe it is sitting in the annex on a warm night with a book and the live music from the bistro traveling up the hill.

My private bit of bush

Or strumming the guitar or dulcimer in the caravan doorstep. Music always does it for me.



Bed at night, lounge room by day.

Or my bed in daybed mode, with pillows, a coffee and a movie. Sometimes the contained small space that is our home is exactly what my cluttered mind needs.

Not that I hide inside all day.
While the caravan is located in a caravan park, as it is during the working part of our life, I am blessed and enriched by daily interactions with fellow campers. We are a sociable bunch, ever ready to help each other out or sit and share our experiences  of tiny mobile living. But.....


Sometimes like today I just want my space!  I'm off to lounge inside.



Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move

Where's the stuff?

Our house and the back yard -or one of them anyway

 

Although we bought the caravan intending to be permanent grey nomads it was, for the first two years, our visitor's room and our holiday home. So it had plastic picnic ware, old pots and pans, bedding and other bits an pieces so we could just throw our clothes in, grab some food and go.

When we packed up from the last rental house, having sold our property a few years before and finally reached a blessed state of "kid-less-ness", we removed the holiday gear and packed the van with the things from the  house that we thought we needed or couldn't do without.

Most of the rest went to friends family and neighbours. In half of our daughter's storage area are boxes of books, photos, K's heavy tools, various spare parts he couldn't bear to throw away and a some paintings. (Incidentally these boxes have not been opened in for 4 years so I suspect that one day we will need to have a throw out.)

What is in the van and car is what we carry with us.  Our whole life is in the caravan and car.

Cheers
Sue
A Ferg on the Move




Full circle

We started our marriage at the end of the 70's in a caravan.  It was an 18ft van with a double bed, full kitchen with a large fridge and proper stove and oven. We lived in it for most of that first year while our house was built. We had a free standing annex which we used as a lounge.  It was quite a flash set up.

I remember feeling strangely unsettled the first evening  after we moved into our new house.  It took me all the way through cooking dinner to realise that I was in fact lonely. I couldn't see my husband (K) as I worked. He was around the corner in the lounge room.
Over the years the three bedroom house morphed into a four bedroom one filled with kids and family and friends.

So here we are all this time later living in a 20ft van with a double bed, kitchen, modest fridge, stove and oven, and an awning that can have annex walls attached. Now we have a shower and toilet as a necessary concession to my aversion to walks after dark in the outback.

Tonight I'm sitting on the bed writing this and K is an arm length away in the kitchen end of the van.

Everything is right in our world. Full circle indeed!



Cheers
Sue
A Ferg on the Move

Food storage in a tiny space

I'm doing a 300 km round trip tomorrow to teach a half day, attend a PD and shop in the nearest larger town. A chance to stock up while resisting the urge to buy amounts I can't store in my tiny space.



I have to think about food storage in a different way now. I have a three rung pull out pantry drawer, two overhead lockers and a 10 litre bin under the sink. There is a bar size fridge with a tiny freezer as well as our camping 12volt fridge freezer that has the last of the farm grown lamb in it.

 Bulk buys are not practical in this size space so, with the exception of gluten free goods and coffee pods, which we can't get in our little town store, we just store small amounts. Everything has to be safe for travel, as light as we can manage and dry goods need to be airtight as the little ants get into everything.




Pull-out under sink tinned goods tub

 
The 10 litre tub has tinned goods under the sink so as to keep the heavy things at floor level.
 Baking goods, including gluten free flour and bread mix, live in air tight containers tucked up in the end of one overhead locker with more frequently used stock behind the lift up door.

Half the pantry with the baking goods hidden of the left

Small plastic take away food containers sans the lids hold packages of dried peas, gravy sachets and spices.

Spices within easy reach.

An old fashioned spice rack like mum used to have is attached to the wall in a corner. I make my own spice mixes free of salt so the rack has the everyday ones. K bolted this to the wall in an otherwise useless corner of the caravan kitchen. There is a safety rope of black elastic that is tightened around the bottles when we are on the move.





Recycled plastic storage

Half of the second locker has bulk gluten free cereal and nuts in air tight tubs. I use empty fruit containers as they stack in two rows. I usually soak the labels off but I was obviously "too busy" when I filled these ones. Fruit containers are just the right size to fit in the three rung pull put panty as well, a useful fact a fellow camper shared with me one morning over coffee.



Off to make a list so that's all for now.

Cheers Sue
A Ferg On The Move

Caravan equals house

For six years now a caravan has been my full-time home. At first in a city caravan park while I finished out my last year teaching in a city school and then as home on wheels wherever we go.
Life has settled into a comfortable pattern whereby for the dry season we, my husband and I, live and work in an outback town on the Stuart Highway in the Northern Territory. He works in a tourist park and I help out sometimes, but mostly relief teach in indigenous schools. Then when the park calms down we roam.


Getting from a four bedroom house to a caravan was an exercise in simplification.




Some of you might follow our friend Phil's blog HOUSE OF SIMPLE. I made a comment about our lifestyle on the blog and Phil said, "write".


So here it is. Maybe you will find my ramblings interesting.



Sue.
A Ferg on the move

Welcome

So here we are. It's 7.30 pm. I have just finished a fantastic dinner of lamb, brought with us frozen from our daughter's farm when we drove up here from NSW in May. Here is 100k south of Katherine NT, and frozen means in our little WACO fridge freezer. Inside our caravan two long steps from me my husband is making coffee and the temperature outside is cooling down to a lovely 20 degrees. This is our simple life. Hope you enjoy my ramblings.