Home Front: Bunnings as a bug out location

Following on from my recent article on Ikea as a bug-out location,  which I talked about using the big Swedish household-building company's warehouse stores as a place to refit and inhabit following a society crumbling disaster event (short to medium term). The principle being that Me and mine need somewhere to go and shelter for however long, and there is no appreciable government relief on the way. Pretty unlikely in a stable first world nation right? Well, the folks of New Orleans might disagree. 

My like-minded friends and I have also discussed the various merits of other sites, such as a self-storage facility, in a basement bunker (if you have one) or even in your long term off-grid, eco-village. But one place that most of us agree would be a good site to hold up in and recover, would be a big-box hardware store, like Bunnings.           As far as disaster, apocalypse survival and reconstruction goes, it's hard to imagine a better equipped storehouse for raw materials than a facility like these. Aisle after aisle of tools, fittings, construction and fortification materials fill the cavernous warehouse. 

Anyone with a DIY bent that I know find it hard to walk around without getting itchy fingers at all the stock. Whilst they may not have -everything- you need to rebuild, or in the quantities required, they certainly have enough for any small-scale reconstruction you'd need. The facility itself is none too shabby either. Whilst open and well lit, they are often hot in summer, and cold in winter, but well enclosed and sheltered from the environment. If whatever disaster befell your area didn't damage the superstructure, it would make a good place to shelter. 

With simple layout, large roller-door as well as fire-door access, there isn't much to do in the way of barricading. The outside areas are high-fenced, to ward off present-day looters, and will offer the same protection in a disaster area. Of course, this could be improved with the addition of more barricades and area-denial tools like barbed-wire (Aisle 12, people ...) as could the main entrances. You could easily build up bigger and better walls around the inside of the existing  walls, and maintain a low-key presence, or turn it into a fortified looking castle. 

The key thing to note is that the large range of raw-materials and hand-tools. A facility like this is a treasure trove of pre-fabricated parts and construction materials, supplies and if push comes to shove, weapons.

It also features quite a wide array of potted plants and seedlings. Very little of it is immediately edible, certainly not sustainable, but if set up as a garden, you could make quite a bit of food from it. It would take time however. Food is not something that is a ready resource at a place like this.

Another aspect of this is that Bunnings have a really good rainwater catchment system. Those big roofs catch a lot of water, and that is a valuable resource. It will water any crops planted, and also provide drinking water.

All in all, there are many valuable resources and commodities to be found at a Bunnings, its a reasonably
secure environment, but it has the drawback of not being set up to be habitable, and it is a well known treasure trove. This will make it a very appealing target for other survivors.

Home Front: summer garden 2014

As with previous years, I planted a vegetable garden over the winter-spring cusp, in order to have a good summer crop of greens.

Using wood I reclaimed from pallets that had been left on the road-side by a neighbor who was having some renovations done, I built this box in an afternoon, dug post holes, dropped it in place and left it lay-fallow with weed-suppressing cardboard boxes lining the base. I then filled the box 3/4 the way up with a mulch/soil mix that I had purchased (and got a water-saving rebate for), and hit our local garden/hardware store for seedlings.

In previous years I have planted in our low-sided veggie patches, but this year, as a result of my lovely partner Omega's request for a raised bed, to give better access to our crops without the need for bending and kneeling, which is one reason I built a hip-high box.

These little guys are the other reason. We now have four Flemish Giant rabbits. They started off palm sized, and will eventually get to be 10 kg (22 lb) each. I have now made two wired-off enclosures for them to run in, but we found they could both climb, and hop into the raised bed. Hence the "over the top" chicken wire over the bed, and the over-hanging lip to make a more effective perimeter fence.

A lucky finding was that the rabbits didn't like the artichoke plant that we had regrow this year from last years failed attempt. We've managed several meals worth of artichokes and Tactical Baby enjoys selecting which "dinosaur flowers" we are going to have. There are also several onion plants in there, also segregated from the bunnies, and it looks like we might have some invincible potato plants coming up as well.

I lined the side of the raised bed with a strip of copper tape, which has proven to be an effective slug and snail deterrent. We did have a cabbage moth caterpillar problem, which was attacking the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage plants we planted, but the invading bunnies ate all the buds from them anyway, so we lost those crops.

What we do have going however is two kinds of kale, spinach,  Vietnamese mint and coriander, tomato and spring onions. We also have several eggplants on the go in there.

Its a very high density plot, and it takes some rummaging to get from one plant to another, but being hip-high has been a great improvement.

My other partner Lorin has been admonishing me for planting the tomatoes in there, and not separately, because of how big they've gotten, but I'm a sucker for high density, bountiful and bodacious harvests, and that covers my gardening too!

We might even give the vertical garden another go, although we've left it a bit late in the season. Between the two extra rain barrels we put in, and the unfortunate reduction in our number of chookens (lost 7 overnight, some kind of illness, down to one, the unkillable Princess Layer, veteran of four previous calamities) we might even make more use of the back yard this summer. 

Home Front: log, it's log!

A couple of weeks ago I came home to this rather large pile of timber in my front yard. Apparently the local arborists know that I have a wood fire and after propositioning them to take the least tree they cut down, they've taken it on themselves to not have to mulch any logs they fell, and after asking my eldest who was getting home from school, they tossed a tree into my front yard.
At least this time I didn't have a veggie patch for them to crush.

Welcome Mt Birchmore, altitude 1.2m.
I'm pretty sure it was birch, although there was no foliage for me to confirm with.
One thing I know, there was a whole tree's worth.

Obviously this would need to be seasoned before burning it, but as we've just come into spring here, and summer brings "total fire bans" for weeks at a time, I will be able to comfortably sit through the six months of drying time that is recommended for green wood. Given Melbourne's zany weather, probably just for the best, anyway.

I was lucky that the arborist crew chainsawed most of the logs into pretty uniform lengths, and even the larger blocks of wood into manageable chunks.
I spent a number of hours hauling all this around to the back of our house and stacking it up.

Before stacking my new haul, however, I needed to clear out my vine, leaf litter and as it turns out, bush rat nest filled old log pile.
This pile of mixed logs, including redgum and a variety of other woods that I have salvaged from around my neighbourhood and on my drives to and from Triceratops Girl on the weekends. It's become part of out urban-scavenging mindset to always be on the lookout for logs piled up out the front of houses. When we can, we stop and load up the back of the RAV4 and restock our supply.

After cleaning out my log store spot, a paved area beside the trampoline and fenced off chicken run in what used to be a bare patch of grass, I stacked up my timber booty in three layers, on one side, and a single stack behind the wall my smoker sits on, with a good mix of large logs and thinner ones so that I have a selection when it comes time to burn it. I covered the main body of the stack to attempt to keep the spring rains from setting it to rot. Triceratops Girl was even keen to get involved with the hauling and stacking she has a slow-combustion stove at her mothers place, so knows all about having nice wood fires.

Wood fires may not be the most ecologically friendly, often producing a lot of particulate waste, especially in open fires, or when using green wood, but when it comes to survival and self-reliance, having a supply of firewood, and the means to both cook and heat with it can make the difference between comfort and squalor. In snow-bound areas, it can mean the difference to life itself.