Farming

"A farmer depends on himself, and the land and the weather. If you are a farmer, you raise what you eat, you raise what you wear, and you keep warm with the wood out of your own timber.  You work hard, but you work as you please, and no man can tell you to go or come.  You'll be free and independent, son, on a farm."  Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farmer Boy

We are currently reading the 'little house on the praire' series of books to our kids.  We have just finished Farmer Boy, which was fantastic.  I highly recommend them to children or adults alike.  The detail in the daily processes, from churning butter, weaving cloth, shearing sheep and hauling wood are fantasic, and give you such a sense of the tasks that had to be done.

I suppose for our family this story was pretty special, as it outlined alot of the stuff that we are doing or trying to achieve with our own patch of land.  It also is a great reminder that we can survive after peak oil and the changes that will bring with it. 

Sorry for my absence from the blog for the last few months.  I've been flat out with keeping up with the work on our little farm.  I've started planting out our fruit trees in our food forest (which is basically a less tidy version of an orchard with multiple layers and eventually edible ground covers as well), I've planted out a bed of asparagus (thanks to my friend Jo who supplied me with some of her own home grown asparagus crowns), one of rhubarb and 3 of strawberries.  I'm also preparing the garden for the spring crops and enjoying going through seed catalouges to decide what we will plant this spring.  I'm determined to improve on my vegetable garden this year and really focus on growing all that we need. 

The weather has been a bit of a mix lately, with unseasonally warm (and very spring like) weather, and now the more typical cold, wet and very windy weather.  There is talk that this summer will be drier again, and I've noticed that the wattles have started flowering, but the flowers are sparse and nothing like that of last year.  Wonder if it means anything....