We have eebs. What on earth? Well, Brett and I are slightly potty and enjoy language games, and early on in our homestead beekeeping careers, we decided that our hives had eebs in them, and that eebs go sssssb! Did you know that you can find umblebeebs in Tasmania, and that spoonerising is also fun, …
Fight Back With Real Tomato Sauce
It started with the re-organisation of the local supermarket, which we used to frequent weekly prior to our tree change, and are now going to fortnightly at most, for items we don’t yet grow ourselves and can’t obtain directly from other local smallholders, the local butcher, or the bulk supplier who stocks local stoneground wholemeal …
Caravan Days
As part and parcel of owner-building our strawbale house, we spent four months living on-site in a caravan. That summer is now half a dozen years in the past, and I’d like to commemorate that time on my blog. This is the original manuscript of the article published in Grass Roots 251 in Feb/March 2019. …
Magazine Articles – October 2019
In newsagencies this month I have articles in Grass Roots No.255 (Roadside Rehabilitation) and in The Owner Builder No.215 (Embodied Energy Revisited and Coloured Glass Designs). Roadside Rehabilitation takes a look at the work we’ve done at Red Moon Sanctuary to protect and bring back the native flora in the roadside reserves adjacent to our …
Music For Emotional Health
This is a copy of the start of a thread I began at a music forum. I think mental/emotional health needs to be more talked about in our public spaces and in our personal circles, and since the general press isn’t stepping up, it’s going to have to be websites, blogs, forums, and independent publications making it happen. Links to my own favourite online resources will be posted after the excerpt from this thread…
Desperate Ditties From Owner-Building
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 …
A Country For The Big Boys
A reprint of a rant I sent to Grass Roots Feedback, which a reader told me I should air more widely. Thanks, Val! 🙂 Here goes. We GR people already know how it is – but sometimes, when you hear of yet another incidence of new and idiotic regulations, doesn’t something just snap in you? …
Groundhog Day In Pearl Bay
I am a big fan of the SeaChange series that ran at the turn of the millennium, and have watched it many times, revisiting it like a favourite snuggly piece of knitwear when in need of comfort in life’s rough and stressful stretches in the twenty years hence. It always made me laugh, it always …
Tasmania By Campervan, Easter 2009
We’re looking forward to finally making another trip to Tasmania next year, for the first time in ten years… having meanwhile bought a farm, built a shed and outbuildings and farmhouse with our own hands, planted thousands of trees, looked after animals, planted an orchard and permaculture garden, etc etc. In celebration of that, here …
Magazine Articles – August 2019
It’s magazine time again. In newsagencies this month I have an article in The Owner Builder No.214 on Successful Downshifting. It’s about how we found ourselves in our 40s, suddenly waking up every morning on a gorgeous little farm in the country (complete with 50 hectares out the back of extraordinary Gondwana which we will …