A Duck Deficiency

 One of Bill Mollisons permaculture principles is The problem is the solution. He is quoted as saying with regards to this principle, 'you don't have a snail problem you have a duck deficiency'.
 Our market garden had a duck deficiency which we have rectified....

We let them in for a few hours in the morning when the snails are most active and then let them back out before they do any damage to the seedlings.

And here are some photos of our new little chicks. We have moved them out of the basket into a chook house that Mark built.

6 out of the 8 eggs hatched. They each have feathery feet like their dad (or dads, as their were 3 roosters in with the hens at the time. One grey, one white and one red)

The geese are sitting on a heck of a lot of eggs. Goodness knows how many goslings we'll get. Any one interested in some geese?

Family Visits

My youngest daughter Sarah is up for a few days from Melbourne. She's here to visit family and friends but was ever so keen to see her sister and see for herself that lovely bump.

We all spent the day together. First we visited my mum, then had lunch, cooked Rhonwyn's dinner, some anzac biscuits and as Rhonwyn's a hairdresser she gave us both a trim and a colour for Sarah.I helped Rhonnie with her knitting. She's making a little pair of pants for the baby and needed help increasing.It was lovely spending the day with them. I usually see Rhonwyn once or twice a week but I do miss the other 2 who both live in Melbourne. Sarah's coming to stay tomorrow night but leaves early Monday morning. Not nearly long enough. She is hoping to get back in late November for the baby shower. I hope so!

When I got home I could hear a cheeping sound on the verandah next to the door. A hen has been sitting on eggs for exactly 21days and the first of them has hatched.

Can you see it? It's so tiny.It's just there above the egg. The first bantam chicks I've had. She nested in the onion basket. 

I'll get better photos over the next few days as she starts to bring them out. Now what to name her, as it is a 'her'. I doused the eggs remember! Well, we'll see.

The WWOOFer is cooking dinner tonight, so it's nice to have a little time to catch up on my posts. They have been a little less frequent these days due to added pressures that always occur around this time of year on the farm, so I do apologise.

Queen of the Sun

Last week we received our new DVD 'Queen of The Sun -What are the bees telling us"

It is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis. Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive.


Many of the people featured in the film are biodynamic practitioners. Rudolf Steiner warned of  the collapse of  bee colonies that we are now experiencing way back in early 1900's. He said that the mechanisation of the bee industry would destroy bees.

Bees were once looked upon as a sacred and honey as a  gift from the bees, so sacred that it was never sold, but only given away as a gift until the 19th century. At this time hives were forced to conform to farming practices that made it easier for bee keepers to maximise profits. Sound familiar! But bees are not your ordinary farm animal. Our very existence depends on them. Bees pollinate 40% of our food. In the U.S. alone 5 million colonies have been lost.

Challenges for bees:

1. Mechanisation-
2.  Mono cultures- habitat loss. The almonds of California is a great example of this. Hives have to trucked in every year for pollination of the trees because the monoculture is so vast that there is nothing for the bees once the almonds have finished flowering.
3. Migratory bee keeping- bees from all over the world are brought together for pollination purpose which brings together any pests and diseases that the various bees may have.
4. Pesticides.
5. G.M. plants- compromise the immune system of bees.
6. Varroamite.
7. Artificial insemination of the Queen which leads to decreasing strength of the Queen. The lifespan of a Queen has decreased from 5-6 yrs to 1yr if she's lucky. The Queen is deeply connected to the sun forces. She flies 600ft into the air and will mate with up to 1 doz. drones. She will receive over 1 million sperm and produce millions of eggs, laying 1500 -2000 eggs a day  if allowed to reproduce naturally. 
8. Swarming is prevented.- A swarm is the hives natural way of procreation. After a new queen hatches , the old queen flies out of the hive with almost half the workers. They find a new place to build a hive and leave the old hive for the new queen.

The very next day after watching this wonderful film, one of our hives swarmed. Mark put a little honey into a bee box and coaxed the bees into the box. A few days later and another hive swarmed. We now have 6 hives. Today a friend rang to say that their hive at swarmed and could Mark help. They now have another hive. Bees are a very important part of our farm. We plant a diverse range of plants so that they always have forage, even in winter. And their honey is very precious. We often give it as gifts.

Moving Planet

To get us moving beyond fossil fuels. Moving-Planet.org

The sign at the front gate

Making garlands for their hair

Can you make out the 350 in the grass to signify the 350 ppm of carbon that is desirable in the atmosphere.

These ladies made their way to the farm on their bikes, quite a distance I might add. Well done ladies!

Clay sculpting

Great music. Thanks Matthew.

Tree climbing.

What a great day for the planet.Thanks to everybody who participated.

On My Mind

As busy as we are I did get to spend some time with Leah while her mum and dad helped Mar get ready for tomorrow. They marked out a big 350 in the paddock to represent the 350ppm carbon that we should be aspiring to.

And it was the first time I got to see her roll over. What a clever girl!

Linking up with Rhonda with a Friday photo and what's on my mind

Dinner Tonight

Dinner tonight after a very long day is Tofu Enchiladas, once again from my favourite Vegetarian cookbook, by Kathryn Hawkins

Cut 250g of firm tofu into small pieces and coat them in flour, paprika and chilli and fry them til golden and set aside. Fry 1 onion ,2capsicums (peppers) and add 1 sliced avacado, 4 tomatoes and 1 cup grated cheese.Now add tofu and mix well.

Divide mixture into 8 and spoon onto 8 tortillas ( i use organic mountain bread). Blob on some sour cream and roll up each one.

 Place in a baking dish and add a tomato sauce of your choice. You can add a bit more cheese on top and bake in oven for 45mins in moderate oven. I serve mine with a garden fresh salad.

Yesterday we were invited to guest lecture at the Newcastle University to a Social Development class studying Raj Patel's book 'Stuffed and Starved'. We talked about Purple Pear , about the farm as an organism, the diversity of animals and plants and their inter relationships. we then explained about CSA ( community supported agriculture ) and what form ours takes. It went very well, and they asked good questions at the end, and for our troubles they presented us with a quite substantial gift voucher for the uni. bookshop. We are looking forward to finding some time to peruse their online shop! After that we continued on to Newcastle by train for dinner at the Hare Krishna restaurant before attending our local Permaculture Meeting. A big day and we were exhausted by the time we got home at 9pm. Our WWOOFers kindly looked after the animal feed and lock up while we were gone.

Today has been a mammoth task getting ready for our 350.org event. This year it's called Moving Planet which emphasises the various alternative ways we we can move around which will help bring the amount of carbon in the atmosphere to an acceptable 350ppm. At the moment it is well over 450ppm. So we are encouraging people to walk , catch a train, ride a bike or a horse or whatever their imagination can come up with. We are offering farm tours, Movies that Matter, cheese making demo, and more and hope others will bring something to share. The event is on this Saturday and has meant a lot of cleaning up in the garden and around the farm.

WWOOFer's

Willing Workers On Organic Farms. Evie asked if they were worth it and I may have given a false impression about them with all my whinging. The short answer is Yes they are. We would never have got as much done here in the beginning without them and they have been very important in the ongoing function of the farm.Since 2006 we have had over 85 wwoofers. Some come as a means of improving their English, others to get to know Aussies and their way of life and some come because they are interested in sustainable farming and living. The former are sometimes in for a bit of a shock because we could in no way be classed as your "Typical Aussie" and they're a bit surprised by the work they are expected to do, the composting toilets, the vegetarian food, snakes etc, etc. But on the whole they take on the challenge and leave with a whole different outlook on life, so in some ways we are doing more for world peace than anything else! And some, a small minority just don't get it and leave to find something more to their liking, something more like a resort.We are a working farm and we expect our wwoofers to put in a good and fair days work, and for that they get great accommodation and good organic food.

Here's a bed the wwoofers and Mark have been working on. A no-dig bed for corn and beans, and zucchini

 We stipulate that our wwoofers stay for at least a week because it takes a couple of days to train them and we don't want them leaving just as they learn their jobs. And after the week if they like us and we like them we renegotiate and some wwoofers have stayed for a few months, but they are the ones who are here because they are interested in sustainability. And then their are some who say they are leaving after a day because the works too hard and we are happy to see them find a new place. They are not all going to fit in. In the 85 or so that we've had we've seen 2or 3 leave early and a handful leave after the weeks up and the rest have stayed longer. Most we are still in contact with and it's been a lovely experience on all sides.

Feeding them and organising and supervising is a big thing. The ones who stay a while get to know the place really well and can be left to get on with it on their own, so it takes the pressure off us a little in that regard. And food , well it's just a matter of being organised. I make big meals not necessarily more and so I shouldn't really have to be in the kitchen all that much more. We feed them lots of rice, and pasta dishes, stews and soups, curries etc. Baking for morning teas can be more time consuming but if they are able to do some of my farm work then it can be of benefit for me to be in the kitchen. Lunch is usually home made bread and cheese and that seems to fill them up.

We have learnt a lot since first taking on wwoofers, and things have evolved to fit in better with our lifestyle. For instance I provide the food but the wwoofers have to get their own breakfast, that leaves Mark and I to have breakfast on our own and sort our day out. All other meals they have with us. They have to clean the wwoofers room and the bathroom before they leave. Smokers are allowed but they have to confine themselves to one area of the farm where I've set up a table and chairs for their use. And there are many more things that we have implemented because they suit us that may not be found on other places. We provide pushbikes so they can go for a ride to the shops or internet cafe.We have left wwoofers in charge while we have gone away for a few days break.

And no matter how good they are sometimes it's just so good to be here on the farm by ourselves when they leave.

Busy Days

We now have 3 WWOOFers and just feeding and getting them organised is a full days work. On top of that we still need to keep things happening on and around the farm.Seeds are being sown, seedlings potted up, bigger seedlings planted out, new beds being got ready for the summer crops,produce to be harvested and boxes made up for our CSA members.......

This is our egg harvest today. See the little ones, they're from our bantam. She's just about ready to sit I think so I swapped these tiny ones for 8 larger ones which I hope she'll hatch out and mother. Before placing them in her box I dowsed them to see if they were hens or roosters, and only gave her the ones showing hen. I hope it works!

...and a festival to organise. We are hosting a 'Moving Planet' event here on the farm. We are encouraging people to come to the farm by any means other than one powered by fossil fuels. "Show the people power that is needed to move the world beyond fossil fuel". If you are nearby come and be a part of our day on 24th September, and if you are far away find an event near you and show that we mean business when it comes to moving beyond fossil fuels.

Weekend Happenings

 Our sourdough workshop went well, starting with the making of the' Plant' which is now in it's new home, where it will be fed up over the next couple of weeks until it reaches maturity and can be used to make the first of many sour dough loaves, by  a participant of the course. We fed, stirred, kneaded and baked away the morning and then tasted the beautiful bread, fresh from the oven. Yum!

Then off to finish the Transition Town wonder rug. Sorry no photos unfortunately as I'm just not a natural photographer and I'm always forgetting the camera. I will get a photo of the rug before it's raffled and post it then.

Sunday was Sustainable House Day and I spent it at Rebecca and Aaron's place. They are a young couple with their first child now 6mths old. They bought an ordinary house in an ordinary suburb and retrofitted it to be more sustainable.

Water tanks , worm farms and liquid fertilizers in the back corner.

They have put in water tanks which gives them enough water for house and garden for about 9mths of the year and when they run out they have the ability to switch over to town water, They installed solar panels and solar hotwater. There are pull down shades for any windows affected by summer sun, a toilet that has a hand basin over the cistern so that when you wash your hands you fill the cistern, and so much more. My interest, and why they asked me there to talk was their backyard.They have chickens, vegie gardens, herbs and fruit trees. Most of the time there is more food growing than they can use and they often share it around with family and friends.

The hens live in  stylish quarters built by Aaron. They free range in the backyard throughout the day.

A propagation house built by Aaron allows summer crops to get a head start.

As a new mum, Rebecca also displayed a collection of earth friendly baby products.

These nappies are produced locally here in the Hunter and are a great nappy according to Rebecca.

Rebecca was lucky enough to get these nappies from Freecycle. She's sure there about $1000 worth of nappy in the bundle she picked up from a mother who had finished with them.,

Here is my little display with brochures about our upcoming courses. A backyard vegie production workshop and a Permaculture Course.

I had a small activity set up making newspaper pots and potting up a little tomato seedling. Little eco managed to master the pot making and made about 8.

My talk was on Permaculture. My emphasis was on the Earth as an organism and how what we do to one part effects all the rest, about how all things are connected in the web of life. And that as a design method, Permaculture can be used to to build on all these connections, from the ground up to address all the challenges that we face at present. Using Rebecca and Aaron's place as an example of how we can live a very fulfilling, content, peaceful,purposeful life and have a positive effect on the environment and those around us without it costing the Earth.

One Skein Hooded Baby Sweater

Tracey asked for the pattern for this little cardigan that I knitted for my grand child,and as it's such an easy knit, there may be others who would like the pattern also. I got it from here but make sure you also print off the corrections by Jill as there are mistakes in the original pattern that she puts right.

Happy knitting and a lovely weekend to you all. It's raining here at the moment and has been all night. A little bit of welcome rain with all the seedlings we've been planting of late!

Sustainable House Day

This weekend plans to be quite busy. We are running a sour dough bread workshop on Saturday morning.

The course will cover making a mother, a sponge, kneading baking and eating. There are spaces available if anybody is interested.

As part of Transition Towns Maitland we started a knitting activity at the local Organic Cafe. We left knitting needles and yarn and a little note asking people if they would like to knit while they had coffee. It became very popular and when you visited you would often see people knitting and chatting. There would also be people showing others, sometimes total strangers ,how to knit. The result was lots and lots of small squarish pieces. These pieces are being crotched together and the rug will be raffled. The finishing off happens this Saturday with all hands on deck.


Sunday is Sustainable House Day. You can find one close to where you live here if you live in Australia.
We have been invited to set up a display and give a talk at a house in Newcastle here. They have asked us to talk on Permaculture. Now that is such a big topic and we only have a short time. I want to talk specifically on home vegetable production and bringing Food production back to the cities. I would like to talk about how growing food can help cut grocery bills, increased health benefits and how much better the food tastes. What do you think?
I will have a small blackboard there to entice people to come and hear the presentation. Can you think of something snappy that will catch peoples eye? I'd love to hear from all you creative people.

Kate  xxx

Gardeners Pie

Rhonwyn and I made Gardeners Pie today which is the vegetarian equivalent of Shepherds pie.
The basic recipe is as follows:
 1 cup brown lentils
 1 tspn onion powder
 1 large onion finely chopped
  1 clove garlic crushed
  1 cup mushrooms sliced
 2 1/2 cups mashed potato
 1 stick celery sliced
 1 carrot chopped
 1/2 cup broccoli florets
 1 Tblspn soy sauce
 mixed herbs
 3 tblspn tomato paste

          Soak the lentils for 2 hrs or overnight. Drain and rinse, Add fresh water and bring to boil . Simmer 15mins. Drain. Fry onion garlic and mushrooms 5mins. Add remaining vegetables and saute a further 5mins. Add lentils, soy sauce, herbs and tomato paste. Stir over heat until combined and simmer 15mins. Mixture should be fairly thick. Turn into a 5cm deep dish, top with mashed potato and grated cheese. Brown in hot oven 15mins or until browned.

            This is basically what I do but I just use whatever vegies I have available and substitute  tomato puree or whole tomatoes depending what I have available. I also use these lentils as they don't need to be soaked and I prefer the taste.

And here's some new photos of Rhonnie. She's into her 18th week now and doesn't she look gorgeous!

Here's the latest little cardigan that I've knitted for the baby. It's knitted all in one piece from the hood down. Very quick and easy!

How Do You Know When It's Spring

Officially, here in Australia, Spring starts on the 1st of September, and the again, some say it doesn't start until the equinox on the 23rd September.
But I noticed a change in the air a few weeks ago. The shadows changed and the days got warmer - all of a sudden, it seemed!

I know it's Spring when.....

...I can smell jasmine in the air

... the plants are in full bloom

 ... the mulberry is fruiting up nicely

... the geese are starting to nest. This is 'Baby' the very first gosling hatched here on the farm. You can just see one of the many, many eggs she is sitting on, under her tail. My goodness there will be a lot of goslings if they all hatch!

It's t-shirt wearing weather, hayfever time, and warm enough at night to not have the fire going. There is a real promise of abundance in the air. The Earth is awakening and breathing deeply.  For sure it's Spring!

Now's The Time....

...to fertilise fruit trees.

This is one of our Washington Navel oranges. Can you see the little flower buds forming? To maximise fruit production they need feeding up now.

I cleaned up underneath and then added a couple of barrow loads of horse, cow and chook manure. This was then watered in really well.

I then mulched heavily with spoilt lucerne hay.. Then onto the next...

Father's Day

                                            Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there!