Winter course in Self-Sufficiency

 Hi Everyone. We are offering training for this winter for off-grid self-sufficiency, prepping and survival in the wilderness of Tasmania. We have 200acres of regrowth pine forest overlooking the Tarkine rainforest. Looking for people who want to learn about cool-climate self-sufficiency. It will be cold and can snow but what we teach you won’t find anywhere else. Please see the photo below. If you are interested please contact Lisa or Gavin on ghfarmtas@gmail.com or txt 0459 263 525.

 

How our Sustainable Small Farm™ Christmas differs from a city family's

Our Christmas was spent harvesting food. No break for us. It was a cold morning for Christmas (8 degrees) and we had to bring in the wood and light our rocket stove, as  a bonus we heat our water and cook our breakfast on it. If we don't grow our food and bring it in we don't eat and have to buy the poison food from the shops – something we are determined to avoid, so today we harvested some bounty, I harvested: Potatoes, beetroot, Giant Russian garlic, 2 globe artichokes, and a handful of wheat, chives and fennel. Then we both picked fruit: 830g Black currants, 164 raspberries, 48 youngberries, 12 silvanberries, 13 loganberries, 2 marionberries, 4 blueberries, 1Kg of sour cherries, 4 strawberries and 1.6 Kg of red currants.

We harvested this as well as watered all the gardens (twice today as it was windy and I've got seeds in) and Lisa cooked our Christmas lunch. Lisa made a Christmas present of sugar-free raspberry cordial for our good neighbors over the road and dropped it by. After lunch, Lisa collected the eggs and cleaned the chooks' water and I thinned some red gravenstein apples and fed two buckets of them to the sheep. Then I refilled the water drums from the top tank off the shed – we water the gardens by hand at the moment with watering cans and bucket our water to the cabin for drinking and washing dishes. We're not complaining – we like doing this. Before enlightenment chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water. It's very Zen. There's something nice about it too. We use less water to grow all of our food than a city household uses normally without growing any of their food. What can you say? The proof is not in the Christmas pudding, the proof is in the doing.

This is how we live, in nature, dependent on her and the sweat of our bodies for our food, it doesn't just get bought at a shop 20 minutes away by doing some office job for some, often disreputable, company or the government. It is hard won, not easy, made harder by the harassment we get just trying to do the right thing – BUT that doesn't mean we stop doing it, stop living this way, stop doing the right thing. We live self-sufficiently, sustainably, honourably. We try like hell.

So please – when you think of moving to the country and being self-sufficient – don't think it's the easy life, the simple life – there's not much simple about it. It's not easier than city life, far from it it there is a lot to learn how to do, a lot to overcome and put up with (fight against even). It's not that simple but it is good. The good life. That is, when you've learnt how to become a country person and “re-wilded” your heart. When you've survived on what most city people waste and listened to them telling you how you can be sustainable when you've lived it for 20 years while they've never grown more than a tenth of what they eat and made none of the products they “need”. I'm not meaning to offend here – I'm just telling it like it is. The truth. We really are sustainable. We're the real thing. We don't get days off unless we have a friend who can feed animals and water our vegie gardens for us. We sacrifice our holidays for our beliefs, to be sustainable, to walk the talk. We celebrate every day we are alive because we know what we work for and fight for, and we know how good it is. We love this way of life. Despite all the hardships that make it difficult to do. Despite it being a lot easier to live in the city and conform.

In the morning we have the “good morning world” songs of the small birds, the fantails, fairy wrens and others. During the day we hear the magpie, crow, and yellow-tailed cockatoos with the whistler in the late afternoon. Wallabies run for cover as I go on an early night slug hunt to keep them from eating my beans and potatoes, and the owls bring the curtain of night down. Go to bed and let me be – I'm hunting mice and frogs. The world is good.

Then we do it all again the next day, and the next after that, with variations and mountains, valleys and seasons. Trees and fresh air, rain, hail, snow, sun and cloud. Tears, laughter and love. A real life.

So, as you can see, our Christmas on the farm is a world away from a city person's. We wouldn't swap though. Would you?

Merry Christmas from us all on the farm.

Tassie Tigers need keep their strength up. "Fezzy-boy Moo" needs rest and sunshine!

Journey of the Heart

Little did I know when I first decided to embark on a journey to a simpler life in the country all those years ago in Western Australia, that I would learn how to heal my body, heart, soul and spirit.   At the time urban living represented everything that was wrong about the world. It represented the loss of our spirit, the loss of our wholeness. I felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with my life at the time  and I could not put a finger on what it was. Beyond the fact that I wanted more room to grow vegetables and the ability to capture my own rain water and provide for myself, my heart was breaking and crying out for freedom. It seemed that I was boxed in on all sides, not just by houses but by the weight of societal expectations to conform.  There seemed no room for creativity, life, nature or love in the harshness of the urban landscape.

And so without even really articulating this all to myself, I followed my heart and moved from the city to the country, meeting my now husband on the way. I  found a home on a beautiful small farm in the country,  where my husband and I practiced self sufficiency and life should have been good. However life is not always simple and the simple life was a lot more difficult that I expected. My health broke down, I was in a strange town where I knew very few people, I knew nothing of living on a farm, was newly married and local politics were rife. I was quickly discovering that my idea of a peaceful rural town had no basis in reality. Self-sufficiency it seemed was not something that was welcomed and appreciated by all. The simple act of growing your own vegetables had grown into a huge political agenda with various forces at work against us, just us two, both of who were unwell. We both wanted nothing more than to live the good life. Growing our own food and providing for ourselves. 

And so the journey took an unexpected and difficult turn. Friends, community members, neighbors, government and big business all turned against us. I struggled with this onslaught of divisiveness, greed, envy and hate. I was brought up in a Christian household, where my kind parents would often do volunteer work to help people in different capacities. To me it was an extension of their being, a sign of their goodness and their desire to share their love with the world. I could not comprehend the experiences that where happening to us. I became more and more unwell. We moved for a while, but then when I miscarried we returned to the farm, sick, broke and with our heads barely above water. I became sicker with every piece of hate and jealousy that was sent our way.

Finally I decided that I had had enough of all of it and that I needed to heal. And that I would need to heal myself. My body, mind heart and soul turned to this. I read books,  prayed, meditated and spent time in nature. I learnt about herbs, nutrition and healing. Nature taught me patiently as she is wont to do with those that will be her student. I finally became a human being not a human doing and discovered the heart of life.

Self sufficiency I realised, was not so important for the acts  of growing, building and cooking, etc that we did, but for the love that was put into them. I found that actions done with love create purpose and happiness. My life slowly became infused with love, joy and peace. In 2012 we moved to a new farm in Tasmania, calling it Good Heart Farm. Here in a place that supports our well-being we are creating a testament to the love of the heart, created with human hands.

Living in the country has become a part of who I am. It has allowed me the time to build up a relationship with nature, with plants and trees and animals. It has enabled me to be me. I have cast off the expectations of others and society and am free. But with freedom comes responsibility, because when you fulfill your destiny you are required to truly be who you are and stand up in the world. I am a healer, a herbalist, a teacher, a community outreach worker, a wife, a sister, a daughter and a friend. My life is to be who I am. To serve the world. To channel the love of the divine into creating heaven on earth. 

My journey was not peaceful, nor has it ended. But I don't regret one day of it. My journey to the country to find the good life became something much more. It has been a journey of discovery and healing. 

May you walk the path to love and healing.