A decade after moving from Canberra into an off-grid home near Michelago with two water-less toilets John Schneider and his wife Jill Dobkin are still uncovering the depths of their resilience in the bush.
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Mr Schneider is a geophysicist, while Ms Dobkin is a yoga instructor and masseuse. After moving from the United States to Australia they began house hunting in the ACT, but ordinary architecture and rising property prices caused them to look at a bush alternative.
They built a straw bale home in a shallow valley above the Murrumbidgee River. Semi-circle shaped to admit the sun's deep penetration, the home won the ACT sustainable house award in 2005 and 2006 and accolades for their architect Hugh Gordon.
The Canberra Times first featured their story in 2004 when they moved to the 40-hectare block with their 10-year-old son Bennett and seven-year-old daughter Margot.
A 90,000 litre concrete water tank gave them a flying start for washing and watering a big garden, and $30,000 worth of solar power equipment enabled them to run the solar-passive house with no more than five kilowatt hours a day, down from 20 kWhs a day at Red Hill. Batteries have been the weakest, most expensive link.
"Sometimes in winter I would tell the kids they couldn't watch TV because there hadn't been enough sun to charge the batteries completely," Mr Schneider said. They sourced a refrigerator from Scandinavia because none in Australia were efficient enough.
Ms Dobkin mostly misses a hot shower in winter, because solar tubes for heating water lack sufficient sun. Now in year 12, Margot prefers town life with friends. Studying renewable energy and physics at the ANU, Bennett has completed and published a research project on more efficient solar panels.
"He lived out here for 10 years, he is studying all the systems he grew up with and of course he comes home and tells me what's wrong with them," Mr Schneider said.
Recycled tallowwood beams frame the home, with a curved, high insulation straw bale wall with lime render on the south side and tall, double-glazed glass facing a picturesque valley in the north. East and west walls are reverse brick veneer clad in corrugated iron.
The garden, which has been protected from kangaroos, deer and possums, and pebble-stone paths surround the three-bedroom home, which has a slow-combustion wood heater and ceilings of compressed straw.
Spectacular lightning shows illuminate the heavily timbered hills down the valley during thunder storms. Scores of wallabies and kangaroos regularly wander up to the dam below the home. Birdlife has exploded since Mr Schneider and Bennett have sprayed the weeds each summer. Fallen timber is left for habitat, except some yellow box for the home fire.
"The weeds. That is us paying for 100 years of sheep grazing," Mr Schneider says. Ms Dobkin adds: "The farmers have given up [spraying] african lovegrass. They mow it, they don't get rid of it any more."
Their two composting toilets have been disappointing. The rota loo system needs temperatures of 25 degrees or so to enable aerobic processes, like worms, to dominate and create soil. "The idea is that after rotating through the six bins [which takes six months] you have nice, beautiful soil that you can run your fingers through," Mr Schneider said. "Not so. I take them out partially composted and compost them further in a separate area in the shed."
They fortified six-foot enclosures for their chooks and ducks against foxes, only to lose two plump hens to an eagle, before adding more netting.
"Jill learned that foxes can be discouraged by keeping a radio on," he said. "Now we turn a radio on by the chook house when we let the chooks out and have not lost a hen since."
