Thursday, January 20, 2011

summer

Life has been good, but not particularly eventful here.  We are probably in one of the few parts of our state that has not had extraordinary rains, although still more than is typical for summer.  We have also been lucky to not have our typically hot weather - with more mild 20-35C so far this summer.  Summer usually makes me nervous, and adds a whole new dimension of work as far as watering the garden goes.  So the garden is growing well, the grass is still green (not the usual thing in mid January!). 


sweet corn





zuchinni - the best I've ever grown!

We are devoting most of our spare time to building the house, along with other urgent jobs like shearing (which we finally got around to do this week - again Brad did them using the hand shears), and pulling out Ragwort.  The Ragwort has been very prolific this year, not just in abundance, but also in the sheer size of the plants (some are as tall as us).  Personally I don't think its such a big deal, its real problem is that the most common livestock here don't eat it, so therefore its taking the place of grass.  I've been doing some reading on 'natural farming' although I use that description loosely - a book by Joel Salatin.  The book (The Sheer Ecstacy of Being a Lunatic Farmer) has 'joined the dots' on alot of things I read about and know, and the issue of Ragwort is one of them.  By consistently grazing the same animals, and getting them to graze the grass down before moving them on, you are actually encouring the growth of plants that they DON'T like!  As they eat the stuff they like and let the 'weeds' grow strongly.  Makes sense, yet that is how pretty much all 'produtive' farming is done.  Litres of chemicals poured over the land to deal with an issue that cross grazing with sheep or goats would control....



I've been inspired by Salatin's example and am currently reading more about our food system and diet (Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food).  Its definatley a topic that is close to my heart, and we are pretty passionate about producing real food, that hasn't been adulterated by the industrial food system. I'll leave it at that for the moment, but I highly recommend reading about these topics, especially about how our food system works and what you are eating.  Food is probably THE most important thing in our lives, and we should be eating the best food (even if its expensive) and in its 'natural' state - not processed.

The weather (apart from when it has been raining) has been very nice for taking photos.  Such beautiful blue skies.  Here are some snapshots of the last few weeks.





1 comment:

  1. gorgeous kids guys!! looks like great life out farming your own land. great stuff!

    ReplyDelete