Wed 22 May 2013 | 
How Not to Start a Fire
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Cygnet isn’t a big town. But it does host a big folk festival, a joyous occasion where mobs of campers arrive carrying guitar cases and fiddles can be heard outside the Schoolhouse Café. I ventured down after getting home from the farmer’s market and listened to a girl and her guitar, and sat on the grass as the town centre resonated to a drum band.
I've had some help in the vegie garden. Two Italians nearly expired in the heat as they dug up some old walkways, with two layers of plastic and two layers of gravel. I’ve found the garden beds too wide to weed. Not that I’m big on weeding, but if you can’t get to them, or you strain your back doing it, it makes the work feel even more like work than pleasure.
The new water tank has arrived, a shiny beast of a thing that will, I hope, start to fill any day now. The old one has been turned into a pig shelter. I learnt a thing or two in the process.
Firstly, I learnt that an angle grinder is a very dangerous, remarkably versatile tool that should cost a lot more than it does and come with a lot of safety equipment. Secondly, I learnt that an angle grinder spews out thousands of sparks and you’re probably best not to use one wearing shorts. And thirdly, which relates to the aforementioned sparks, they’re forbidden to be used outside on total fire ban days.
So, anyway, I managed to put the fire out before it went anywhere and left the job for another day. (I only write this so others won’t be so stupid. I didn’t know it was a total fire ban until the next day, but I should’ve checked and I shouldn’t have used an angle grinder where I did.)
Two angled star pickets (hammered in pointy end down) holds the shelter in place. You see tanks like this all over the Huon. Big ones with firewood stacked under. Others for pigs or chooks or to keep the rain off feed.
My purple carrots are doing well. I’m eating the thinnings. No sign of the radicchio – second time it’s not germinated. I wonder if it’s the seeds, not me. The blueberries are turning blue, but I get only the occasional strawberry. Maybe next year. There are rows of no-dig potatoes and the tops have well and truly shot through the straw. I might bandicoot some of the new potatoes (poke around the edges as a bandicoot would, if it could enter fortress Evans) leaving the plant to produce more.
I skive off one afternoon on Bruny, abalone diving with Nick and a mob. We get five legal sized abs (and five we toss back), which Nick does his usual wok magic on. But there’s a ferry to catch so I grab it as takeaway and sit on the Mirambeena eating abalone and brown rice and spinach from the garden while the others on the ferry wonder where I found such good food.
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Comments (18)
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07 Apr 2010 18:06 AEST
From: Geeveston, Tas
Honesty
I really enjoy your honesty about what you are doing and learning. We had a friend who started a fire in a similar way - it was pretty dramatic at the time.
11 Mar 2010 21:21 AEST
From:
Thank you
Thank you for sharing your experiences of living inTasmania. We hope you have many happy years on the farm.
08 Mar 2010 19:11 AEST
From:
Hi Handsome
Hi Mathew I watch your show every week and think u r my perfect match :-) You do all the things I like and enjoy. Plus u very handsome. lol Are you married? x
07 Mar 2010 17:55 AEST
From:
point taken!
Yep Aaron, I can see your point. It's not actually my business, but my husband's, and I guess I was thinking in terms of networking rather than promotion but I appreciate it's a very fine line, and I can completely understand how it landed!
08 Feb 2010 23:38 AEST
From:
For Liz Evans
Liz, I have a feeling people didn't like you advertising your business in a public forum such as this.
31 Jan 2010 9:33 AEST
From:
Whoops....
Whoops - seems I upset a few of your blog readers with my previous comment about hiring help for hard tasks involving potentially dangerous tools. This wasn't intended - but it's made me think about the benefits of being self sufficient, which I totally appreciate, hence my love of the programme. Still, its possible to be more or less self sufficient with the help of other craftspeople, tradespeople, and local specialists, as your excellent show demonstrates on a weekly basis.
28 Jan 2010 22:41 AEST
From: Nicholls Rivulet
Just wondering exactly where you are?
Love the show.I have bought 16 acres along Nicholls Rivulet with a rivulet bondary. I am just about to embark on building a straw bale house earthern floors etc. and set up a permaculture property. You must only be about 10k from my place. Do you mix with the locals at all? Might see you down at the pub at Cygnet, the one with the good food,when I move over in next few months. I am migrating from Melbourne! I am going to film my project and make a reality grand design!!!
G’day Priscilla, I’m not far from you at all. In fact Maggie is over your way at the moment having a liaison with a bull. I spend a lot more time in Cygnet than Hobart (apart from market days), so may well see you around town.
- Matthew Evans
28 Jan 2010 21:31 AEST
From:
Just Wondering
Hi Matthew, just finish watching your show (loved it) and your mum seem like a very nice lady.
As I am the type who like to holiday where you can stay and mix with the locals, but there aren't many opportunities, so I was wondering would you ever consider opening your home to a budget traveler and in return they can help you around the property and experience the life style?
G’day Vivienne, unfortunately the farm is a private residence and not set up to take visitors. In a year or two I may look at taking WWOOFers (see wwoof.com.au) on occasion. For now the journey has been about getting to know locals and exploring my own limitations – which, it must be said, there are a few too many.
- Matthew Evans
28 Jan 2010 20:44 AEST
From: Sydney
Just discovered your show
Hi Matthew, We have just discovered your show after buying a property in Cygnet ourselves. We will watch in keen anticipation of what lies ahead for us with our own patch. Hoping to escape the city at some point.
25 Jan 2010 10:31 AEST
From:
tassie experience
HI, just thought i would say Great Show, i hope its on dvd (looking for it now) also after a book of yours if you have one!! I love tasmania, its gotta be freezing down your end though. Looking forward to seeing more of your shows, you have a great sense of humour and the food of choice...YUM fresh Tuna mmm :)
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About this Blog
Ever wondered what it’d be like to leave a cushy city job and set up a small farm without any experience of rural life? Join Matthew Evans as he adjusts from being a restaurant critic to learning exactly where his food is coming from, on a farmlet in Tasmania’s beautiful Huon Valley.
Matthew Evans was once trained as a chef, before crossing to the dark side of the industry and becoming a restaurant reviewer. After five years and 2,000 restaurant meals as the chief reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald, Matthew realised that chefs don’t have the best produce in the land, normal people who live close to the land do. So he moved to Tasmania, to a small patch of earth where he’s raising pigs and sheep, milking a cow and waiting for his chickens to start laying.
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