These are some comic relief ditties I penned when we were in the thick of our owner-build in 2012-2014. Every hands-on owner-builder will know exactly the feeling. OWNER BUILDER BURNOUT The house conundrums made me flatFlatter than the mat on which the cat satOne day a week I am depressedShould I be getting some …
The Ride That Wasn’t, Electric Fence Blues, Broken Glass And The Deluge That’s Coming
We have a huge cold front coming in, just sitting off the West Coast, and are scrambling to get ready for the gale-force winds, torrential downpours, cold and hail forecast to go on for the better part of four days. The gales arrived this morning, the deluge is coming overnight. Brett and I finished some …
Red Hot Sunday, January 2014
(In Praise of Farm Dogs Everywhere) The day was red hot, and you could tell it would be a scorcher at dawn. The sun stung like a bluebottle at 8am, and the birds were silent. Horses and donkeys queued up at the paddock gate for fly veils and release onto the common, which is surrounded …
Burning Days
The following piece was written in order to allow readers to walk in our shoes as we engage in cool small-scale mosaic burning of the sclerophyll bushland in our 50ha on-farm conservation area in the autumn while also juggling the 10ha smallholding on which we grow much of our own food using organic and permaculture …
Flower Memorials
May 2018 The week after the chestnut mare was put down last November, the veterinary hospital sent a card and a packet of wildflower seeds – now that was a great idea. When my Arabian mare was buried back in 2014, I’d wanted to plant a beautiful tree on top to mark the spot, but …