What We Do in a Day: Zero Waste Building, Duck Cuddles and Goat Drama!

Today we're going to do a bit of maintenance 

to stop all the naughty little animals these guys have been sneaking through the 

fence into the cayuga duck's paddock and   the cayugas sneak through into the garden and 

snack on all the cherry tomatoes and spinach so today i'm going to mend the fence it's like they know if they 

act super cute we will get   way too distracted to stop them from sneaking out i'm going to add one long piece of wire along   the bottom and twist it to each 

piece of copper to make it tight uh-oh we made this fence out of old copper pipe from a hot water system that was 

way too beautiful to throw out  

 We always try to use secondhand 

materials never buying anything new   we truly believe in the importance 

of only using what we already have this circular philosophy means that we 

have so many collections of old junk   that always come in handy one day  and that every task takes so much longer because 

all of our materials are silly and difficult   usually wonky and broken but 

also so much more beautiful   i think we learnt this from our 

parents who learnt to build by   collecting old discarded materials from 

all the old buildings around byron bay they morphed them into the most beautiful houses we would always laugh at our dad when 

he took so long to build anything spending so much time fiddling 

around with silly old materials he had the grandest collection 

of old very broken bikes 

 We realise now that this understanding of 

resources was so ahead of his time and he already   practiced zero waste living long before our 

generation began to understand the climate crisis so we are trying to follow his 

philosophy now in his footsteps yes now i'm going to staple on some mesh to the gate you're showing off now come on can you not do it   success in the morning we let the 

goats out of their night pen   it was our old childhood cubby house  and we recently renovated it into 

the perfect multi-story goat pen   we filled in the walls with 

old shutters and fence panels   

 And this is where they sleep each 

night safe from any predators   sometimes they go and play upstairs for a bit because there has been less grass lately 

the goats have started to get very naughty   they jump fences and gates to get into 

the garden and then eat all of our veggies   the latest victim was the tomato bushes where they 

ate every single tomato and the whole plant itself sometimes when they're in an especially 

naughty mood they sneak back into a   different garden and take a massive 

bite of broccoli on their way home   the routine of getting them 

back into their paddock is   so long and it happens so many times per day so today we're going to make two new gates 

that will hopefully be too high to jump   too sturdy to push open and easier to navigate 

through when you are returning goat escapees   a friend gave us this stack of old fence 

palings that they were going to burn   

 Some are a bit rotten but most are quite good mom is a fence expert so today 

she is teaching us all the tricks now we're going to de-nail each of the boards she cut the pieces for the frame in 

the workshop earlier so now we have   to just screw it together and 

add palings to the structure there used to be a fence between this paddock 

so there are old gate hinges still in the post mom thinks they may have 

been from an old barn before and who knows where they would 

have been used before that we're going to unscrew them and reuse them but not without the help of magnolia and moth and of course the welsh harlequins it's always slow working with these guys 

 In between any job there 

are always paddock cuddles first we are going to replace this 

gate because it's the dodgiest but first snuggles with sailor the ducks discovered that this old 

sign that blocked a hole in the gate   also has a different purpose duck slide okay now for some real work with 

absolutely no duck distractions   i probably should have pre-drilled this 

post before because it's hardwood but i'm   always too lazy so i end up doing it the hard way our grandfather put this post in 

for a passion fruit plantation   years later our dad added the tin to the 

top to protect it from the weather but he   added more room so that it could also 

act as a little hidey hole for animals   

 Once we found a family of rare insect 

bats hiding inside one of these poles yay a gate that swings super easily oh my   after all that moth will 

always find a new way to escape i guess that's tomorrow's job and there she goes again 

straight into the tomatoes now it's time to give some love to 

the naughty goats and take them down   for a fresh pick of grass by the 

lake while we cool off in the water