MOST weekends you’re likely to find Melton’s Gavin Webber, wife Kim and son Ben happily tending to their garden and chickens or baking fresh bread.
But when he’s not living it, Mr Webber keeps busy blogging about his sustainable lifestyle.
His blog, Greening of Gavin, was recently named ‘blog of the year’ by the Alternative Technology Association’s ReNew magazine.
Mr Webber says he is proud of the national recognition, but “I just get pleasure out of helping people and spreading the message about sustainable living”.
“It’s a labour of love,” he says.
Mr Webber has been blogging since 2008 after experiencing a “green epiphany” watching the documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
He bought a hybrid car, converted his hot water system to solar and ripped up the lawn of his Melton home to plant vegetables and fruit trees.
“The blog started off really small. In the first week I had one person look at it and I think it was a friend of mine,” he says.
But four years and 1050 posts later, he has garnered an international fan base, receiving more than 500 daily hits.
“I get a lot of questions about solar power and having chickens in the backyard, which seems to be a bit of a craze at the moment,” he says.
”I built a clay oven from scratch and uploaded the video. The pizzas and bread we bake in the oven are beautiful.”
ReNew editor Jacinta Cleary says Mr Webber’s blog “has a lot of heart”.
“It’s not just about the practical changes that Gavin has made at home, it’s also about why he’s made the sustainability shift in what he describes as a journey of highs and lows.”
Details: greeningofgavin.com
