Happy first days of spring!

We're really enjoying and revelling in how aware of the weather and season changes we are up here on our little block of land. Part of it has to do with the fact that we're outside a lot, on account of our little house being so small, and all its amenities (and prime fun-and-beautiful bits) being not-inside.



What better way to spend an early spring day (Ok - several days) than dragging a mattress into the middle of a paddock and setting up camp.

This morning, for example, the second day of spring, we were awake with the sun, and not long afterwards (just time enough for hearty cuddles in bed and some reading of our current favourite book, Farm Anatomy) we were outside, cooking breakfast on the barbecue and surveying the clouds, wind and frost levels. Yes, it's the second day of spring, and we're still having regular, heavy frosts. While some people in the Bega Valley can get frosts as late as November, we're lucky here in that the frosts only settle in the bottom of our valley, not near our house or veggie garden or orchard. This is a bonus, because it means we can get started on planting our spring and summer-growing food plants pretty soon, without fear of them being apprehended by frost.


Frosts at the very bottom of the valley, making friends with a blossom tree and some blackberries

One of the fantastic things about moving up here at this time of year is that we arrived just in time for some serious food-planting adventures, which, let's face it, is a big part of why we moved to this block of land in the first place. So it's exciting for us, but also nerve-wracking, because this, hopefully, will be our forever-house, so we really want to get things right. We're already planning the menus for home-grown feasts for birthdays 40, 50 and 60, so we need to make sure that the things we plant get a good start so they can serve us (and our friends!) well.

Nothing like some bulbs to let you know spring-time's a-comin'

Our bare-rooted fruit trees have been the biggest deal for us thus far, and are being tended with lots of loving care and worm juice. The Orchard has been planted along a swale/diversion drain above our house, which, when it rains, captures water from the road, and diverts it (slowly! - no erosion here) down to our little top dam, soaking the soil along the way and watering our collection of fruit trees. There will also be an olive grove and a nut grove added to this collection of food trees, in a similar kind of road-water-collecting arrangement, but that will have to wait…



Peach blossoms: freakin' beautiful









Due to the fact that it hasn't really rained since our workshop, we're watering our beloved fruit trees by hand, using water carted up from our bottom dam. The same is being done for the first 50 of our 800 Landcare grant shelter-belt/wildlife corridor trees, which we also planted this week. We're saving our pennies for a water pump to get water up from the bottom dam (spring-fed and therefore full) to our top dam (rain fed and therefore not so full), which we will then use for gravity-irrigating our fruit and Landcare trees and veggies. This will be an exciting day, but for now we're content with 5 x 20L drums filled up by hand and then carted up the hill in our car.





We also use these water-carrying adventures to harvest, dry and distribute the abundance of azolla we have growing happily on the bottom dam. We're using it mostly as a mulch and putting a little bit in the compost and worm farm, and she's working a treat.

The phase one veggie garden has also been receiving a bit of azolla love, and has been quite a pleasant revelation. I'd been a little apprehensive about how the soil would be in the area designated for the veggie beds we are going to use this spring/summer, as it hadn't received much (OK, any) attention, and basically consisted of a bit of earth right in front of the house that had been used to store all our building crap for the last 4 months. I expected it to be dry and compacted. In a rare moment of forethought, though, I had, during the frenzy of our strawbale building workshop, instructed someone to start putting loose straw and broken bales "kind of over there - I think that's where the veggie bed will be". This small mountain of straw had received no further attention, other than some food scraps and the daily emptying of our night-time wee bucket (essential in a very high sleeping loft like ours). This neglected pile of building waste has been the saving grace of the veggie patch! What a treat to kick back some of the straw to discover that a. the soil wasn't compacted at all, b. worms are diggin' it, and c. the soil is super-moist, even though it hasn't been watered since the build, when it got drowned in all the rain we had. Yee har! I spent a day and half going over it all with our friends' Gundaroo Tiller (which is totally ace, but I'm not going to write about its virtues because Milkwood already did it here), then spread about 10cm of manure/azolla/compost/worm castings, then covered the lot in another 10cm of straw (there's a bit of that stuff lying around here). We're slowly planting into it (a little rhubarb here, some comfrey there) and dreaming about a couple of months' time when it's (hopefully) crankin' out some quality food-stuffs.


New rhubarb leaves unfurl, watiting for next year's apple forage harvest

Even though we're spoiled with the abundance of egads-awesome home-grown and organic foodstuffs available at markets and given to us by generous friends and neighbours (this morning we had scrambled duck eggs from our friend Christa!), we're still itching for a bit of our own home-grown food, and we're watching with excitement and anticipation as our fruit trees bloom, our seedlings sprout and our dreams take shape here as spring unfurls around us.

 

Thrills and gratitude and coat number 3!

Trees through window courtesy of Olive

Yesterday was a day of some significance for us as we began the final coat of internal render. As with all our coats of render, we're going with Frank's recipes. Recipe for the third internal clay layer is 3 parts of washed sand, 1 part clay, mix with water to thick gravy consistency. And wowee how easily layer number 3 goes on!

We felt a little bit of trepidation approaching this third and final coat. With the previous two coats it felt like there was some scope to be a bit rough and ready, as we knew there was always going to be another layer to cover our sins. But now, with layer number three, this is it. There is nowhere to hide. Luckily the render glides on like icing. I think I may have used the icing analogy before. But let it be known that layer three is even more like icing than layer two. Oh sweet relief. We powered along and got half the inside rendered in just one afternoon.

Annie had been inspired to try a little bit of burnishing, uber-inspired as she has been by reading the Cob Builders Handbook. In it, Becky Bee suggests rubbing a large flat, smooth stone across the semi-dry final layer in order to smooth it out and assist the clay molecules to align, making it more durable.

We're rather lacking the large, flat, smooth stones on our block, being more of the prehistoric granite outcrop that it is. And so, on Annie's mum's excellent suggestion, we used the discarded elbow of some recycled pipe. It worked a treat. Having said that, we're not so fussed about having super-smooth walls preferring a more handmade quality to our little, tiny house.

We're aiming to finish this final layer on Friday when we have the hours between 9 and 3 sans children. Oh but we have little choice but to finish it the inside walls this week as we're planning on making our floor this Sunday and we don't know how long it'll take to dry. We figure we can catch up on some outside business while our beautiful rammed earth floor is curing. We're pretty excited about our rammed earth floor working bee this Sunday. We've got a big pile of clay soil, we've almost got the blood and our special natural sealant aka. Bermagui blend is on its way to us. But more on this at a later time. 

Sunday also provided a little bit of a thrill when we discovered nine little bubba eucalypts rising of-their-own-accord from our degraded ex-dairy farming land. It's such a wonderful thing to observe these moments of natural bush regeneration and so we resolved to help it along and start a little regen project in and amongst these little trees, which surround a colossus of a eucalypt. It's a little spot perfect for Winter's day picnics with sun shining down from the north and views down the valley. 

Olive declared it the perfect place for a fairy party

And it also provides a new perspective on our little tiny strawbale

We were also very grateful for Annie's mum (Carolyn aka. Nanny) and her superb window cleaning efforts. It's a job we've been wanting to tackle but never quite found the time. Another little thrill was had, as we saw, just how beautiful our windows might be when not covered in possum piss, dirt and lime render. Thank you Nanny/Carolyn/Mummy! Truth be told we could have avoided the mess by keeping windows covered but so excited, were we, to have them in providing our house with so much more of its house-ness that we just didn't think about the mess we were getting them into

Thanks Nanny!

 The day ended in a rendering frenzy in fading light as I rushed to finish the final barrow load before the light entirely disappeared and before the kids, through tiredness and hunger, lost it completely. Luckily our neighbour across the hill provided some intrigue in the form of "burning off". Yes I know, who burns off these days? Hmm well plenty of farming types around Bega it seems. Oscar watched from our most coveted spot, the front step. This front step is going to see some action, so warm and sunny it is on these cold cold days.

Oscar on front step by Olive

Ruminations

Today, after a breakfast of raisin toast and Earl Grey tea, the kids and I headed off to Candelo for a day of learning. One of the many great things about living in an at-least-partially-forward-thinking rural area is that there are heaps of opportunities for learning about innovative ways to manage your land. We've only been here 6 months, but I already feel like I've been exposed to so many great ideas, and have met so many really inspiring people who are all working towards making their properties more than just 'sustainable' or 'organic' - they're actually working towards making them regenerative. Today's field day, 'Grasses and Grazing - Managing Pastures for Better Outcomes' was held at a farm out at Candelo, which is fighting the good fight against one of our resident noxious weeds - African Love Grass.

Farming-types. Love grass to the left
(No, I did not photo-shop that fluffy white cloud)

Luckily, we don't have any of this at our place, but it was awesome to hear about the ways people are utilising native grasses and combinations of slashing and animal-management to eradicate and control the weeds they have on their properties.

I was particularly interested in anything to do with managing native pastures and weeds through the use of animals such as goats and sheep, since this is something we're looking to get going at our place, both to service our own lamb-y meat needs, and also the demands of the local Muslim population, who are keen on something like a pick-your-own berry farm, but of the halal goat-meat variety. Pearly's already devising outrageous lamb dishes, like last night's hum-dinger, Pearl's SCPA Lamb Stew (recipe coming soon!!!).

Some goats hard at work in the love grass

But of course it's not just about having a bunch of ruminants roaming the acres eating whatever they feel like. We have some awesome regeneration happening in the form of self-sown acacias and eucalypts and angophoras: these will all need to be fenced. And then there are the native grasses. Microlaena stipioides (weeping meadow grass),  Bothriochloa macra (Red grass) and Themeda australis (Kangaroo grass) are the main ones at our place, interspersed with a fair bit of kikuyu (boo! hiss!). This is the bit where it gets tricky, because you need to manage your animals so that they only eat when the weedy species are setting seed, and the good stuff is strong enough to withstand extensive chowing. Even more complicated, this changes throughout the seasons, so you have to be pretty much on top of your game, if you want to achieve your desired outcomes. After seeing the results at the farm today, though, I'm feeling up for the challenge.
Our main weed issue is fleabane, a dreadful, hideously ugly plant with (alas) wind-borne seeds. When they're big (think about 2 metres high) nothing eats them, but there's a possibility that goats and sheep might eat them when they're little. I reckon it's worth a go.
I grew up with goats, so was always pretty keen on getting some to be our lawn-mowers, but now I know even more about them, I'm even more convinced that they are the way to go. For example: Did you know that the goat's rumen (first stomach) operates at a higher temperature than other animals', so weed seeds are sterilised and don't sprout from the goat poo???? I thought this was an excellent piece of information... And I also learned that, even though GOAT stands for Got Out Again Today, a solar-electric moveable mesh fence will keep them contained. This is what's used by the dudes who run Rent-a-Ruminant. I figure they'd know, but I'm also open to tethering ours, depending on the number of goats and the area that needs work. I'll tell you one thing though - our goats are probably not going to have flash houses like this little cutie, though I reckon I could get into sewing goat-coats.

But of course this is all a ways down the track, and at this point we're pretty much focused on getting our little house to lock-up and moving out of our (enormous) rental place.

The issue of getting our Little Strawbale finished was hammered home to me this afternoon when I noticed quite a lot of smoke coming from the western hills, right in the vicinity of our place. I do have a dreadful sense of direction though, so wasn't super-concerned at first. But as we drove closer, I realised "Hey - that really is near our place". We have been regaled quite a few times with the delightful story of a strawbale house at Cobargo that was burned down by arsonists. Strawbale houses, when rendered, are pretty much more fire-proof than any other building material. But when they contain exposed straw (like ours) they're pretty vulnerable. By the time we turned into Peak Hill Road I was absolutely convinced it was our place on fire, and broke into horrible sobs, imagining having to walk into the cafe and tell Pearl that our dream was over. But then we crested the hill and I realised, with immense relief, that the smoke was actually coming from our neighbour's burn-pile, not 200 metres from our little house. Obviously, those moments were horrendous, and really hammered home for me the fact that we need to get the joint rendered. NOW. I slapped on 2 barrow-fulls then and there, while Olive stripped naked, paraded in the sun and caked herself in clay and Oscar slept in the car, clutching a sausage he'd picked up at the field day. Tomorrow, more of the same. I don't want to rest til all our bales are safe!
On the pre-bed reading list tonight? Managing Native Pastures for Agriculture and Conservation. Oooohhhh....

When I was a kid, I used to spend many of my school holidays on my Oma and Opa's farm in Goulburn. They were kind of self-sufficient, killing their own pigs and cows for meat, home-brewing, growing fruit, vegetables, chickens and eggs, and growing and selling a few beef-cattle on the side. I loved spending time at their place, though my experience was fairly limited to kid-friendly activities like riding in the back of the ute distributing hay and chopping thistles for hours on end. But the experience affected me in a pretty formative way, and in the back of my mind somewhere has always been the notion that I'd be pretty keen on giving it a go myself someday.

So here we are in Bega with 7 hilly acres up our sleeves, embarking upon a journey of home-building and earth-tending and food-growing. It's the realisation of a pretty long-term dream, and we're pretty bloody excited and happy about the whole caper, but things are evolving and our dreams seem to be moving well beyond our tree-hugging back-to-the-lander aspirations.

I am, at present, reeling a little from a mind-blowing couple of days this week, courtesy of the Meeting the Challenge for Change conference, held right here in Bega at the showground. It was pretty out of control, filled with people doing some incredible, ground-breaking (no pun intended) work on their broadacre farms. Pearl and I have both been on a bit of a whirlwind ride since arriving here in Bega, meeting people and learning from them, engaging with the incredibly vital community of land-management, farming and local-foodie activists. I'm now on the executive committee of the Sapphire Coast Producers' Association, closely involved with the forward movement of the South East Food Project, and Pearlie's just started her TAFE course in Holistic Land Management. So let's just say that our worlds are swimming with the possibilities for our little chunk of land, and the sense of responsibility to do our very best by it, and the future of food in our community.

At the last SCPA meeting we had a couple of dudes from Bega Valley Gourmet Meats come to talk to us about their small species abattoir, which can be used by anyone needing help with the slaughter and processing of their smaller species. Having killed and plucked and prepared a chook for eating, I'm pretty much in favour of the service they provide, and am also keen on the fact that one of them was exactly like Pearl's boyfriend Matthew Evans. After this talk, (and some ruminations on the fact that in Sydney we bought Bega Valley organic chickens but here in Bega they're nowhere to be found on account of them all being shipped to Sydney and Melbourne) we were all a-flurry with plans for raising some ducks and chickens to sell to the abattoir. But what about the feed? Buying in feed for poultry is a distinct no no when you're trying to create a closed loop farm, but the thought of growing grain was for some reason overwhelming me. That was until I heard Colin Seis' talk at the Challenge for Change conference, which he titled 'How we Totally Stuffed our Land and then Fixed it'. Colin's practice of pasture cropping - the practice of growing annual grain crops right in your perennial native grassland - has totally revegetated his land, which had been devastated by generations of chemical wheat-growing and intense over-grazing, to the point where he now has about 50cm of topsoil. Unbelieveable. And so inspiring I almost started crying. Suddenly I felt like we could grow ducks and chickens for Matthew Evans' doppelganger at the Bega abattoir and we could grow our own feed, at the same time as we are cultivating our native grasses, like this super-attractive Kangaroo Grass

and sequestering carbon in the soil. Holy moly. When this realisation hit me, I was set to explode.

These ideas had kind of been in the periphery of our minds, having followed Milkwood Farm's, Joel Salatin's and Taranaki Farm's amazingness for some time, but to hear Colin speak, to see photos of his land, and to think about all this in the context of our place, was something else.

I was also pretty excited to hear more about the benefits of controlled grazing, which Pearl had already touched on in her course.

We've got a few steers up on the land right now, grazing and trampling and pooing (yay!), and while there are a fair few less of them for a fair while longer than in a normal process of regenerative grazing, it has still be excellent for us to be able to see the difference they make to the vegetation as they go about their daily business of grazing and trampling and pooing (yay!).

But, if you can believe it, the conference's revelations about the possibilities for our land weren't even the most profound thing for me. No siree. It was this quote from Wendell Berry:

"Eating is an agricultural act"

Yes folks, it's true, you don't actually need to grow anything to be able to influence and support sustainable and regenerative farming practices, because it's the money you spend on food that can influence the way someone grows. Every single person who eats something that has grown in the earth is participating in agriculture. Most of us are participating in and supporting agricultural practices that literally kill the soil and exploit farmers to the point where they have no choice but to continue with a practice that most of them know is not the way to go. But if you start asking questions about the provenance of your food, start thinking about where it came from, who grew it and how, and then start putting your money where your heart and your head tell you is the right place, you can cook your veg knowing that no microorganisms/insects/plants/animals/humans or planets were harmed in the making of your dinner. Get to it.

Weeds? What weeds?

Today, after visiting a nearby strawbale home and interrogating the owners for a good hour or so, we all went up to the land to get us some more blackberries, this time with the intention of collecting enough berries to make some jam.

The main source of my experience with blackberries in the past has come about through my career as a bush regenerator. Many a sunny day was spent by me and my comrades crouched in the thorniness digging around trying to get out the pesky tap-root, and not, unfortunately partaking of the "juicy as" deliciousness. But those days are behind me now, not to say I haven't been deeply affected by them.

I'm loving the blackberries! Yes, I know they are a terrible pest and many many hours and dollars are spent by well-intentioned people each year trying to get rid of them. But you know what? They feed us. They feed us well. And they grow themselves. These sentiments are inclining me towards leaving the blackberries to ramble on our land, but the bush regenerator in me tells me I'm being irresponsible - a weak link in what should be a consolidated effort to get rid of them.

Weediness, I'm learning, is subjective. Just ask any permaculturist. And then ask a bush regenerator. There has been a long-standing perception of incompatability between these 2 (excellent) schools of thought which has, for the most part, seemed a little silly to me. But by jingo by crikey is it hotly debated, as was evinced at the Weeds or Wild Nature? Forum I went to a few months back. Personally, I can pretty much wholeheartedly identify with and see the good in both of these factions. Am I a fence-sitter? Not really. I prefer to see myself as a pragmatist who sees the good in both schools of thought and thinks they are not entirely mutually exclusive.

For example: I worked a site in Sydney that was a revegetated, regenerated corridor of 'bush' leading down to a large, constructed wetland and reserve that was built on an old dump site. No remnant bushland here, but we worked diligently, replanting and encouraging indigenous native plants and removing the 'weeds'. Except for the mulberry tree. It was huge and abundant and well-visited by many many locals. And its edible status seemed to give it a free pass, meaning that instead of cutting it down, as we would have done without question had it been, say, a liquid amber, we happily weeded 'weeds' out of the native grasses underneath and enjoyed the annual bounty. Weird eh?

But cool! NOT that I'm advocating planting edible exotics in tracts of remnant native bushland or orchards in the national park, but the mentality of either/or in an urban setting is, I think kinda crazy. Our urban and suburban spaces have been so irreversibly altered by the presence of white human settlement it seems slightly ill-conceived to try to pretend that revegetation of a piece of 'native bush' should exclude the edible plants we all rely on. And the same goes for rural land, like our precious 7 acres. Can't get much more altered than hundreds of trees cut down to make way for the planting of, what are according to bush regenerators, weeds, to grow the cows to make the milk so we can all eat Bega cheese whenever we feel like it. So why not embrace the blackberries who thrive in the disturbed landscape? We embrace the cheese, after all.

But I also embrace the native grasses, shrubs, vines and trees. They, on par with the blackberries, warm my heart. I love that they have survived the last 150 years, that they're coming back, picking up where they left off when hundreds of cows started trampling them and chewing them and providing them with a tad more nitrogen than they'd probably like under 'normal' circumstances. I say bring on the coexistence. Except when it comes to introduced grass species. Several years of removing kikuyu and buffalo and ehrharta from native bushland is bound to give you more than a slight disdain for lawns. Not to mention the fact that they're total waste of resources. Lawns, you see, were invented a couple of hundred years ago by rich people who wanted to advertise the fact that they were so wealthy they didn't have to grow their own food. Nothing, not even 'weeds' invading 'native' bush, raises my hackles more than conspicuous consumption, so I've basically got it in for lawns of any and all varieties. Oscar does too (well, he will once he's old enough to be brainwashed) but he's also pretty keen on the hand mover I picked up at the tip shop for 5 bucks so I could 'maintain' the lawn at our rental place.

And now, for your reading pleasure and to reiterate the sentiments contained within this rant, I give you God's thoughts on lawn, courtesy of Paul Wheaton's awesomely awesome and inspiring permaculture blog.

God on Lawns

Imagine the conversation The Creator might have had with St. Francis on the subject of lawns:

God: Hey St. Francis, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there in the Midwest? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect "no maintenance" garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But all I see are these green rectangles.

St. Francis: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

God: Grass? But it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

St. Francis: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. The begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

God: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it... sometimes twice a week.

God: They cut it? Do they then bail it like hay?

St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

St. Francis: No Sir. Just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

God: Now let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

St. Francis: Yes, Sir.

God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

St. Francis: You are not going to believe this Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

God: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves form compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle of life.

St. Francis: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

God: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter and to keep the soil moist and loose?

St. Francis: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. The haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

God: And where do they get this mulch?

St. Francis: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

God: Enough. I don't want to think about this anymore. Sister Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

Sister Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber", Lord. It's a real stupid movie about.....

God: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.