POSTBEAM

A Personal Account By David Baetge

Our 100 acre property is located in Buxton directly adjacent to the Cathedral Mountain Range State Park. It was right in the middle of the firestorm which occurred in the recent Black Saturday bushfires. I stayed to defend our property. What follows is my account of what happened to me in the Black Saturday bushfires.

Having purchased our country plot we then started to contemplate the magnitude of the task ahead to bring this forward to what Noleen & I required the property to be for us. We sat down and listed our basic requirements for the property and house. The list was basically as follows (not in any priority):

My wife Noleen and I purchased a 100 acre property in a little country town called Buxton about 100km from Melbourne in mid-1999. We will be not only be constructing a new home but also a new lifestyle which embraces sustainable and bio-dynamic agriculture. In the pages that follow over the ensuing months and years I will provide details of our thoughts, concepts, progress and, of course, the inevitable frustrations that will beset us along the way as we strive to create our dream. I hope you enjoy what follows and that in some way it helps you reach your goals as well.

Back in about 1994 as I best recall two lovely ladies purchased one of my Post & Beam homes which they built in Buxton (about 100km north-east of Melbourne near Marysville). They engaged me to install the paved brick floor for them. Over the years we kept in contact and when I met my wife Noleen they invited us both up to their home for Sunday lunch. It was one of those brilliant Spring days and as we drove over the Black Spur and down into the Acheron Valley, I remarked to Noleen that I had forgotten how lovely this area was.