"Pete" wrote in message
...

We often see old farmhouses which have just been abandoned, and I
fantasize
about how they'd make a great home ... sometimes the land has been bought
by
another farmer or maybe the parents lived there and the kids have grown
and
live in another house on the property somewhere, so they let Mum's old
place
just dissolve back into the earth .... such a shame sometimes ... huge
thick
stone walls perfect for passive control over the temperature inside, not
like our modern day "boxes".

Sigh! And you are in just the right State to find them too Pete. We spent
a brief holiday in the Clare valley and in our tours found several of just
such ruins you described. One we were quite serious about. I liked the
fact that it had a cellar , dunno what Himself liked; perhaps it was the
lovely mellow colour of the sturdy stone walls, or the way it settled into
the landscape or the great soil - yep it actually had good soil, which I'd
rather thought was rare in your neck of the woods.

Sigh. We have another trip coming up over your way and no doubt we'll see
even more of them this time round since we are going further north.