Murnong

I’ve been hacking away at a patch of blackberries for about an hour. With a mattock, I dig out the spiky tangled mess by the roots (hopefully) and kick it aside. It feels like I’m waging a war against the thicket. These are not regular blackberries. In Australia, they are a nasty invasive that have taken over much of the native bush. So the blackberry battle is an ongoing one. And boy do they fight hard. Thorns stick through my jeans as I step onto the tallest vine with my boots, pushing the thorny mess back as I attempt to dig it out of the hard, dry ground. It is slow work, but very satisfying, especially after wresting a particularly prickly and tangly bunch out.

Carolyn wanders down the hill to check on me. She is one of the founding members of Murnong, a community of 5 families living together in Castlemaine and sharing the responsibilities of growing food, raising kids and running the property. Carolyn has the best mop of bouncy red curls and the most intriguing accent. Not only does she have the Aussie lingo, but she’s from Scotland originally so there is a lot of “Oy!” and “Wee little thing.”

When I first got to Murnong, I had so many questions for Carolyn, she probably couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I wanted to learn everything about how the community works. What principles is it based on? How did it start? Is it working according to plan? What would you do differently? What are you SO glad you did? Community living has always appealed to me and my great friend Laura and I have sort of planned to start our own intentional community at some point, talking about it dreamily sometimes, other times more seriously. But I wanted to spend a bit of time in a community to see if it really is all that I’ve always imagined.

The white house was mine (family was on holiday) and the orange is Carolyn's

A garden bed I built with layers of straw and compost

Community has so many different meanings and carries varying levels of significance to each of us, I think. To me, community is a solution. I often trace problems (social, environmental, economic etc) back to a lack of community or connection. It is a solution to sustainability - the very opposite of the isolation of suburbia with everyone competing or encouraging each other to have the newest, best thing. Community is about sharing. Why have 5 lawn mowers, when you could have one? And come to think of it, lets skip the lawn mower all together and get some goats! Then we’ll have milk and cheese as well! Lets share that milk with the family down the road who bake bread. We can start an exchange or barter system. That way we’re creating connections, keeping a truly local economy, reducing our carbon footprint….etc etc.

The compost heaps

The dam

My example got away from me. In fact, there aren’t really any lawns in Castlemaine at the moment. It is so dry that the cracked earth sucks down any moisture it can grab. This necessitates garden boxes. Vegetables and herbs growing in old tires or shipping crates to keep the water in. Some people have wicking beds with water reservoirs in the bottom, soil layered on top and happy plants sucking up just the water they want from their roots. The community shares the watering tasks, the weeding and harvesting, the compost management (each house has a composting toilet) and the weekly meeting facilitation. There are two vehicles, which are shared by the community. But mostly everyone walks or rides bikes. There is a grey water system so that the water that goes down the drain (and when you think about it, that’s a lot each day! Washing dishes, clothes and hands, taking showers…) The grey water is reused to water the orchard.

Herb garden

Tomatoes in a wicking bed

There are two dams, which supply the water to each of the houses. Right now the dams are getting dangerously low. The community has decided to keep their water usage at 90 liters per household per day. Otherwise they’ll run out before the rains start.

Kids run around barefoot, eating fruit off the trees, capturing yabbys (crayfish) from the dam, climbing trees and jumping on the 3 trampolines they have set up. It is their summer vacation and they are enjoying the last few days of it before heading off to school again. So there are small blonde-haired hooligans running amuck. It is delightful.

But not everything is perfect at Murnong. Strong conflict resolution skills are important, Carolyn explains to me. When people’s visions clash, it is difficult to compromise, especially when it comes to raising kids. The importance of being realistic can’t be understated. Sometimes, people don’t get along. And as long as both parties have given conflict resolution tools a fair go, it is OK to accept that sometimes things just don’t work out as planned. A good realization for me to have before becoming too idealistic about my own community plans.

Trampoline fun

Boys in a tree

Me and Callum

Callum, Ronan and Jack