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00:00When the sun shines, it fills the valley with gold.
00:07Beams of light dance through the canopy, the ferns and palms highlighted, casting long shadows.
00:20This last month has been so rainy, so when the sun shines, us and the goats get so excited.
00:27The goats hate the rain, and if a shower comes, they run home as fast as they can.
00:32Lately, they haven't been exploring far because of the constant risk of showers, but this morning, as the sun shines so deeply, Julia is taking them on an adventure way up the valley.
00:53Magnolia and Julia are inseparable.
00:56Maggie was the first goat we ever got, and her and her sister came to the farm five years ago now.
01:01She was just a tiny, scrawny baby, and her mother had abandoned her.
01:06Julia brought her back to health, and ever since, these two have a bond so special.
01:11I never get over the beauty of the sun and the rain at the same time.
01:22I just don't understand how something can be so magical.
01:25We've got such rain at the moment, but it peaks through sunshine every now and then, and it's just the most beautiful thing in the world.
01:32I love to just be out here hitting it.
01:34And so is Glover!
01:36Hi!
01:37This season has been so wet.
01:42Normally our dry season comes in April, and we stop getting much rain until the storms return in October, but the climate is changing here, and each season it just gets wetter and wetter.
01:51The wet season lasts for so long now, and everything is so muddy and wet.
01:56But what it does mean is that there's a beautiful display of mist each morning, and the sunrises have been incredible.
02:02Most days are this weird in-between of sun and rain, and rainbows form in the corner of the sky.
02:08When it is sunny for a while, we celebrate, so instead of getting straight into work, while the sun is out and the creeks are full, I am taking advantage of this sunny afternoon.
02:23There is a special spot way up the valley.
02:25It's a bit of a walk over these massive boulders.
02:28The creek meanders around cliff faces, and the rainforest is thick either side of the valley, so the only way up there is to hop through the stream.
02:38But the spot is worth it. There are these blue fairy pools everywhere, and they're deep, in some places you can't even touch.
02:45There's even a flat stone that you can sit on like natural steps into this deep pool.
02:50Being here, watching the soft blue water flow through stone, vines reach high into the rainforest trees, immersing my body into the refreshing water.
02:59This is where I find so much inspiration for building.
03:03The natural flow of the land is artistic in a way that I don't even know if humans can ever achieve.
03:09Its composition is perfect, its colour and shape, and every element of nature is just so artistic.
03:16So I look to these ways when I build. To the shapes and the way things move. To the flow and the natural meandering stream that moves at a pace so gentle.
03:31How can I integrate the cabin that I'm building into these natural scenes? Continue curves and shape corners in ways that both honour and abide to nature's rules.
03:41To celebrate the beauty of the natural world in every element that I create, and while I do it, respect nature by not contributing to climate imbalance or materials that all one day litter there.
03:52So far in the build I've only bought screws and hinges new. Everything else has been repurposed and all of the materials are made from natural and recyclable elements.
04:01I'm so excited by how far this place has come. How the kitchen has changed from a big old mess to this beautiful space.
04:20How the loft has a floor now. How the window isn't rotten and instead it's beautiful.
04:25And how they are all coming together to create this special cabin in the rainforest.
04:30So it's time to do plumbing. Which, plumbing is so hard and confusing and last time I cried so many times while trying to put pipes in.
04:51But I mean my main problem is that I'm always using recycled materials and old pipes that we happen to have on the farm.
04:58So I'm doing it again. I found lots of old pipes that I think will work. I think if it goes down from here, does the S bend, then maybe I use this because it already has an extension that goes up to the bigger size.
05:13And then we've already got an out pipe here that goes off. So I think I can connect it to that.
05:20So I have the S bend which is in now and it looks good. It looks like it's supposed to be there. I think I'm on the right track.
05:35And then I have these two, well many pieces that I found in the shed that must have been used for something and they're not anymore.
05:41So I'm thinking I can use them because I need to get it this size going to this size.
05:46Because it comes out at this size and then it ends up in a pipe this size.
05:50So I need to transfer it at some point and this has the fitting to transfer it. So instead of buying a new one, I'm just going to recycle this.
05:56And I think if I cut this at the length that I need and then if I cut this and then put a right angle, which I also have a spare right angle, then I think it'll work. I feel like it'll work. I'm just going to, I'm going to see.
06:12Aphrodite and all of her babies have come to visit me. I don't know where the rest of the flock is. Aphrodite has twins, Poet and Cherub.
06:20And then this is Panini, who's the same age as Poet and Cherub, but her mum died of a snake fight.
06:25And at the time Aphrodite just took her in as one of her own and now they're just this cute little, I don't know, group of sheebies that run around together.
06:33It's like she's got triplets, but one of them's adopted.
06:37So this is Aphrodite and her triplets, and then the other half of the flock are the boys up there who are off on an adventure.
06:50I don't want little microplastics to go on the soil, so I'm going to try to catch them in this bucket.
07:07Plumbing from second hand materials, or just plumbing in general to be honest, is like the most intense puzzle of all time.
07:15I don't know how people do it, I am so impressed by all plumbers everywhere in the world.
07:20Like, how do you handle this? It is so confusing.
07:25Then we want it to curve, and then it would connect up here, and then it's a really complicated way that it turns, and then it can go into the pipe that's already here, I think.
07:38So the plumbing that already existed for the kitchen sink that was here goes underground here, and I don't know if it's good for me or bad for me that it's so wet at the moment that this whole area is just like mud.
07:50So in some ways it's really easy, because digging is going to be very simple, but also I'm sliding around in the mud.
07:57I feel like I can just fill that up.
08:00Oh, there it is.
08:02And then from there it goes onwards, so the plan is just to move this pipe, basically, because this thing used to be here, so I'm going to move it over.
08:09Oh my god, there's a rainbow! Oh, it's so beautiful!
08:20The rainbow disappeared faster than anything, so now I'm wondering if it was ever even real, but it was so beautiful!
08:30But I keep getting distracted, so I need to actually get into this.
08:33But, that goes that way, I think it's fine.
08:36There's some sort of old carpet here, I guess, I don't know, maybe my dad put it here so that it wasn't so muddy, but the mud has just gone on top of it.
08:50So I'm going to get rid of it, because I don't like that turf that puts microplastics out in the world.
08:55It goes from, like, fully sunny to, like, a storm in 30 seconds at the moment, so you don't know if you can be working outside or inside.
09:15It's quite complex.
09:21Who's that? Come on!
09:23Plumbing is so confusing.
09:26I'm covered in mud.
09:27I am so confused.
09:29I don't know what's going on, I don't know which pipes go where and why they do it, and I'm just adding more chaotic pipes, and I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, and I'm stressed.
09:39Okay, what I'm going to do is undo these pipes so that I can bring the other big pipe on top of them, and then I'm going to redo those pipes, and I can't forget where those pipes originally went when I redo them, because that would be really bad.
09:52Ow!
09:53Ow!
09:54Ow!
09:55Ow!
09:56Okay, so now that I have this pipe pretty able to move, not that well, but it can move a bit, now I'm going to measure how far from this pipe here it is to the sink, but I don't have a tape measure on me, so I'm going to use a kind of long stick that's probably not long enough.
10:14Because that's the solution that I have.
10:17So, I think it's like, is it one and a half long sticks?
10:22Yeah, one and a half long sticks.
10:25Maybe one and three quarter long sticks?
10:31So, one.
10:32Okay.
10:33Cool.
10:34Should I just cut that, or is that risky?
10:36I feel like that's a bit risky.
10:38I'm just going to cut it with a lot extra and hope that it works.
10:47Now I have to take this bit of iron off so that I can hopefully slip the pipe through there.
11:01Now is the time.
11:02I'm covered in mud, but I'm going to test if I can fit this and then like lean it over and then squish it down so that it goes that way.
11:11This all should have been done before these big cupboards were put into place, but look, I didn't know what I was doing then.
11:19Oh no, that's not gonna work!
11:21Unless I can like, maybe I need to go farther up here to get more bend.
11:26This is just...
11:28I really don't want to break this pipe, but...
11:30Ow, ow ow ow ow ow, ow ow.
11:35Whoa.
11:36My fingers got stuck.
11:37But I did it.
11:38I am so close now.
11:40I just need to bring the pipe over to here and then sort out whatever I'm doing with that.
11:53Gaisley, not on the table.
11:56Every time a rain shower comes I get six little friends that come and visit.
11:59It's very cute. It's a bit naughty. You make it so messy in here. But I guess I can't kill it, can I?
12:07It's a movie.
12:16Okay. Bye-bye. Hello.
12:20I've got a few too many joints here, but what does it matter?
12:30So this was just an old joint, but all I need from it is where it goes small to big.
12:35This is just glued in, so I have to keep it. This I had to add so that I could add an elbow bend.
12:42So it's got a lot of joints there, but I think it'll be okay.
12:50I did it. I plumbed it. I can't believe it. It took so long. I couldn't get one of the types to fit, but I did it.
13:00And I am exhausted, but I'm going to put it all back together.
13:15Good girl.
13:16It's weedy. We got a weed.
13:26For a while, I thought that this was a seedling that I planted because I did plant a seedling just next to it.
13:31And I just realized that it's not. It's a big weed. It's so massive.
13:36The flowers are still so abundant, but there are so many weeds amongst them because I've been a bit naughty and I haven't been weeding much.
13:56So there's a lot of farmers' friends as well.
13:59This is ageratum, which is a weed in this area, and it's actually like a flower that people grow in other parts of the world for its beauty.
14:13But here it's a terrible weed because one day someone thought that they might grow a beautiful flower and it just kept spreading because it's so similar to our climate where it's from.
14:23I think in Mexico. So I'm constantly pulling it out, but it is beautiful.
14:27I try to use ground covers in this garden so that there are less weeds that take over because the ground covers kind of act like a weed themselves.
14:42So they just cover everywhere so then there's no rough space for other things to come up.
14:46So I use evening primrose and it's really cute and it grows really prolifically here.
14:52So it just covers everything and then where it covers weeds don't come up.
14:56I use sweet potatoes as a ground cover underneath the bananas and that seems to work really well, but I can't get them to grow well enough.
15:03Some people can grow them really easily, but they just I don't think they like my soil or something.
15:08So I've only got a few down lower in the garden and they haven't spread to here yet. I need to plant them.
15:13But there's lots of suckers that I need to desucker from this patch soon.
15:17It's on my endless to-do list and I think this bunch is getting too heavy.
15:22So I think I need to prop it up with something. Otherwise the whole tree is going to fall down.
15:27Not a tree, but not a plant. I think it is a herb technically.
15:31Happy herself is a good helper in the garden. She's great because she eats all the pests.
15:36But if you bring too many ducks in, then they just start to eat everything.
15:40Don't they happy? Like you and your friends when you get into the garden and you eat everything you see.
15:46But one duck is perfect. So she comes away from her friends and just comes for a gardening day.
15:56I've got a bunch of bananas just about on every clump.
15:59There's Cavendish and Ladyfingers. There's none on the plantains yet, but I'm very excited about that.
16:05But then I have this papaya tree here and every year it flowers, but it never fruits.
16:10And I'm wondering if I've got the wrong type or if you need like both a male and a female.
16:15If this one needs something. I don't know. I'm confused with it.
16:19Happy, you're just coming along for this tour.
16:24This banana is, I don't know, probably a few months off.
16:29They grow slower in the cold season.
16:31So now that we're heading into winter, it's probably going to be a while off.
16:36Whereas when they're coming into summer, they grow so fast that I don't even see them coming.
16:39And then we've got fruit ready.
16:41Yeah, you like the leftovers, don't you?
16:43It's funny, I started this garden just as a flower garden and then now I've become very interested in bananas.
16:52But technically it's still a flower garden because bananas have these massive flowers on the bottom of them,
16:58which are maybe the most beautiful flowers of them all.
17:06So I'm learning to just kind of sit back and, I don't know, appreciate this beautiful place
17:10because I've kind of finished this project.
17:13And I say kind of because I haven't at all.
17:15I have a lot more plans for this place.
17:17I think pizza robins soon.
17:19I'm thinking maybe over there and I'll fix up the bathroom.
17:23There's a lot of things to do.
17:25But for now I'm just kind of sitting back and like learning to really just appreciate what I've done here.
17:32I'm feeling proud.
17:33So on my list of things that I want to do is pizza robin, obviously.
17:37And I'm thinking maybe like behind here, kind of facing outwards because I think that's a really cute spot for it.
17:42And the exciting part is that we actually already have a pizza robin because our Italian neighbor built one
17:47and then he moved back to Italy.
17:49So he's offered it up and it's the perfect place for it.
17:52But the problem is moving a pizza robin, which I think would be pretty hard.
17:57So I built this sink, which I love so much and it's so beautiful, but it needs a tap because I never built one.
18:03So I don't want something too obvious.
18:06Like if a tap comes over, I think it'll look a bit, I don't know, it's quite far away as well.
18:10So I don't want to drill into the marble for the plumbing.
18:13So I'm thinking, I don't know if this is a smart idea, but I'm thinking of using like a garden hose.
18:19That sounds really ugly, but I promise it'll be cute.
18:22Some sort of like attachment or even something for a shower that is like on a hose so that you have it behind here.
18:28And then when you need to wash up, you kind of bring it out and the hose comes out.
18:31You can fill up your sink and do the washing up because I think that's just, it's nicer.
18:35It's cleaner.
18:36Just leaving it behind there.
18:37This one is kind of embarrassing because it really just should be done, but I haven't done it,
18:42which is the doors don't have any like stoppers.
18:46So they just pop out and then I tried to, but I got the wrong ones.
18:50So what can I say?
18:52It's too hard.
18:53And then I also, I only got three of these because I thought that I had one and then I didn't have one.
18:59So there's only three of them.
19:01So I need to get one.
19:02This is procrastination project number one.
19:06I should have done this months ago, years ago, probably.
19:09But termites ate out one of the poles.
19:11So a big, like a major one of the poles.
19:14So now the whole thing leans like this because it's trying to fall over.
19:18But we've got a wire and we've attached it to a tree up there to kind of pull it back.
19:22But it started leaning again that way.
19:24So we're really worried that it's just gonna like fall down.
19:26So I really need to tighten that wire and make it lean that way again and save it from the elements.
19:32Inside this bath house, we just have a bath.
19:35It's kind of like a little spa area in the rainforest.
19:39It's so cute.
19:40I love it in here.
19:41But another plan that we would have is to build a composting toilet because that would be really handy.
19:47And yeah, just make sure that it doesn't fall down.
19:50That's the big one.
19:51This one's a fun one.
19:52It's that this hot water system used to work so that it would heat the copper pipe,
19:57put the water up into the hot water system, and then it would go into a bath.
20:00And I'd really like to get that working because it's like the coziest way to have a bath ever,
20:04heated by a fire.
20:05But it's quite a big job, I guess.
20:07It's like I need to work out a better way of coiling the copper wire
20:12because at the moment it just kind of goes through the flame.
20:14So I think it should go into the coals and then it might work.
20:16That's a really fun job.
20:17I really want to do that.
20:18This is an old vintage stove.
20:21It's an IXL, I think, mum calls it.
20:24And I think someone in the family saved it from the tip.
20:27And it's very cute.
20:28And we'd love to use it because then you could bake bread down here.
20:32I think you just kind of move the coals into it or you can even light a fire in it
20:35and then it works like an oven, which is so cool.
20:38But it's also, it's very rusty.
20:40Like the sides are not solid.
20:42So I don't really know what our plan on it is.
20:45One day we'll do something.
20:46This one's a pretty simple job, but I just haven't done it yet.
20:49And it's just replaced the ladder that goes up to the tree house
20:52because the one that my dad built is good and I'll use it.
20:55I'll just fix it.
20:56It's just got one rung that has rotted out completely.
20:58So every time you stand on it, it falls down, which is pretty dangerous.
21:01So that needs fixing.
21:16Thank you so much to our patrons for your support on our journey of planting trees,
21:20clearing weeds and caring for the land.
21:28Lets take a look.
21:29throne is tall to get you in this room and we'll go to a place of planting days for the two Wangies.
21:37I'm tired of having , yeah!
21:41Maybe if you're opening up now early with planting trees for example as well,
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