Everything for Everyone

I know I am late on my blog posts.  Hey, here’s a crazy idea, maybe Coreen can do one of these and lend her writing skills to this blog?  Well until then I will try to catch up a little bit.

We left Tassie and our latest WWoOF assignment at the end of May, and took the ferry to Victoria, stopping off at my sister’s on the way to a reunion of friends in Gundagai and after this on to North Queensland where a doctor with a drill was standing by to sort out my serially annoying sinus issues.

It was great to see my sister, her partner Ant and their lovely daughter Amelie.  I really love that kid, and can’t believe how much she grows and learns with every passing day.  It is truly amazing.  We had a great day out at Bright together and I can certainly see why it attracts the crowds in summer.  A few sneaky tapas at the Ginger Baker and a coffee at the Café Velo, all followed by an ale at the Bright brewery makes this a great little foodie stop and sent us rolling down the hill home.

You can't be serious?!

See? Cute, but with a taste for mischief!

Onto Gundagai for our little reunion of Aussie friends, all of whom we met in London.  Why Gundagai?  Why indeed!  It just happened to be halfway between the Sydneysiders and the Melbournites, and locating a farmstay there with enough cottages to fit 16 adults plus kids was exactly what was required.  Besides, with a tennis court, plenty of room to sit around chatting, lots of options for walks on the farm plus Shetland ponies for the kids, we really had all we needed to make our own fun.  Though it was bemusing to be the only childless/non-pregnant couple at the reunion, and the only ones with single beds!  You would think we would be the ones still actually having sex…. ;)

Katie and Madeleine

Dan and Cath's little girl, Claudia

Kevy and Mads

Some things are simple:  kids love ponies.

What resulted was a great weekend, catching up with old friends, meeting a few new people, and having a lot of fun.  There was clucking over kids, a bit of cricket and tennis, a couple of walks in the hills, the drinking of a few beers, a fire in a drum, lots of talk about the number of stars you could see, and a general feeling that despite the time that had passed and the physical distance between some of us, nothing had changed the strength of our friendships.

Great cricket

Great walking

Great fire

Great view

Great crew

Everyone seemed very interested in the progress we had made since chucking it all in, and were all really supportive.  It was a great boost to have so many people promise to come visit once we have it up and running (whenever that may be).  After all, we aren’t becoming farmers to become complete social outcasts, nor should we!  The weekend was a reminder how much we had really missed these guys over the past 18 months.

After the fun of the weekend, with sad hearts we said our goodbyes and Cor and I reluctantly rolled out in Chuck the truck, starting a 4-day driving trip 2,400 kms north to Ingham.  And that’s where we are now, waiting on a man with a drill…..

Until next time, remember that the good life is waiting for you too.

PS.  Sorry to those we didn't put up photos of, not all of them came out great.  Besides, any more photos of kids and we are going to turn into one of those "oversharenting" blogs!

Ready?

Well we have finished our latest WWoOFing assignment here in Tassie.  And the conclusion?  We are ready.  We may not know everything we need to know, but we know enough to get started, and we know lots of people to call on when we need help.  Our enthusiasm to get started on our own farm is stronger than ever, and the best way for us to learn this stuff is to just get going.

Ready for this everyday!

Ready to go head-to-head with wily animals!

So what are we doing?  We are leaving.

That’s right, tonight we are on the ferry to Melbourne and then over the course of a couple of weeks driving up to North Queensland.  It is time for my sinus surgery.  The doctor is going to drain them and hopefully in a couple of weeks following do the procedure to straighten them out.  It has been a long couple of years living with this and it is going to be great to get to a point where it is all behind me.

But on the flip side, it is a bit sad.  We have great friends down here now and we are sad to be saying goodbye, even if it is only for 6 – 8 weeks.  We really can’t wait to get back to find that place of our own.  We have seen a couple of promising options which we will come back to in July and look at more closely.  We didn’t want to rush the fence before we went away as we don’t know how long all the surgery and stuff will take.

One highlight of the past month was doing a road trip up to Marrawah in the north west with Sadie to buy a couple of cows.  It was a long couple of days driving but it was great to meet dairy farmers Brian and Ros and the Mount Gnomon crew, Guy, Eliza and Dane.  More great people who are happy to share their know-how.

Brian explaining the kelp drying process at Marrawah

The beautiful Guernsey cow we brought back, 880.  I think the name Susan is nicer....

Cor with Susan and 413, the two new dairy cows I picked up with Sadie.

So that is it from Radio Tassie for now, we will keep you all posted on our trip north and the fun and games of my medical dramas.

We are ready!

Moon-set over Stanley

Generous Spirits

I know that as diary-keeper of our journey to “the good life” I have been a bit slack of late.  It hasn’t been a help that the internet in rural Tassie is so dire I can’t just log on and update the blog.    On this note, don’t believe anything you hear about the rollout of the much-touted National Broadband Network (NBN).  It’s not only late but it doesn’t cover most people outside of town and is expensive to connect to even if you can get it.  Be warned – if you are in a rural area don’t expect it to improve your coverage!

So what is happening with us?  Let me explain….. no, is too much, let me sum up.

We have finished working with Matthew and Sadie for now, having had a great time, worked hard, shared fantastic food and wine, and learned a lot.  They were both incredibly generous with their knowledge and time and we really appreciate it.  We feel very lucky considering Matthew and Sadie don’t often have the time and resources to have WWoOFers.  And to meet wonderfully generous people through them like Phil and Michelle and Jesse and Dwayne and Joan was humbling.

Thank you to Dwayne and Joan for taking us fishing and being such good neighbours, and thanks for Phil for showing us the way of Fat Pig Farm.

Thanks to Sadie for the stylish red work gloves..... I know, I am a wuss.

So we have now left the cold of the pickers’ hut, and are WWoOFing in relative luxury in Crabtree with Bronte and Jenny and their son Luke.  Bronte and Jenny have over 100 acres, a couple of pigs and some chickens, but interestingly they also have turkeys, rabbits and a meat goat herd.

We have come at a comparatively quiet time of the year, the pigs have been slaughtered, the goat herd has already been culled to winter stocking levels, so there isn’t much to do in relation to the animals.  Despite this, we may be involved in another rabbit and turkey cull.

Heavy going to clear the old fences

There has been a goodly share of old fence removal to do, and that has taken up most of our first week, especially given we are now old hands at using the starpicket-remover.  We have also been taking care of the feeding of the animals, plus treating any goats that have developed sore feet from the damp ground.  Coming up we have some goat shelter work to do, gates to renovate, trees to plant, bird fencing to sort, and a whole host of other tasks.

Burning out a stump with Luke calls for a manly pose.

Quite an odd sight to see looking out the bathroom window in the morning....

It is getting hard to keep a log of what we are picking up, because every day holds a new skill or bit of knowledge that we are “learning by doing”.  And what I am really learning is just how valuable this practical experience is.  Seeing how different people tackle their problems and what they prioritise gives us lots of food for thought.  Coreen and I are constantly discussing the things we would like to try, and chatting about where we would take the same approach as people we have met, and where our needs and approach would differ.

The Great House Hunt…..

So where are we on the search for property?  Well we still have quite a bit of our cash in pounds, so the recent weakening in the Aussie dollar and RBA’s indication of possible interest rate cuts is helping us turn our hard-earned British pounds into more real-estate on the old map of Tassie.  We have been looking at land coming up for sale, and there are a couple of promising areas that we are going to look more closely at this week.  We aren’t in a rush.  We want to get the right block of land, and if this has to wait until July, August or November then so be it.  And when we do get our land, we are reconciled to grabbing a caravan/cabin/storage container for temporary accommodation until we can build our own Bonnie Doon.

I previously mentioned the consequences of searching for a bigger block and the impact of that on our budget.  We are now looking to pay up to $300K for fifty-plus acres, then $200K for our own house (with us managing and doing as much of the build ourselves as we can).  This is more than our original budget where we were looking at 20 acres and some sort of existing house for $300K-$400K. While the expanded amount of land will allow us to develop whatever farm business we want to do, the increased financial burden will also leave us less cash to deal with any problems that arise.  Keep your fingers crossed for us!

That is where we are at the moment, we will keep you updated (as updated as we can with this god-cursed-internet anyway) on how we progress.

We hope you are all doing great, until next time, a toast to the good life…..

Getting what you pay for

Yo bitches, we be famous.

OK, maybe not Gourmet Farmer famous, but the 23 people who listen to Food Fight on radio 3CR in Melbourne have heard our dulcet tones on the radio again.  (Sorry Jonathan, I am sure you have more than 23 listeners.  Really.)  The link to it is here: http://podcast.3cr.org.au/pod/3CRCast-2013-04-30-68243.mp3

So it is time for us to use this amazing position of power for good, not evil.  And here is my contribution…. please stop complaining about the cost of food.

Hear me out.  The average Australian spends $14 a week on fresh fruit and vegetables.  That’s right, $14.  And the supermarkets talk about price inflation in the press while the cost of unprocessed food in Australia is lower now than at any point in the last 30 years.

Some tasty quinces going into making quince jelly!

But more than this, for most people the axiom “you get what you pay for” doesn’t seem to apply to food.  People are happy to apply it to so many other aspects of life but when it comes to food there seems to be the view that cheaper is always better.  And this low price has costs that you are paying, but you just don’t see it on the price tag.

Follow me on this..... just like these goats!

Let’s take a few seconds to follow this idea….

The farmers get squeezed by the large supermarkets pushing cheaper food and the spectre of food price inflation – telling farmers to become “more efficient” while paying them less.  Google Queensland dairy farmers and Lion Group, or Tasmanian potato farmers and McCain, or King Island beef and JBS.  These farmers going out of business put real strain on our economy, as any corporate replacement doesn’t employ the same number of people, nor contribute to our community (unless you are a shareholder).

These farmers, trying to avoid going bust, told to produce more for less, have to use chemicals like 24D and other pesticides that are aerially sprayed, increasing incidences of cancer and lymphoma in their communities, the costs of which we all bear.

They also have to use capital-intensive farming techniques that treat animals like commodities, subjecting them to terrible living conditions in the name of efficiency.  They also have to use antibiotics and steroids to allow the animals to cope with these unnatural intensive systems.  This profligate use of antibiotics lead to more and more resistant strains of bacteria, affecting your family’s health and your tax bill as health costs rise.

Who wouldn't want to pay a bit more to see more pigs kept like this?

If none of the above arguments have swayed you (and if statistics are anything to go by, they haven’t), then try this on for size: the good stuff actually tastes better.  If you don’t care about the conditions a chicken is raised in, try eating a true free range chicken and see how it tastes compared to cage-raised bird.  You will find a whole world of flavour that is well worth paying the extra money for.

And if you think the answer is going vegetarian or vegan, think again.  Every cow that is being milked will have its calf killed this year (why do you think they are producing milk?).  Egg-laying chickens don’t get a nice retirement scratching around the farmyard, they are killed after 3 years and put into meat meal.  Farmed salmon is fed Chilean fish meal made from their rapidly vanishing sardine-run (in a ratio of 5kg of meal to 1kg of farmed fish).  Even fruit and vegetable farmers have to shoot possums and wallabies to protect their crops (I have heard tell of one apple farmer having to kill 150 possums per year).

Some wild caught salmon we smoked - great tasting stuff and no added Chilean fish meal.

The answer is not to eschew all food, but to spend that little bit extra money at the checkout, and a little more of your internet time (over lunchtime perhaps) looking for where your food comes from.  Make contact with a direct marketing farmer (they do exist!) and really get to understand what it takes to produce food ethically and sensibly.

Trust me, when it comes to food, you truly do get what you pay for.

Oh yes, Autumn is here!

Shooting for Redemption

While sitting around on a wet and windy Saturday afternoon, looking forward to some time in front of the fire at Matthew and Sadie’s house, we got an email from Mandy telling us that Didier and the boys were going rabbit and wallaby shooting and to be there in half an hour if I wanted to go.  So in a flurry of activity I drove over and joined Didier, Blake and Will walking up the hills in the back of the property, braving the rain to look for rabbits and wallabies.

Now normally I wouldn’t be that fussed about shooting wallabies.  Certainly not fussed enough to go out in the rain after them.  That was the reason I was taught to shoot at a young age in the first place, and I had quite a few nights out as a teenager shooting by spotlight to stop the wallabies destroying the watermelon and pumpkin shoots on our farm.

But because of the regulations at the time, after shooting them we had to leave all the wallaby corpses to rot in the field, and this always bothered me a bit.  Not all that much at the time, but as I have grown older it has annoyed me more, as it seems like such a waste.

It was this that I was going set to rights by going shooting with Didier and Blake, because afterwards we were going to butcher the wallabies and keep the tasty cuts for us, and the not-so-tasty cuts for the dogs.  This felt like a much better approach than just shooting them down.  We respect the animal by using the meat as best we can.

No, we didn't shoot this guy.  You didn't seriously think I would show photos of it did you?

We shot 6 good-sized wallabies, and after the guys showed how to butcher them I received a leg in exchange for my help.  Cor marinated it for a week and after slow cooking it was tasty but still dry.  I think next time we will marinate it in red wine vinegar and with more salt, and cook it up with some fatty pancetta to try and put some moisture in this gamey meat.

In any case, it was a first step on the road to a type of personal redemption.  And there is plenty more “redemption” up in those hills eating grass.

Until next time, live your own "Good Life"!

"The Gourmet Farmer" meets "The Apprentice"

We have been working with Matthew (the Gourmet Farmer) and Sadie at both their home farm and their new farm for two weeks.  As with all our volunteer work we have learned a lot.  There have been challenges, like helping host 16 corporate people from SBS for a 4-course lunch at the farm, splitting a few tonnes of firewood (if you saw the episode where they built the smoker, we split the parts of that tree they didn’t turn into planks), and holding an ewe that was trying to escape the yard while we were trying to get her onto a trailer.

Our accommodations in the "pickers hut"

And despite my belief to the contrary, getting up on those cold mornings have been challenging.  We are staying in an uninsulated, unpowered, unplumbed and unheated pickers hut, and it has made for interesting night time discussions along the lines of:

“Is it too cold to get up and go pee?”

“I don’t know, how much do you need to go?”

“Quite a bit, I shouldn’t have had that cup of tea after 9pm.”

“You know that always makes you need to pee in the middle of the night.”

“Yes but it isn’t always this cold!”

And this goes on until the person caves and goes outside to pee.  OK, who am I kidding?  Until I go outside and pee.

But it has been great as well.  We have learned a lot about rare breed pigs, about milking cows, and about rotational grazing (management intensive grazing using electric fences that are moved regularly).

Oh yes, and we have been taking these cute little guys off to the abattoir too

And Chuck the Truck is being used for what he was meant for.  Towing trailers, lugging timber, four-wheel driving across paddocks, carrying fertiliser and straw.  And in one case towing a porta-loo! Which I certainly never anticipated using him for, but he is like Chuck Norris in Walker Texas Ranger, whenever people need him he is there to help.

Meeting some of the people who Matthew works with has been one of the best things that we have experienced.  He has a great network of people and they all have a unique energy and approach to life.  We are very lucky to get to meet some of them, and even more lucky to work with them.

With a work environment like this, it's no wonder we want to be farmers!

Now, onto the property situation.  We started looking in earnest this week.  We have revised our previous plans somewhat.  First, the size.  You see, quite a few people we have met have started with 10 to 20 acres and then had to buy additional land to accommodate new plans when livestock come onto the scene.  The fact is that 10 acres, after putting a house, a garden, some fruit trees, a dam or two and a shed doesn’t leave much space for grazing animals.  Trying to put half a dozen cows or pigs onto the remaining space creates an overgrazing situation and a horrible mess in winter.  So we have upped our planned area to 50 acres, and are struggling slightly with the consequences of this on our initial property budget.  We will keep you posted on how this works out.

Secondly, the house.  We were talking about getting a place with an existing house on it, but this feature appears to add at least $200K to the price of any property.  The problem is that no house we have seen is actually up to scratch in terms of design or insulation.  Most are weatherboard places built in the wrong part of the block with no scope for grey water reclamation or solar energy utilisation.  To retrofit one of these houses even slightly would add significant additional cost and negate the usefulness of paying that $200K premium in the first place.  It would therefore be much better to build a new passive solar, straw bale, double glazed house, despite the significant grief that this would cause us.  And by grief I mean having nowhere to live in addition to the much trickier matter of dealing with Tassie tradies.  Cue a number of late-night conversations regarding whether Cor would be prepared to live in a caravan on a building site or, as Matthew is pushing, a converted shipping container.  This chat is normally over before the peeing conversation starts.

Our source of warmth..... when we can wait for it to get going!

And finally, we have had the surreal experience of watching an episode of the Gourmet Farmer sitting on the couch with the Gourmet Farmer.  Very odd indeed, kind of like turning on the director’s commentary feature while watching a DVD, except this one is brilliantly interactive.

So that is where we are.  We will be back in Queensland in June for my sinus surgery and a biopsy of my cheekbone, but in the meantime we have another couple of weeks of work here, then onto another farm for more learning for May.

Until next time, dream of the Good Life!

The mornings that make it all worthwhile

Holy Hammy Houdinis!

Welcome to another instalment of “Into the Good Life”!  Since we last updated we have been WWoOFing with a fantastic couple, Didier and Mandy, who breed pigs and cows for sale.  In addition to this they grow stacks of their own food, brew their own beer, make salamis and sausages, keep bees, raise chickens and ducks, and are incredibly “plugged in” to the property goings on in and around Huon Valley.  These guys are the sorts of people that everyone should know.

Chuck at work with pigs following along.

So we have been spending a bit of time fencing.  Ah, fencing.  Those little hammy Houdinis will take any opportunity to push their way under a fence and then the next thing you are chasing a bunch of piglets across a neighbour’s paddock looking like a right idiot.  This means that they need Fort Knox standard fencing, and Cor and I have been spending a bit of time so far getting to grips with this and earning blisters swinging a hammer.

Fencing time!

But we have also been pruning the orchard, helping get honey from the bees, spinning it, setting traps for possums, draining a siphon with an air-block, clipping chicken wings, cleaning chickens, feeding pigs, helping make beer and salamis, plus baking bread and gathering stuff from the garden for dinner.  All that and world-beating sunrises from our caravan (the WWoOF accommodation here) and brilliant meals to boot.

Our reading has moved on also.  I am still making my way through Peter Bane’s “The Permaculture Handbook” but Cor has read “Farm Animals” by Jeanie Peck Whiting and “Storey’s Guide to Keeping Pigs”.  Courtesy of Mandy and Didier’s library I am also reading Joel Salatin’s “Salad Bar Beef” and “A Practical Manual of Beekeeping” by David Cramp.  I will add all these to our ongoing reading list for reference in future.

It's a pig's life.

We also have some rather exciting news.  As previously posted, on my Dad’s suggestion we contacted Matthew Evans via his website.  Dad was reading that he had taken on new ground and thought he might be looking for help.  Matthew will probably be familiar to most Australians for “The Gourmet Farmer” TV series on SBS.  For those in the UK, think of him as Australia’s answer to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  It transpires that he is based here in Tasmania (right up the road in fact), and he and his lovely partner have agreed to have us volunteer with them for the month of April.  They have some fascinating things going on with management-intensive rotational grazing (of the sort used by Joel Salatin) and a bunch of other interesting things and it will be brilliant to help them in whatever way we can.  It is just a wonderful opportunity and we are very lucky to have it.  I have to thank my Dad for the great idea.  The downside is that we have to leave Mandy and Didier much earlier than we would have liked, but I have the feeling we will be staying in close touch with these guys and continuing to work with them whenever we can.  WWoOFer hosts, not just for Christmas.

Not the Hammy Houdinis, but their irresponsible parents!

We have another idea that we are exploring (thanks to Mandy!), namely the possibility of farm-sitting for people who would like a holiday.  We will be examining this as a way to continue our farming education while we are looking for a property when we return from Queensland in July.

Following up on the end of the previous post, we did go see that property that was privately advertised - owned by a lovely Dutch emigre couple with their two young kids.  It was a great plot of about 17 acres but a bit too small and far away from town for what we (potentially) have in mind.

So during the first draft of this blog I heard a squeal go past the caravan, and what do you know, those Houdini pigs were out again.  There is more work to be done for sure!

Stay tuned! Palya!