“Its always difficult to keep Fridays confined within themselves..they tend to spill over..” ~ Parag Tipnis Fridays at our farm are my perfect kind of day. There was an early-morning walk to say hello to the cows and check the vegetable garden. After that I spent a little time finalising my Year of ME […]
Music, Smiles and All Good Things
“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.” ~ Confucius, The Book of Rites Ben and I ventured to the Mullumbimby Farmers’ Markets yesterday morning. We got there a little later than usual, about 8.30am, because after my pre-dawn meditation I sat down at the computer and hammered out some more words […]
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 […]
Quick Apple and Blueberry Tart
“Cut my pie into four pieces, I don’t think I could eat eight.” ~ Yogi Berra This simple berry and apple tart is quick to make and tastes fruity and delicious. I use variations of this recipe all the time to whip up a speedy afternoon tea or dinner-time treat. Shop-bought pastry means all you need […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
We Has The Depression
“Into each life some rain must fall.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Bert: Rain, rain, rain. I’m sick of all this rain. It’s horrible being stuck inside a house in the city. Why can’t we go home to the farm? What if all my tennis balls float away? I can’t bear it. I has the Depression. Harry: […]
What the Frack?
As we watch the sun go down, evening after evening, through the smog across the poisoned waters of our native earth, we must ask ourselves seriously whether we really wish some future universal historian on another planet to say about us: “With all their genius and with all their skill, they ran out of foresight […]
Farmers’ Markets – Nom Nom Nom!
“Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” ~ Michael Pollan Have I told you how much I love food? I do, you know. Food is one of life’s great joys for me. There is nothing better than fresh food – from produce grown with love and care. Good food is medicine for the […]
Wild Dogs and a little Philosophy
My morning meditation was interrupted by a sound no farmer ever wants to hear; the barking of wild dogs. It was still dark, and I could hear them close on the ridge behind me – quite a large pack in the paddock where my cows and their young calves are grazing. Not long after, the […]