onion 

zucchini 

the patch 

corn is going well… 

charlene made me do it 

xxV 

I had a trip to Sydney which i enjoyed greatly, catching up with friends and staying with my lovely and generous friend Sarah. All my plans to take inventory or urban gardens and friend’s sustainable inner city solutions and do a special backyard post dedicated to this came to naught, but i had many a fine dandelion latte with friends and went to parties and looked at the cloudy night sky from a trampoline and freaked out in pubs and didn’t like Inland Empire in the middle of the day when i decided to treat myself to a movie… I missed home, but learned to like the city a little more then when i left it…

There’s been quite alot going on since my return, mostly in the garden. matt, who did much of the landscaping for this place, made a too short trip from melbourne to do a summer overhaul of the gardens, which was much needed. I was feeling overwhelmed by the whole Wild Nature thing, and a bit unable to manage it on my own. It needed a huge slash and mulch, and Matt and the boys were fantastic. I can breathe! The taro, arrowroot, helaconia, gingers and so much more were basically slashed and I can feel the life ready to burst forth and bloom fresh and green and in living color… It was great to watch matt work, and to know just how far i can go in terms of slashing back the gardens. matt also built a duck run off the existing duck house where the new baby ducks are living which encloses the orchard. ducks, geese and orchards go well together. They eat bugs, slugs, keep the grass down and leave their shit around the base of the trees. We’ve trialled the run and it seems to work well. We went to buy some geese from the lismore carboot market on sunday but it seems they’ve taken christmas early…. i love geese. I love the sound they make

Speaking of the animals, there have been some changes. We have had to sell some of our herd since we can no longer afford feed for them. It’s been a big learning curve, and has raised alot of questions and clarified some of my thoughts around animal farming, and we have learned alot about rearing cows in a particular way, particularly hand rearing calves, and milking cows. We have learned about how to treat the animals naturally for a variety of ruminant ailments and some things about pasture and rotation and worming. I also have questions now about how to raise hard hoofed animals in a low impact way. We still have frenchy (see earlier posts for pics) and little girl, who we hope eventually to be our house cow. This feels more doable. I don’t feel so stressed. I don’t think it was an experiment that didn’t work, just a learning curve to be applied.

We have also acquired a goat. Tashi is her name and she’s an anglo nubian X. I love goats, and she has a sweet nature. Michael had a goat, May, who died from snakebite or something, and she’s been missed. We had a little hiccup in the acquisition of Tashi. We bought her from a farm out in a beautiful valley past Kyogle from a German family who had many goats, mostly nubian. We wanted a small goat, but their children wanted to keep the small kids as pets, so we were offered 3 year old Tashi, who has had a few kids. She’s very healthy and plump and has an amazing coat. She was scared to be taken from her herd, but we were quiet and gentle with her and fed her and showed her her new home. It was just on dark, Friday night, when we got her home, and i went to get her some feed, leaving her untethered for just a moment. When I came back she was gone into the night. I searched as far as i could in the dark to no avail. In the morning we put flyers in all the mailboxes of the area, knowing they probably wouldn’t look until monday, and we drove and walked for hours looking for her. By this afternoon I was despondent, thinking we’d never see her again. But at about 5 Charlene and I were feeding the other animals and Charlene who has keen eyesight saw *something* off in the distance on the next door neighbour’s farm. I ran down to see, and it was tashi! - shivering, frightened, starting at the sound of every car that drove by… I was very happy to see her. We tethered her near the house, fed her, brushed her and loved her. She’s very sensitive to her environment, notices all smells, sounds, everything.

here is Tashi:

our anglo nubian x goat tashi

So my best christmas present this year would have been…

Milkwood’s most recent workshop, starts TOMORROW! 

8 - 20 December 2007 - Mudgee NSW
Water is the major issue on every Australian farm. Water harvesting and storage earthworks need to be intelligently designed and well implemented. This three day intensive course taught by Geoff Lawton will give you the knowledge to design and construct earthworks that will act as an insurance policy against drought and increase the value of your property.

Failing that (well, having failed to acquire that), I would also like to attend:

Introduction to Permaculture - Sydney - Feb 08

9 - 10 February 2008 - Sydney NSW

Christmas wishlist.

I haven’t said anything about weeds for a while. I had made a post on a permaculture forum some time ago about my nascent weed thoughts, and noone made much comment, but recently a forum member did make a post which was helpful to me in my thoughts about weeds and how to live with them. I’ll post it here…

I was asking about control of weeds, whether things needed to be eradicated etc… 

Instead of slashing/weeding and burning you may try slashing and charing. Make a pile of weeds and ag. waste and partially cover with dirt and burn on a damp day. This makes the fire burn at a low temp, and low oxygen level. As a result, the carbon is sequestered in the material as well as some nutrients. Spread this char over the garden beds. Do a search on this site for "terra preta" or "dark earth" for a more in depth and accurate description. This process creates a great medium which acts more like a sponge, holding moisture longer and locking nutrients in place instead of them eventually being washed out.

This I will try, because i am very interested in carbon farming ideas…

It’s late for farmgrrls and i want to post a couple more pictures before sleep, so I’ll end here. Sorry i was away for so long… More updates soon…

xxV