No Hippies, Tie-dyed Clothes or Dreadlocks Needed To Operate This Eco-Friendly Farm Stay Bed & Breakfast

BENDIGO, Australia - July 19, 2015 - PRLog -- You don’t need to be a fringe dweller these days to be concerned about the environment. One family who have made the change to be more eco-friendly are happy to share their knowledge and experiences with others.

The Abbott family is living the dream on the banks of the Campaspe River in Central Victoria, Australia. The eco-friendly family of five live off-grid, grow their own vegetables, eggs and meat, pay bills from income received from farm stay guests, and to help others make the break, they even write reviews about the equipment, products and services they use to make their life-style possible.

"It’s been a long time coming," said John and Jennifer Abbott. "We first looked at the blocks about four years ago. There were three adjoining river front blocks of 94 acres, 92 acres and 80 acres zoned farming. The problem was that the City of Greater Bendigo would not allow a house to be built on anything under 100 acres in a farming zone. The Council didn’t want productive farming land tied up as small life-style blocks that weren’t used to produce anything. To solve the problem we arranged with our sister and brother in-law to put in half the money and we purchased all three blocks between us. We then had them subdivided into two blocks of 133 acres each. This met with Council approval but took more than a year to happen."

Jennifer went on to say, "In the meantime the Council notified neighbors of adjoining properties about the subdivision and our desire to run a farm stay bed and breakfast, and to our dismay, two objections were received. One from a neighbor across the river and one from the sand quarry across the road. We felt pretty undesirable when we discovered that a quarry didn’t even want us as neighbors. Anyway, we had a meeting with Council and the objectors and dealt with their concerns. This also took months to resolve where our lives and the subdivision were on hold. As so often happens in life, having messed with our lives and held us up for months, both objecting neighbors sold up and moved away."

Roads, rocks, fencing, stockyards, weed eradication and a heap of people who promised the world and didn’t deliver later, the Abbott’s finally got to move in.

The Abbotts realized that their experiences could prove invaluable to other eco-friendly would be self-sufficient families. They could divulge short cuts and review products to help others along the way. They have already reviewed the Snowflame Wheat Heater and will shortly review their stand-alone solar system, solar Mono pump, Kawasaki Mule, fencing, Boer goats and more.

To read more about the Abbotts, their product reviews, their eco-friendly property and to learn tips and tricks that may help you make the move off-grid, visit their farm stay bed and breakfast website.