“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.” ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden Autumn is a magical time at our farm. Gentle showers soak the ground during the night, and in the morning thick mist wraps itself around the mountains. As the sun burns […]
Making a Cosy Nest
“The bird, a nest; the spider, a web; man, friendship.” ~ William Blake There’s a cold change in the air. Autumn is well and truly here at the farm. That means stoking the fire each night, and digging out our jumpers and extra blankets for the beds. A few weeks ago I sat on the veranda, discussing the Bluesfest program with […]
Clearing Sales – and their special charm
“A bargain is something you can’t use at a price you can’t resist.” ~ Franklin P. Jones I had quite the romantic outing yesterday. It started with the Lismore Farmers Markets and their Saturday auction in the showgrounds, where we enjoyed an excellent coffee and perused the wares. We came away with a bargain lawn mower, […]
Cedric Snake’s New Girlfriend!
“All discarded lovers should be given a second chance, but with somebody else.” ~ Mae West, Wit & Wisdom of Mae West There is an enormous carpet python who lives in the roof of our farmhouse, and has done for many years. We christened him Cedric, after my maternal grandfather. Last year Cedric had a girlfriend who […]
Gentle Rain
“The only noise now was the rain, pattering softly with the magnificent indifference of nature for the tangled passions of humans.” ~ Sherwood Smith I’ve lain awake for much of the night, listening first to a thunderstorm, and later, to the gentle sound of rain falling. I can hear the gurgle of rain in the gutters, […]
Hay, Hay, Hay! (because lame jokes & Nicole go so well together)
“Nic, step away from that computer. Sometimes you just have to get going!” ~ Ben Phillips, husband. We got up so early this morning there was no time to blog. We were in the ute and rolling out the door just on dawn. Why? To buy hay at the Saturday Markets of course! The […]
Singing the Blues while baking Easter Treats!
“I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.” ~ Billy Joel Just one more sleep and it will be here. Bluesfest! The music festival in my own home town that showcases the best of Blues and […]
A Flower Mandala for Heart Chakra Healing
“It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses.” ~ Colette I’ve […]
A Short Walk
“Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors…disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it.” ~ Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking […]
Hooray for friends!
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” ~ Elbert Hubbard Isn’t this the most colossal bucket of flowers for ten dollars? They are grown and sold by two elderly brothers who live up the road from us. You can read more about that here. I’ve had a lovely time […]
A Very Sad Tale…
“Oh, pity the poor glutton Whose troubles all begin In struggling on and on to turn What’s out into what’s in.” ~ Walter de la Mare Harry and Bert invented a new game yesterday afternoon. It’s called ‘chase-the-guava’. There is so much fallen fruit beneath our heavily-bearing guava tree. Even when I pick a full […]
Sleepy Sunday Morning Triumph
“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.” ~ Masaru Emoto, The Secret Life of Water This beautiful water-lily grows in a cattle […]
Rebirth of a Tenacious Tree
“Often it is tenacity, not talent, that rules the day.” ~ Julia Cameron, Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance When we moved to this farm there was a hulking squat skeleton of a tree near the clothes line in the back yard. From its furthermost branch clung a few twisted and misshapen leaves. Piece by piece […]
Sunshine, Earth and Dancing Orbs
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. […]
The ’10 Lovely Things!’ Challenge
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ~ Marcel Proust Yesterday morning my lovely husband set me a glorious distraction (for those of you who aren’t up to speed I am currently taking a savage amount of drugs to combat Lyme Disease […]
My ‘Sunday Markets’ Outing
“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again […]
Mango and Fig Meringue Nests Recipe
“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.” ~ Mother Teresa This is a VERY easy dessert. Just a little chopping and stirring, but the results are pleasing and the flavours elevate it to a whole other level. There is usually a packet of little meringue nests in my […]
Lovely Miss Mae!
“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” ~Mae West Young Miss Mae is growing up to be an outgoing girl with abundant curiosity! She loves to play chasey and hide-and-seek with our two dogs, Harry and Bert. Never one to be shy she pushes to the front of the herd to say hello […]
Blessings at my back door!
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” (Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, deerit nihil.)” ― Cicero, Letters to His Friends, Vol 2: Books 7-12 In my pyjamas, sipping tea in the backyard after a rough night. It’s so breathtakingly beautiful here at the farm that I can’t help but feel […]
Saying hello to Mae West
“I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway… let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.” ~ C. JoyBell C. […]
Things that make my heart glad!
“Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.” ~ Samuel Johnson, The Idler; Poems The New Year is almost here! As part of my sacred promise to live a heart-centred year in 2014, I am aiming to make sure I fill my days with more of the simple things that make my heart […]
Big Hairy Spiders!
“Spiders so large they appear to be wearing the pelts of small mammals.” ~ Dave Barry “No one knows, incidentally, why Australia’s spiders are so extravagantly toxic; capturing small insects and injecting them with enough poison to drop a horse would appear to be the most literal case of overkill. Still, it does mean that […]
No words needed…
Violet’s New Baby
“Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.” ~ Mae West One of our cows, Violet, gave birth yesterday morning. But instead of a snowy white calf, she produced a deep burgundy baby with blotches of white all over its head. Hmmm…. That baby didn’t come from our bull. Earlier this year, during bad […]
Happy Birthday, Harry!
“Birthdays are nature’s way of telling you to eat more cake.” ~ Jo Brand Harry, our young Blue Heeler cattle dog, is celebrating his first birthday. We’ve started with a big run-around in the orchard and a few celebratory laps of the top paddocks. There is so much pleasure in being young, with good knees and […]
Storms and Black Cockatoos
“Nothing ever goes to plan, Nicole. You should know that by now!” Ben Phillips (husband) It’s a gorgeous sunny morning here at the farm, but oh, what a storm we had last night. Thunder, lightning, hail, ferocious winds and then we lost power, right at sunset. So my day of enforced rest rolled on into […]
Slow Morning at the Farm
“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” ~ Eddie Cantor It’s a slow start here at the farm this morning. The air is cool, everything is damp after the night’s gentle showers and all […]
My Big Promotion
“Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.” ~ William Shakespeare “A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.” ~ Frederick The Great Yes, it’s true. I have been promoted! A position of great tradition and, dare I say it, possibility. The sort of opportunity […]
Big Winds and Blackouts
“You never know what’s around the corner…” I had intended many things for today’s blog, but they will have to wait. We had a day of strong winds and high temperatures yesterday so we decided to go down to the beach for a cool down swim, a walk, and then fish and chips for dinner. […]
Afternoon Walk on the Farm
“For [Jane Austen and the readers of Pride and Prejudice], as for Mr. Darcy, [Elizabeth Bennett’s] solitary walks express the independence that literally takes the heroine out of the social sphere of the houses and their inhabitants, into a larger, lonelier world where she is free to think: walking articulates both physical and mental freedom.” […]
Easy Pecan Pie Recipe
“Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.” ~ Douglas Jerrold 1803-1857 Something very cool happened yesterday afternoon as we went for a family walk to wheel the rubbish bin (it’s a glamorous life on the farm LOL!) down our long driveway to the road. As I trailed […]
It’s Friday – You’ll find me at the Mullum Markets
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?” “What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?” “I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.” ~ A.A. Milne It’s […]
Friends around the Dinner Table
“Some of the most important conversations I’ve ever had occurred at my family’s dinner table.” ~ Bob Ehrlich When I was younger I used to knock myself out throwing Dinner Parties. I would pore over cookbooks and foodie magazines, spending hours putting menus together, striving to get the balance right. I felt pressured to choose […]
Was it all a dream?
“Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.”~ Khalil Gibran It’s 5am. I woke this morning in my own bed. The cool dawn air from the windows flung wide is fragranced with lemon blossom, jasmine, green grass and rich earth. It’s a lush smell. A rich smell. So dense I can almost hold it […]
In Search of Greener Pastures…
“I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there’s a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us.”~ Alice Hoffman There’s not a lick of moisture in the air out […]
Down at the River
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”~ John Lubbock There’s a place I go, here at my farm, when I need to think or meditate or to ease my worries. I go […]
Easy Lemon Shortbread Recipe
“Remember, ‘No one’s more important than people’! In other words, friendship is the most important thing – not career or housework, or one’s fatigue – and it needs to be tended and nurtured.” ~ Julia Child, My Life in France One of the things I treasure most about where I live is that wonderful sense of community. […]
She’ll be Apples…
“Bean finds the best apple in our tree and hands it up to me. “You know what this tastes like when you first bite into it?” she asks. “No, what?” “Blue sky.” “You’re zoomed.” “You ever eat blue sky?” “No,” I admit. “Try it sometime,” she says. “It’s apple-flavored.” ~ Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the […]
One of those mornings…
“Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full […]
Favourite Things
“Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow It’s Sunday, and for me it’s a day of favourite things. Meditation first, before the sun comes up, with my Mala beads and Tibetan Bowl. A short walk around the farm with Harry while we wait for the rest […]
The wisdom of planting trees
“Trees are the best monuments that a man can erect to his own memory. They speak his praises without flattery, and they are blessings to children yet unborn.” ~ Lord Orrery, 1749 Our humble little farmhouse was built firstly as a two room cottage in 1860 by the original timber-cutter in our area. The […]
Easy Date Loaf Recipe
“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.” ~ Laurie Colwin Our farm is a social place. The pace of life is slower here, and people have time […]
Getting ready for a bumper harvest!
“Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.” ~ Kent Nerburn The picture at the top of the page is part of a stand of Bunya Pines along one of the fences at our farm. Each year the pines produce giant […]
My Winter Solstice
Yesterday was the Winter Solstice – the shortest day; grey, cold and wintry. A perfect day for bonfires, for eating the luscious golden fruits from the orchard, and for curling up in front of the hearth to sleep away the longest night… ‘The Shortest Day’ by Susan Cooper So the shortest day came, and the […]
An Afternoon Walk On My Farm
“When I woke up I was changed. The land had recognised me again.” ~ George Djilaynga, Neil Murray, Warumpi Band I’m home again, at my little farm at Possum Creek. Yesterday I went for a walk in the late afternoon sunshine. The wind was rustling the branches, the giant wedgetail eagle flew above me, fat […]
‘Mum’s sleeping!’ by Guest Bloggers Bert & Harry
“Sleep is the best meditation.” ~ Dalai Lama Mum’s sleeping. But she hates to miss posting her blog, so we are writing one for her. We’ve had enough of napping! There is a pesky lizard that keeps swimming in our water bowl. This is a picture of him. A naughty bird keeps stealing our biscuits. Here […]
Brave young Harry!
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” ~ Will Rogers Harry, our not quite six-month-old Blue Heeler puppy had the next of his surgeries yesterday to help accommodate his severe overbite. His newly emerged adult lower canines were shaved down to stop them impacting […]
Morning, after rain
“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.” ~ Henry Beston It rained last night. Not just gentle rain but heavy, loud on the roof soaking rain. Nearly an inch of it. […]
My Friday Morning at the Mullumbimby Farmers’ Markets
Excitement! I went on a short outing today to my favourite local Farmers’ Market at Mullumbimby. After the last few horrendous days of Lyme herxing I appreciated the fresh air and change of scenery… My first stop was an excellent breakfast from The Nomadic Kitchen – Rice, banana and tomato sauce, and fried egg. I can’t […]
My morning walk…
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”~ Dolly Parton A good friend sent me an urgent text message yesterday to let me know that a shop called Rivers in Lismore had just received a shipment of gumboots, but they were selling fast! It’s been so wet […]
Meet Red Bull!
“Anyone who doesn’t believe in miracles is not a realist.” ~ David Ben-Gurion Do you remember me posting recently about a very fat cow, who couldn’t possibly be pregnant, giving birth to a baby bull calf. He’s our little miracle, and he came into the world after we’d lost both of our young bulls to […]
Easy Barbecued Corn on the Cob Recipe
We came home to our now flood-free farm last night. Of course I didn’t think to plan dinner, and there were slim pickings when we got here. Luckily it’s sweet corn season right now in Australia and some had survived the rain and the critters to become a simple meal. Simple is highly under-rated, in […]
Rain is better than drought…
I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. ~ From ‘My Country‘ by Dorothea Mackellar We endured eight hard years of drought at our old farm – a cattle property in the Lockyer Valley. Slowly the grass turned brittle as straw and the dams […]