Water for novices

Water. Take a look around every paddock, every time you’re in the country, and you might not even see the water. But each paddock, each field, usually has a source of water, if not for livestock,...

Too wet to bale

They say that when you stack hay too wet, it can heat up. If it’s stacked tightly, it can heat up a lot and, with the introduction of oxygen, spontaneously combust. Not a great thought to have when ...

Feels like Christmas

Growth. Abundance. The full flush of the season. I stand in awe of the bounty in the garden. Purple-podded peas, fat in their shells. Sweet green peas, sugar snaps, broad beans, artichokes (well, a...

A Farmer’s Dictionary

We’re in process of setting up 70 acres as a mixed farm, haemorrhaging money and failing to meet all our self-set deadlines. Here are a few things I’ve learnt since moving to Puggle Farm and...

A mother's instinct

I think it was Henry Lawson who described it best. A sound short, sharp and terrible. The sound of an anxious mother calling for her child.

I heard Sadie from the house. A voice worried and...

The misadventures of Peter Pan

It took a bit longer than a day. For the two of us. Longer than a day to replace the shelter that Peter Pan the boar smashed to the ground, and it cost about $100 in salvaged tip shop timber and...

Where the grass is greener

Cows only have bottom teeth. They swipe their thick, coarse tongue over a swathe of grass, curl it around and chomp it off using the teeth and a hard pad on the upper jaw. With this quick, efficient...

This is paradise

A first lamb of the year. A new fence. More land. More work. Wood still to split in the barnyard. Tomato seedlings that, worryingly, don’t seem to have grown much in the last few days. A hole in...

That ain't free-range

Look at this. Proper, free-range chickens. Chickens that are free to not only walk a step or two, but to peck at grass, to scratch in the dirt, to forage for bugs. Perhaps that’s why the yolks of...

The secret to good soil

Daffodils. Tulips. Irises.

The flowers of spring have leapt to life. Each year they surprise and delight, each year I’m reminded of where they were, or where I planted them. And each year...