Embracing Winter

Hello lovely readers,

I hope you are well in your part of the world?

It is mid Winter here.

Crisp, clear nights.

Icy mornings.

Glorious sunny days.

Our little cottage on the hill provides the most beautiful aspect of the Middle Brook Valley below.

Sunrise and sunset are absolute knockouts at this time of the year.

We have settled in to a lovely restful rhythm with shorter daylight hours.

Keeping the fire stoked.

It’s the only source of heating in the house so we are religious in our monitoring of the level of wood needed to keep it alive.

Last weekend I went to Mudgee to speak at an event organised by the Watershed Landcare Group.

Mudgee is a beautiful town about two hours away from where we live. The annual Picnic Races were also on so the town had a right buzz of people rugged up, sipping from coffee cups with woollen covered hands.

The Watershed Landcare group are a beautiful mix of people who come from the surrounding areas.

Farmers, smallholders, students, mums with small babies.

They hold regular events to gather and educate.

Topics ranging from tree planting to soil health.

Fermentation to feral animal composting.

My talk started out around our journey at Magners Farm.

How we started with a dock infested compacted block of land and through the introduction of holistic planning grazing with hens, pigs, cattle, sheep and goats, we witnessed the transformation into multi species pastures, incredible fertility and increased biodiversity.

The conversation turned eventually to the minute details of what that looked like on a day to day basis.

How often did we move the hens?

Where did we buy the hens?

What did we feed them?

Did we worm them or de louse them.

Wood vs Metal housing.

Then the physical and mental challenges running a multi product farm faces along with running a team of four small humans.

Because of course nothing exists in isolation.

There are always other forces at play that challenge us every day.

A broken water pipe. A sick child who needs to be collected from school.

Animals that decided the daily move wasn’t fast enough and challenged the electric fence with force to break out and then decide that they weren’t actually hungry but wanted to cavort up the main road at the speed usually associated with a racehorse.

There was much sharing of information and I learned a lot too.

What was the highlight?

The pot luck sharing of food afterwards.

Sitting in on the conversations between friends.

An opportunity for them to leave the farm and sit around a table with like minded souls.

Now more than ever, community is so important.

It’s all a little bit chaotic when we look around the world and it can be overwhelming.

But when we stick to what is going on in our own backyard, or inside our own four walls, we can create a haven of calm and growth.

Participating in community events allows us to reground, reconnect and renew.

So grateful for the opportunity to connect with these great people - each one intent on making their own corner of the planet a better place.

I LOVE sharing my learning around making a living from farming, please get in touch if you would like me to present at your event by sending me an email.

Remember Grounded in Tasmania in December last year?

The brainchild of Matthew Evans at Fat Pig Farm is going to Western Australia.

I am stoked to have been asked to host one of the tents at Grounded in Western Australia in September.

You can purchase tickets to the event here…

If you are going too, let me know!

Soil Sister has been a great introduction to meeting new people and sharing the regenerative ag love with others.

So proud to see it being used as a reference text book in schools.

Recently I visited a school to speak to the students about the book, there were pictures from the book all around the room on the walls.

So absolutely beautiful to hear the students recite facts and figures about how important it is to consider what we eat and how it is grown.

Also very grateful to the folk who took copies of Soil Sister home from the Mudgee event.

Thank you!

You can purchase it here…

I am taking my time pulling the vegetable garden together.

I’ve laid down cardboard on the fenced off area at the bottom of the lawn and am slowly adding compost in rows.

It’s been rejuvenating to enjoy Winter and not rush into feeling as though I need to have everything in order in weeks or days.

Some of the soil has come from the Community Garden polystyrene boxes and (due to my chaotic gardening style) are full of potatoes, jonquil bulbs, tiny avocado trees and chrysanthemums which gives the baby garden a feeling that something is going on.

I have started a compost pile which I love to turn every few days even if it’s just for my own physical/mental benefit.

It’s amazing how much decomposes even in the depths of Winter.

My compost bucket is an old feed bucket stored under the sink in the kitchen. We religiously fill it with anything that might possibly be able to breakdown. Any food scraps, cardboard, peelings go into it and I’m not averse to spotting mis-binned items from our general waste or the recycling to claim for the compost pile.

How do you compost at your place? Are you religious about it?

It really does make a massive difference if you can compost your own organic waste.

Until next time, Kylie x