We moved here to the wilds of western Sydney some 25 years ago and have dabbled with self sufficiency /sustainable living ever since. The house is a comparatively small 3 bedroom brick and tile typical '70s house, with an east south easterly aspect and no northern windows (the designer should have been horsewhipped).

We have two wood burners which usually require bought in fuel, although at the moment we are using last winter's trimmings of the apple tree and I have been experimenting with newspaper bricks.

I have four veggie patches totaling a bit over 40 square metres, in which we grow all the usual suspects. We have a small (3m x 2m) plastic house in which we raise our seedlings, using homemade seed raising mixture based on compost from our two plastic compost bins. I grow a few cotton plants each year which I process and spin, I am learning to weave at the moment.

We have 6 citrus and one each of apple, mulberry, olive, feijoa, carob and curry trees. Part of the front garden is given over to herbs including a bay tree and edible flowers, as well as 3 decent size melaleuca alternifolias that one day I will harvest Teatree oil from!

We have 6 chooks, four Rhode Island Reds and two Austalorps, we built a brooder to raise the newer two Rhodies and the Austalorps and they now grace a chook tractor that fertilizes the veggie patches as well as providing eggs. The original two are in the old chook run which is now part veggie patch, once I work out what to do with the older chooks, that area is going to be a goat run!

Nev's solar food dryer, note the moveable chook pen behind him.

We have all 12 volt lighting through the house, based on 4x80 watt solarex and variety of other ones bought over the years including one solarex panel with the round cells that still pumps out 1.35 amps in full sun and is about 25 years old. We have two 440 amp hour banks of US battery 2200s (6 volts). We have a Silver 1200 watt inverter that I have been experimenting with but it did not turn out to be the answer to a maiden's prayer that I expected.

I have built a solar oven, solar food drier and hay box cooker and a solar reflecting cooker is under construction. We mow the lawn with a push mower and then use the clippings for the chooks, compost and mulch. I have put together a forge and anvil based on a 12volt car blower but don't get a lot of time to use it.



Future projects (including the goat!) are also bees, and a wood fired pizza oven is under construction, as well as glassing in the back deck to make a sun-trap. Also more water tanks - we have 1000gal of capacity on the back of the garage, but need more.

Nev Sweeney

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