From Box Hill to Pascoe Vale

Two weeks in Box Hill came to end today. And with that door closing the door to an urban farm in Pascoe Vale opened. Here I was thinking all the hippys were dead and the initial evidence would suggest to me that at least one is still alive in Melbourne. With all sorts of interesting projects happening at this new place of residence I'm a thinking that this place would be the sort of place that will be vastly more interesting than the last one. The house feels sort of like an urban farm. The backyard was concreted over when Paul purchased the property. The concrete is all gone. And now there are bees being kept in the backyard, fruit trees, and in the front of the property fish are being grown in a pool.

Unfortunately for me the hosts at the last place had little English language skills and I had zero skills in their native language. So little chance of much in the way of communication and I spent most of my time, when I was at the hosts place, in my room either sleeping or browsing the internet or playing internet poker.  Sort of a middle of the road AirBnB experience. Neither good nor bad. It just was.

The main host at Pascoe Vale is a bloke called Paul. Paul is turning 55 this year and we spent some time this evening talking about his days work. Paul has purchased a portable saw mill and is in the early days of earning some return from his investment. He has recently made friends with a council arborist and spent some of today with the arborist milling some trees that had needed to be felled. Paul is happy. He has made some money. The arborist is happy. He has taken some felled trees and, with Paul's help, has converted them into very useful pieces of timber at a much lower price than if he had had to pay for those pieces of timber through a 3rd party.  I'm keen to have a look at Paul's mill in operation. So, if the opportunity presents itself during my stay, I think I will offer to tag along for the experience.