SEVENTH WWOOF PLACE April 22 to May 8
I bought a $4 bus ticket for the 30 minute ride to Adelaide from Mylor, and caught a ride with Scott, Lyle's brother-in-law's best friend, or at least I think that was the connection, from Adelaide to Lyle's house, a 3 hour car ride.
BUSHFOODS
Hanging and working with Lyle Dudley and his new wife Lili from Beijing and their new 3 month old baby, Eve, was an incredible experience. Their house is closest to the small town of Wilmington, in between Wilmington and Melrose, with the closest large city being Port Augusta about an hour drive northwest. And all of this is about 3 hours north of Adelaide in South Australia.
Lyle built his own house, a beautiful passive solar house made entirely out of found and recycled materials. Lyle carried each salvaged stone from the old prison and rescued each piece of old timber and all of Lyle's care, determination and craziness shows in this house and his surrounding 75 acres of land.
I bought a $4 bus ticket for the 30 minute ride to Adelaide from Mylor, and caught a ride with Scott, Lyle's brother-in-law's best friend, or at least I think that was the connection, from Adelaide to Lyle's house, a 3 hour car ride.
BUSHFOODS
Hanging and working with Lyle Dudley and his new wife Lili from Beijing and their new 3 month old baby, Eve, was an incredible experience. Their house is closest to the small town of Wilmington, in between Wilmington and Melrose, with the closest large city being Port Augusta about an hour drive northwest. And all of this is about 3 hours north of Adelaide in South Australia.
Lyle built his own house, a beautiful passive solar house made entirely out of found and recycled materials. Lyle carried each salvaged stone from the old prison and rescued each piece of old timber and all of Lyle's care, determination and craziness shows in this house and his surrounding 75 acres of land.
This is Lyle and a magazine article about his house and business!
up the driveway and into Lyle's world...
Lyle's house with the Flinders Ranges in the background
Acacia trees in Lyle's wide open front yard - Adelaide is over the mountains on the distant horizon
solar panel and wind turbine - Lyle's place is completely off the grid - his power is solar and wind generated and his only water is the small amount of rainwater that is collected
bricks/rocks that Lyle collected to build his house - these bricks were originally ballast for ships from England and then they were used to build a prison - when they tore the prison down Lyle hauled each stone in his yellow holden utility truck - these rocks are beautiful pinks and yellows and creams and they make the walls absolutely amazing
ROASTED ACACIA / WATTLE SEED
all harvested by Lyle and his "Rape and Pillage Eco Gang" from wild acacia victoriae trees in the area
ACACIA VICTORIAE TREES at Lyle's house
sorting through all the seed to pick out the tiny bits of twig and tree resin - we also run a magnet through the seed to catch any bits of steel from the winnow machine
buildings for wattle seed sorting, roasting and grinding
machine that Lyle altered/made to roast acacia seed - long burner ports under that plastic bag and the barrel rotates as the fire heats
one of my WWOOFer jobs was to grind LOTS of roasted wattle seed to send out for an order - 7 boxes of seed at 15kg each - using a heavy duty coffee grinder - the roasted wattle seed smells really good - and anytime that I smell it I will think of Lyle and my wonderful stay here
on my first day we go out on a walk through Lyle's property - he shows me the acacia trees and quandong trees
Acacia Victoriae
tree resin - some called 'bush bubblegum' - I learned this from little Hazel at Fryers Forest
QUANDONG TREE
This tree is semi-parasitic as it needs root association with another plant to survive its early years - the word 'quandong' is derived from a Wirandhuri word "guwandhang" - the Wirandhuri of the Lachlan River region in central western NSW used quandong wood to generate fire - with a piece of quandong wood shaped like a paper knife rubbed vigorously across a groved section of a second piece of wood
mature fruits, but dry ones from last year left under the tree - the skins are thin when dry, but rehydrate well and make an excellent fruit leather
MAKING QUANDONG LEATHER
cooking it on the wood stove
a clean salvaged car windshield makes a great place to dry the sticky fruit leather
quandong seeds/pits/stones
the kernel is 70% oil and can be eaten raw - high source of protein and very palatable when roasted - the seeds have a pungent flavor because of methyl benzoate
Lyle has several fruit and citrus trees - this one is a blood orange tree
Lyle's pantry that he is finishing - I love the line and interaction between the heavy wood door and the rock wall edge
outside place to sleep - had it been warmer at night I would definitely have slept here
outside toilet - called the BUSH DUNNY - I used this every day instead of the flush toilet inside - the toilet inside was flushed with buckets of greywater by the way
resupplying the bush dunny with toilet paper and wood ash
Lyle lived in this shed while he was building his house - he calls it the HUMPY - humpie or gunyah is a temporary structure and was/is used by aboriginals as shelter
red machine is the winnower
dark clouds and upcoming rain, finally a tiny, tiny bit of much, much needed rain
almond harvest from Lyle's trees
after these dried a bit we used them to make pesto with the basil and garlic from Lyle's garden
collecting seed for the army - in exchange for Lyle having permission to harvest wattle seed on their land
meat ant hole - I see these guys everywhere but I am still fascinated with their mounds and the precise sized debri around their entrance
Lyle's Jonathan apple tree was loaded
lemon verbena bush - leaves harvested to dry for tea
rainwater catch system made from materials in storage
making SWEET CHILI SAUCE
cooking on the wood stove
apples and chillis and sugar
and
drinking some of Lyle's home brew beer
milk carton refund
day trip - about 1 hour drive north west - to
PORT AUGUSTA
coal plant on the horizon
Lyle said this was a typical house, a government house provided for displaced aboriginal families - this house was in Port Augusta
the road back to Lyle's house from Port Augusta - Lili was learning to drive so here we pull over and switch drivers so she can practice - and here I get a great photo of crazy Lyle and beautiful Lili
little 3 month old EVE
The Flinders Ranges are in Lyle's backyard - so Lyle helps me find a trail/walk/path for me to take a journey on - a 24k (15 mile) hike that takes me about 7 hours
later I found out from Lyle that this was NUT GRASS - coming up after the few drops of rain that we got - nut grass with edible bulbs
walking off the mountain down part of the Heysen Trail to the town of Melrose where Lyle and Lili are picking me up - see the town in the distance of this photograph
part of my 6.5 hour walk was on the Heysen Trail
Lyle had tons of great old magazines to read...
recipe for bread using lemon juice as leavening instead of yeast
Lyle caught a rabbit and Lili made an incredible dinner with it
planting garlic
evidence of kangaroos hanging out near the house
Lyle's harvest truck
almonds drying in the sun
a WWOOF job - clipping grape vines
CAROB POD processing
I took the carob pods that I collected from The Food Forest in Gawler and processed them - kibbled them - with a low-tech method and completed the process with making food, two different desserts, a carob oat loaf and sweet carob balls.
kibbling - breaking the hard pods and removing the seeds - result was a sticky crumble that was chewy and pretty sweet
CAROB OAT LOAF
1/2 Cup Butter
3 Eggs
1 Teaspoon
1Cup Carob Chunks
1 Cup Oats
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Clove
1 Teaspoon Lemon Peel
1/3 Cup Milk
SWEET CAROB BALLS
1/2 Cup Honey
1/2 Cup Peanut Butter
1 Cup Carob Chunks
heat this a bit
then add
Nuts
Coconut
Powdered Milk
Roll into balls and roll into a bit more coconut. Cool and eat.
collecting she-oak cones
SHE OAK - Botanical name - Casuarina
various pods that Lyle has collected to sell
part of Flinder's Ranges - walking up Lyle's driveway after another walk through the bush - getting back to Lyle's house and the wood stove was lit and the kitchen was warm
WWOOF job - coating all the beautiful wood around the house and windows as well as tool handles with protective linseed oil - the rough dry wood just soaked up the oil and then glistened in the strong sun
native lemon grass - makes a great cup of tea
another walk around the adjacent properties near Lyle's house
more seed collecting with Lyle - I absolutely loved doing this - here we are collecting these odd looking cap things from this tree - a lady buys them from Lyle to make craft things - the guy in the field next to us was spraying his field with who knows what, so Lyle and I kept running back to hide in the car every time he made a pass with the sprayer - scurry scurry - collect collect and then run run - it was quite funny
seed collecting - this time SUGAR GUM tree seeds
On my last day at Lyle's house I finally get to ride in this beautiful machine - the legendary harvest ute!
We are on a mission to get this large slab of wood that is out in a nearby paddock - a massive slab of wood to make a table out of.
This slab is absolutely massive and no easy task - we get the ute stuck in a rabbit burrow and then try everything to wrestle this wood into the trailer. I was sure that it would not be possilbe - "the nightmare" as Lyle kept saying - but by some magic we did it!
It is late in the day, but we stop to collect some saltbush seeds on the way out of the paddock - the cows are hungry and think that our vehicle means food, so we run out of the gate just in time as the cows run after us.
up the driveway and into Lyle's world...
Lyle's house with the Flinders Ranges in the background
Acacia trees in Lyle's wide open front yard - Adelaide is over the mountains on the distant horizon
solar panel and wind turbine - Lyle's place is completely off the grid - his power is solar and wind generated and his only water is the small amount of rainwater that is collectedbricks/rocks that Lyle collected to build his house - these bricks were originally ballast for ships from England and then they were used to build a prison - when they tore the prison down Lyle hauled each stone in his yellow holden utility truck - these rocks are beautiful pinks and yellows and creams and they make the walls absolutely amazing
ROASTED ACACIA / WATTLE SEED
all harvested by Lyle and his "Rape and Pillage Eco Gang" from wild acacia victoriae trees in the area
ACACIA VICTORIAE TREES at Lyle's house
sorting through all the seed to pick out the tiny bits of twig and tree resin - we also run a magnet through the seed to catch any bits of steel from the winnow machine
buildings for wattle seed sorting, roasting and grindingmachine that Lyle altered/made to roast acacia seed - long burner ports under that plastic bag and the barrel rotates as the fire heats
one of my WWOOFer jobs was to grind LOTS of roasted wattle seed to send out for an order - 7 boxes of seed at 15kg each - using a heavy duty coffee grinder - the roasted wattle seed smells really good - and anytime that I smell it I will think of Lyle and my wonderful stay here
on my first day we go out on a walk through Lyle's property - he shows me the acacia trees and quandong trees
Acacia Victoriae
tree resin - some called 'bush bubblegum' - I learned this from little Hazel at Fryers Forest
QUANDONG TREE
This tree is semi-parasitic as it needs root association with another plant to survive its early years - the word 'quandong' is derived from a Wirandhuri word "guwandhang" - the Wirandhuri of the Lachlan River region in central western NSW used quandong wood to generate fire - with a piece of quandong wood shaped like a paper knife rubbed vigorously across a groved section of a second piece of wood
mature fruits, but dry ones from last year left under the tree - the skins are thin when dry, but rehydrate well and make an excellent fruit leather
MAKING QUANDONG LEATHER
cooking it on the wood stove
a clean salvaged car windshield makes a great place to dry the sticky fruit leather
quandong seeds/pits/stonesthe kernel is 70% oil and can be eaten raw - high source of protein and very palatable when roasted - the seeds have a pungent flavor because of methyl benzoate
Lyle has several fruit and citrus trees - this one is a blood orange tree
Lyle's pantry that he is finishing - I love the line and interaction between the heavy wood door and the rock wall edge
outside place to sleep - had it been warmer at night I would definitely have slept here
outside toilet - called the BUSH DUNNY - I used this every day instead of the flush toilet inside - the toilet inside was flushed with buckets of greywater by the wayresupplying the bush dunny with toilet paper and wood ash
Lyle lived in this shed while he was building his house - he calls it the HUMPY - humpie or gunyah is a temporary structure and was/is used by aboriginals as shelter
red machine is the winnower
dark clouds and upcoming rain, finally a tiny, tiny bit of much, much needed rain
almond harvest from Lyle's treesafter these dried a bit we used them to make pesto with the basil and garlic from Lyle's garden
collecting seed for the army - in exchange for Lyle having permission to harvest wattle seed on their land
meat ant hole - I see these guys everywhere but I am still fascinated with their mounds and the precise sized debri around their entrance
Lyle's Jonathan apple tree was loaded
lemon verbena bush - leaves harvested to dry for tearainwater catch system made from materials in storage
making SWEET CHILI SAUCE
cooking on the wood stove
apples and chillis and sugar
and
drinking some of Lyle's home brew beer
milk carton refund
day trip - about 1 hour drive north west - to
PORT AUGUSTA
coal plant on the horizon
Lyle said this was a typical house, a government house provided for displaced aboriginal families - this house was in Port Augusta
the road back to Lyle's house from Port Augusta - Lili was learning to drive so here we pull over and switch drivers so she can practice - and here I get a great photo of crazy Lyle and beautiful Lili
little 3 month old EVEThe Flinders Ranges are in Lyle's backyard - so Lyle helps me find a trail/walk/path for me to take a journey on - a 24k (15 mile) hike that takes me about 7 hours
later I found out from Lyle that this was NUT GRASS - coming up after the few drops of rain that we got - nut grass with edible bulbs
walking off the mountain down part of the Heysen Trail to the town of Melrose where Lyle and Lili are picking me up - see the town in the distance of this photograph
part of my 6.5 hour walk was on the Heysen Trail
Lyle had tons of great old magazines to read...
recipe for bread using lemon juice as leavening instead of yeastLyle caught a rabbit and Lili made an incredible dinner with it
planting garlic
evidence of kangaroos hanging out near the houseLyle's harvest truck
almonds drying in the suna WWOOF job - clipping grape vines
CAROB POD processing
I took the carob pods that I collected from The Food Forest in Gawler and processed them - kibbled them - with a low-tech method and completed the process with making food, two different desserts, a carob oat loaf and sweet carob balls.
kibbling - breaking the hard pods and removing the seeds - result was a sticky crumble that was chewy and pretty sweetCAROB OAT LOAF
1/2 Cup Butter3 Eggs
1 Teaspoon
1Cup Carob Chunks
1 Cup Oats
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Clove
1 Teaspoon Lemon Peel
1/3 Cup Milk
SWEET CAROB BALLS
1/2 Cup Honey1/2 Cup Peanut Butter
1 Cup Carob Chunks
heat this a bit
then add
Nuts
Coconut
Powdered Milk
Roll into balls and roll into a bit more coconut. Cool and eat.
collecting she-oak cones
SHE OAK - Botanical name - Casuarina
various pods that Lyle has collected to sell
part of Flinder's Ranges - walking up Lyle's driveway after another walk through the bush - getting back to Lyle's house and the wood stove was lit and the kitchen was warmWWOOF job - coating all the beautiful wood around the house and windows as well as tool handles with protective linseed oil - the rough dry wood just soaked up the oil and then glistened in the strong sun
native lemon grass - makes a great cup of tea
another walk around the adjacent properties near Lyle's house
more seed collecting with Lyle - I absolutely loved doing this - here we are collecting these odd looking cap things from this tree - a lady buys them from Lyle to make craft things - the guy in the field next to us was spraying his field with who knows what, so Lyle and I kept running back to hide in the car every time he made a pass with the sprayer - scurry scurry - collect collect and then run run - it was quite funny
seed collecting - this time SUGAR GUM tree seeds
On my last day at Lyle's house I finally get to ride in this beautiful machine - the legendary harvest ute!
We are on a mission to get this large slab of wood that is out in a nearby paddock - a massive slab of wood to make a table out of.
This slab is absolutely massive and no easy task - we get the ute stuck in a rabbit burrow and then try everything to wrestle this wood into the trailer. I was sure that it would not be possilbe - "the nightmare" as Lyle kept saying - but by some magic we did it!
It is late in the day, but we stop to collect some saltbush seeds on the way out of the paddock - the cows are hungry and think that our vehicle means food, so we run out of the gate just in time as the cows run after us.
