I was WWOOFing this past week or so. For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, and concerned for my spelling, WWOOF stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms.

It has become a verb (to WWOOF) and a noun (a WWOOFer). There are WWOOF organisations all around the world, connecting the willing with the work. People – usually travellers – exchange their labour for food and board.

For me, it is a chance to leave the city, learn, and be part of a way of life where food is grown and eaten, not just eaten.

Su Dennett and David Holmgren kindly agreed for me to stay at Melliodora, their property in Hepburn Springs, an hour-and-a-half north-west of Melbourne. Dave is the co-originator of permaculture, and an insightful commentator on matters from bushfire preparation to geo-politics and peak oil.

Melliodora is one hectare, teeming with food and thought. Each building, tree, path, plant and detail is carefully placed for the benefit of everything else. The household economy provides both physical and intellectual nourishment.

The evening I arrived, Dave walked me through the property. We left their owner-built, passive-solar mudbrick home and walked past their kitchen garden to the shed and chook-house. Through the swinging gate, we came to the barn and loft where I’d be staying. Close to the house, these buildings are the crossroads of the property. Here, the animals are tended: goats milked; chooks fed and eggs collected. This is the place to get tools and equipment. It’s the throughway to the orchards and the other veggie patches. It’s the spot for solitary time on the compost toilet.

We continued down the hill, past the orchards to the dams. Dave introduced me to Melliodora’s real owners: Tan, Bett and Flame. They were chatting and chewing on some willow, and they implored Dave to cut them more.

Su milks the goats each morning, all four (goats and human) united in constant conversation. Su makes yogurt and cheese from the milk. She also keeps bees, runs a bulk-foods and veggie box co-op, and works on the Hepburn Relocalisation Network.

I emerged from my loft each morning at seven-thirty. We lit the wood-stove in the kitchen, cooked porridge and boiled water. Dave roasted chestnuts. Life at Melliodora revolves around the gravitational pull of that wood stove.

My days were largely spent harvesting: apples, grapes, feijoas, mushrooms, potatoes, cherry guavas. It has been a bumper season, after so many of drought. I bottled pears, de-netted fruit trees, de-sludged a massive water tank.

The nights are cold in the Victorian central highlands. One evening, after the second afternoon digging spuds, I caught sight of a muscular man in the mirror: my shoulders were broad, my arms bulging. I was wearing five jumpers.

And alas, below the layers, my feeble arm was hurting. T’was the spuds that did me in. My left forearm and wrist swelled up like a thin snake that gobbled a mouse. The local physio told me to rest, then advised me to build up my muscles before returning. 

You’ve heard of the UBC, I’m sure. Everybody’s talking about the UBC. The UBC is a revolutionary organisation.

It’s also just a group of my friends. After much discussion and self-mockery, we called ourselves the Urban Bush-Carpenters. We take discarded timber, make things and give them away to people who need them. The three S’s: salvaging, socialising and sharing.

It started over summer. A group of young men decided they wanted to do something practical, enjoyable and valuable for the community. One Monday evening they met up, dismantled a pallet and transformed it into a veggie planter box, by way of much hammer clanging and gnashing of screws. We’ve built many since, plus some outdoor benches and a big chook house, and held some workshops to encourage other people to have a go.

Our skills vary. Geoff and German Michael are engineers. Sam’s an electrician. Andy works in a bronze foundry; Stephen, in community development; and Dale, a council. Mainly, we’re enthusiastic.

Our crowing achievement is the chook shed at Stewart Lodge, a supported residential service in Brunswick, Melbourne. Stewart Lodge is home to 80 men and women living with mental illness, physical or intellectual disability, acquired brain injury, or drug and alcohol dependency.

There was a permablitz there last October and as part of the follow up, we were asked if we could construct the coop. We built it in one long day, directed by Geoff and Andy, and assisted by a brood of helpers.

I showed up at nine o’clock in the morning. I looked at the rough plans and I thought we’d never get it done. Despite my furrowed brow, we dispensed with the spirit level and completed the framing by eye. Geoff would squint and say: “Oh yeah, that looks good.” And it did. Damn good. At eight o’clock in the evening the residents walked down carrying the chooks to their new home.

I’ve seen the future and the future is urban bush-carpentry: we take a waste product and make something useful, often to grow food in. We don’t wait for things to happen for us; we get out of the house, swing a hammer and learn something. We share our time, experience and output. Then we sit down for a good natter, and maybe a beer. 

UBC-guru Geoff and the new Stewart Lodge chook shed 

Close to my house, there is a curious shop. It says MICHAEL KELLY above the door in bold red letters. Nothing seems to be for sale. The shop is filled with petite, white, pitched-roof dwellings. Elegant, handmade shutters have been installed in all the windows.

In one front window, Michael Kelly has a small workbench. His tools are carefully arranged, both on the wall and on shelves behind the bench. Small containers of small nails are neatly stacked on the shelves. Another set of shelves contains books: the wisdom of Primo Levi, and psychiatrist and academic Thomas Szasz, among others.

There is a small blackboard resting in the window, and every day Michael chalks a new aphorism, something that reflects the matters he has been mulling. Today, it reads, “What is life without love and beauty, the gifts of art, music and ideas?”

Others I remember, off the top of my head, are: “Walk with wise people”, and “No truer comment on the human heart is the state of the environment”. Many people stop and talk to him about what he writes in the window and many others wave as they pass.

When I first visited Michael and his wife Nadeen, he spent all afternoon talking with me. Their dog Rusty pawed around us. Michael is tall, straight-backed and square-jawed. His hazel eyes see with strict, clear purpose.

He told me about his belief in building as simply as possible. “If you can build a rectangle, you can build a box. If you can build a box, you can build a house.” As you construct a rectangle, be sure that the structure is square, not skewed. Measure the two angled lengths, from opposite corner to opposite corner, and knock the structure until those lengths are equal.

Michael owns a battered yellow ute, in which he collects discarded timber from demolition sites. He seeks out Oregon (otherwise known as Douglas Fir), the soft but strong timber that was previously used for framing in houses. He picks up not only sizeable planks, but also the Oregon lath (thin timber strips) from old lath-and-plaster interior walls. He makes it into shutters, shelves, tables, walls, roofs: you-name-it.

I have since spent several fruitful afternoons at the shop, sharing labour and conversation. We are building a small dwelling (or studio structure) in his courtyard – and that will be the subject of forthcoming posts.