Author Archives: sophie

Flood & Fury

by . Posted on
NSW Floods
29 Mar

It’s hard to find the words to express how I feel right now – beleaguered, despairing, so damn weary.  We survived the drought of 2019, although many of our much loved animals didn’t.  We watched in horror as a river that had never dried before, did, and remaining pools dropped by inches in evaporation as the heat scalded on.  Then came the bushfires – terrifying months as fire swirled around us, every breath a thick pall of smoke.  We almost walked off the land at the end of 2019.  We were brittle, embittered, bitter, broken.  But we pledged ourselves a year to heal and see.  Lockdown gave us precious time to reconnect with this ancient oasis we are privileged to call home, to watch platypus diving and paddling peacefully, to see the land start its long journey of recovery.

It was when we finally got away for a beach holiday in early December and rain lashed every moment that the tsunami of grief in me at what we had been through finally forced me to my knees.  I mourned every lost beast, faces I would never see again, foreheads I would never rub.

And the rain kept coming this year, flood after flood.  Yesterday the Ellenborough River burst its banks, flooding the flats in front of our house for the first time in living memory.  We had a frantic hour as water rose over 3 metres, saving animals, tiny house, trailers, tractor.  We have lost a bridge that bisects our property and affords us access to the world, the flying fox heavily damaged by the uprooted trees floating like toothpicks past our house in the raging torrent.  We won’t know about the concrete bridge at the entrance to our property for weeks, when the river has finally receded.  Acres of riverbank are gone, our telephone pole and connection to the world too.

It’s a lot.  I don’t know how we can recover from this.  We still haven’t finished replacing all the fences we lost in the fires.  It’s not Mother Nature’s fury that makes me depressed.  It’s Australia’s belligerent inaction on the Climate Crisis that every other nation on earth understands is a clear and present danger to our children and theirs.  It’s the smug superiority of these career politicians with their lack of empathy and humanity, propping up the coal mines with public money while they sacrifice the future of the planet on the altar of their own greed for power.

First there was drought, then fires, then plague (Covid, mice, locusts), now floods.  How is it possible that these bible thumpers can’t heed the message?  Or do they truly believe that the end is coming, only they will be saved, and to hell with the rest of us?

Mad though their rank stupidity makes me, it is the ignorance of those who vote for them that makes me despair for our country, for our planet, for our food security, for our future.

We’ve been fully off grid on our farm since 2007, we provide our own power for all our needs.  Solar is the obvious choice for Australia’s future.  We need to start blue sky mining, not building new coal mines.  We have a global opportunity for clean air and sky tourism, to be world leaders in the renewable revolution.  But we are governed by luddites and city centric public servants with no idea what is going on, or needed, in rural and regional areas.  Right now we need the Army to come in and rebuild bridges and roads, and we need a plan for ever more dire climate related emergencies.  There’s no hope of that.  Which is why I feel hopeless.

The Joy of Leftovers

by . Posted on
Ratatouille
14 Feb

I don’t know whether it has something to do with my itinerant Forces childhood, or intense laziness, but I always cook for an Army!  After all, if you are going to chop one onion, might as well chop 3!  I have learned to ask at our nearest Fruit & Veg shop for ‘cooking’ bananas and tomatoes, and they know to offer me trays of spoiled or cheap fruit for Jam.

Freezers have gone out of fashion (we have 5 but then we buy in bulk, live a long way from a shop, have whole beasts in the freezer and are always prepared for flood!) but when we have lent small chest freezers to friends over the past few years they have realised the value of having fantastic home cooked meals on hand for the days when you come home too tired or frazzled to even think about cooking.

But if you don’t have a freezer, you can still reap the benefits of a 3 hour stint in the kitchen which feeds the family for a week.  Here are some of our family favourites, always on hand in the freezer for quick, easy and homemade meals.

 

Passata

This is so easy to make in a big pot and freeze for use as pizza topping, the base for spaghetti bolognese, pasta sauce, or chop zucchini and eggplant into it for ratatouille.  Or add stock, chopped vegetables and pasta for minestrone.  Or blend it for thick Tomato Soup.  Passata is so versatile and easy to make – chop onions and garlic and fry in balsamic and olive oil until soft.  I whizz the tomatoes now in a food processor rather than waste time chopping them.  Add salt & pepper, a good handful of mixed herbs – chopped fresh or dry and leave to cook on the stove for 8 hours, simmering and reducing slowly.

 

Lentil Stew

Recipe here

 

Hommous

This is so easy to make, so much better than anything you can buy in the shops, and lasts for lunches for 10 days.  Forever in the freezer.

Rinse and drain two or three cans of chickpeas and blend with 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, plenty of lemon juice, ground cumin, salt, pepper, a few heaped tablespoons of tahini and olive oil as required.

 

Lasagne

I hated making lasagne until I got the Thermomix but now making a white sauce is so easy I need to make it more often (I always forget about lasagne!).  It’s a great way to put sneaky veg in with the passata to thicken it up and make sure recalcitrant family members get their five a day!  Make one and freeze one or make one big enough that it lasts for a few days for brown bag and school lunches.

 

Apple Crumble

Cooking apples are cheap and just need chopping and chucking in a pan, half covered with water, to boil and then simmer for hours.  Freeze half for later, and make crumble for now.  I use oats, desiccated coconut, pecans or almonds, sultanas and a bit of butter.  Whizz before adding the butter and then mix slowly until it forms clumps.  Spread on top of the apple and bake for 40 minutes or until sizzling and golden.  You will have plenty leftover for desserts during the week and breakfast with yoghurt.

 

Spaghetti Bolognese

Pull out a passata and defrost in a bowl of warm water while browning an onion in a pan (always use balsamic as well as olive oil when frying onions to give depth of flavour and sweetness).  Brown the mince slowly, making chopping motions with your wooden spoon to break up clumps.  Add the passata when the mince is all brown and juices released.  Add a pinch more salt and pepper and leave to simmer slowly for an hour.  Spag Bog one night, mince on toast another.

 

Moroccan Chickpeas recipe here . . . 

 

And of course, Soup!  Whatever is in abundance or suits the season.  Current favourite (Leek glut!) is Leek & Potato, but soon it will be Pumpkin and Sweet Potato & Chilli in winter.  I love Minestrone, and our neighbour makes a mean Pumpkin and Potato Soup.  Any soup served with crusty sourdough is a weekday winner for me & mine!

 

What are your family favourites that keep giving during the week?

 

 

 

The hellscape of 2019

by . Posted on
07 May

After the drought and the fires we knew that this would be a year of healing.  When the rain fell on Christmas Day, we all felt a glimmer of hope.  Never before have I been so glad to slam the door on a year as I was at the end of 2019.  We were broken people.  Brittle and hard, dusty and withered by the heat, the dry, the exhaustion of trying to save our cattle.  

And then there were the fires.  Three months of fear as they circled us, finally blazing through the bush and rainforest we take such pride and joy in.  Helicopters scurried to and fro overhead day after endless day, making long journeys to the Hastings River for fire fighting water.  They tried to collect from one of the rapidly dwindling pools in the river below us, but it was too dangerous.  We were grateful not to have that stress as well.  

The river stopped flowing in October.  The baking sun evaporated inches every day and rather than the cool depths we are used to refreshing ourselves in after hot days of farmwork, there were just a few muddy warm puddles for us to flounder in.  The same water which served our stock and the house, that we wash our bodies and our clothes in.  The home of our precious platypus population.  Never before, in living memory, has the Ellenborough River stopped flowing.  

Our once verdant pastures were desiccated dust bowls.  Our beautiful Jerseys dropped to their knees and we battled to save them.  We stressed about money as we paid for tonne bags of pellets and small mountains of luxurious lucerne.  We nursed and nurtured the fallen as we begged them to get up and get well.  We sold others rather than lose them too.  Every day seemed to be a weighing of the scales with death.  The Grim Reaper wielded his scythe mercilessly.  We have seen horror before but this was different.  Millie, Milka, Henrietta, Damson, Clara were all hand fed and much loved pets as much as quiet and peaceful matriarchs in the herd.

Big Red was a huge cow with monster horns.  She went down and we kept sitting her up but Ged went away for work and I couldn’t do it alone.  But by buggery I wasn’t going to let her die so I used every ounce of my ingenuity and strength during that week – erecting shade over her, hoisting her up onto her knees so she could eat and drink and try and regain her strenght.  She died anyway.

Damson had been abandoned by her mum the day she was born so was hand reared by us.  She and Petal were inseparable.  I was worried about her birthing for the first time so checked on her daily.  She went down and I tried to help but she ran from me and slipped into the river.  That was a long day of literally trying to keep her head above water until we could lift her out.  Once dry and safe we fed her up, to no avail.

I lost all my favourites last year.  All my four legged friends.  It was brutal.

We had the joy of Goldie and her puppies.  8 little parcels of love.  And then Goldie went off for a wander with Mudji and never came home.  We hunted high and low.  With no body to bury and her babies to raise, there was no time for the deep grief of her loss.

Even the neighbours in their 80’s who have farmed this land their whole lives said beasts were dropping like flies.  None of us knew that the drought would go on so long and that it would be as bad as it was.  We were relying on spring rains.  They never came.  We all started feeding too late.

Added to the heat, dust and fire stress then was the sweet stench of our friends’ rotting flesh as we weren’t allowed to burn them.

I’ve never been in a war zone.  My experience can’t compare but that’s what it felt like – heat, smell and smoke.  Choppers whirring overhead.  A constant feel of threat and dread.  By December Ged and I were ready to walk off the land.  It was too much.  We were too scarred, so tired, broken.

We promised ourselves ‘no rash decisions’ as I restlessly googled farms for sale in New Zealand.  We knew 2020 would be a year of healing, of finishing projects, of letting time and space separate us from our grief.  Little could we know what this year had in store . . .

And yet.  Covid has forced us home and stopped the rush and scurry of our lives, leaving the farm to take Ben to school etc.  We have had more rain in the first few months of 2020 than in the past few years in total.  The grass has hurled itself out of the ground.  Mother Nature is recovering.  And so are we.  Time to be.  Time to be here.  To let the sounds seep into our souls.  To sleep, at last.  To watch the meandering river and its quiet life.  To listen to its burbling over rocks.  To watch eagles soaring, the cormorant drying his wings, the platypus paddling on the surface before duck diving once more.

And in these quiet pleasures comes peace.  A deep stillness settling in my soul  as Nature heals the deep heart she has wrought.  As we rest easy in her abundant embrace after wrestling with her and The Grim Reaper last year.

I guess I’m a farmer now.  I guess I learnt just why they can be dour and taciturn.  I learned about the pain lodged like a stone in their hearts.  And I have become quieter as a result. 

 

Cam Parker – An unconventional Ag journey

by . Posted on

Cam Parker started his working life stacking shelves in Woolworths until he got posted to a rural area and discovered it was much more fun growing food than selling it! He is proof that following your interests in life can take you a long way. He’s passionate about aussie ag and answers our questions about the nuts & bolts of growing grain & fodder in Australia. Come along for the ride!

The Climate Crisis – what can each of us do?

by . Posted on

It feels overwhelming, doesn’t it?

But we can each do SOMETHING even if we can’t do EVERYTHING. Each individual effort DOES make a difference no matter how small. And change begins gradually, so maybe there is one small step we can take and work towards bigger ones. But sticking our heads in the sand is no longer an option, WE HAVE TO ACT NOW. Here are a few ideas for living a more sustainable life and helping the planet. Pick one and hopefully more that you can do, or are already doing. See if you can aim for others. None of us are perfect. But we can all TRY.

* Buy an insulated 2 litre stainless steel WATER BOTTLE and take water from home with you wherever you
go (I also have a 5 litre insulated water container in the car as I cannot STAND ‘town water’ as we
call it, & when we go away anywhere we take 20 litre drums!

* Can you fit a RAINWATER TANK (of any size) to your house or unit so you can catch rainwater and filter
it for drinking or use it for washing or the garden? In the UK I ran water out of my mum’s 60 litre
rainwater butt into a domestic water filter jug to keep me drinking rainwater while away!

* What provides SHADE on your western side? We have planted trees for the long term and in the short
term have shade sail and trellis growing passionfruit to try and prevent the beating heat of the
afternoon sun. How can you keep that heat from invading your living or roofspace?

* How’s your INSULATION? Good insulation keeps a house warmer in winter and cooler in summer – what’s
in the roofspace & the walls? Talk to a builder.

* Roof WHIRLIGIGS release hot air to mitigate the heating effects of the hot aussie sun –
that might be a partial solution for you.

* Doors, windows and double glazing: Well sealed and fitting doors and windows help keep the heat
where you want it (in or out). Some windows (casement) really work to catch any little breeze while
others seem to do precisely nothing. New windows and doors are VERY expensive so keep an eye on eBay
and other such sites for bargains.

* SOLAR! There are no words to explain the good feeling in your heart and soul knowing that all your
power is coming from the sun. If you are a homeowner this is an investment in your property which
minimises bill stress, provides a reliable source of power even in blackouts (with battery backup)
& helps to minimise emissions. I can’t recommend it highly enough! Talk to www.thesolarexperts.com.au

* How can you MINIMISE YOUR WASTE output? Please never, ever, EVER throw food away.
Get a couple of chooks or worm farm or compost bin or pile but PLEASE don’t throw food into landfill.

* CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION: We all have to change the way we shop. Shop less often & buy better quality
as close as possible to the source. Get to know farmers, farm shops, farmers markets, farming co-
operatives and farmgate honesty boxes – seek them out! Meet the farmers, buy meat in bulk, eat
seasonal, fresh from the fields food.

* Buy a FREEZER. Yes, I know they use power but you will cook more and store some in the freezer for
days you can’t be bothered (& will eat better as a result), you can buy good meat and fish in bulk,
make pesto from your basil plants & passata from your tomatoes. You can freeze bananas for smoothies
and good bread from your favourite bakery. A freezer becomes a treasure chest, full of delights –
your very own takeaway store.

* Make a PANTRY space & buy bulk where possible. Using huge supermarket conglomerates as your pantry
and making daily trips for supplies means you are spending more than you need to and supporting big
businesses screwing farmers to the wall rather than purchasing judiciously from growers and provedores

* Bike, walk, train & bus where possible.
We are all so addicted to being coccooned in our own private tin cans, and some of us don’t have a
choice because there are no public transport options in rural areas. But just as those fumes will
kill us if we stand behind a vehicle in an enclosed space, so they are killing the planet.

* BUY AN EV! I wish . . . ! Well, save for one!

* Refuse PLASTIC – plastic bags, plastic wrapping, plastic toys, food containers, cups and utensils

* WRITE to your local MP and state your concerns. Write to the Prime Minister.
Get engaged, get involved, turn up, raise your voice. Our children’s future depends on it!

Drought, Fire & Flooding Rains . . .

by . Posted on
17 Feb

I guess I couldn’t really understand what it was to be a farmer in this country without experiencing Drought. I console myself with that idea. The climate denialists will quote Dorothea McKellar’s beautiful ode to Australia as rationale for their beliefs, and it is true that Mother Nature operates in cycles, but we are in extremis now.

https://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm

When we first came here, the farmers around us who had lived and farmed this land all their long lives told us that the Ellenborough River had never stopped flowing. It stopped in September 2019. We felt confident in our oasis with its creeks, springs and river. But we watched our stagnant pools dropping by inches a day in the vicious heat of spring and summer. We feared for ourselves, our stock, our platypus population – the river and rainfall are what sustains us all.

We scrambled frantically on the phones to find feed and then for funds to pay for it. We had to put our hand up for charity when we just couldn’t take any more. We watched beloved cows drop to their knees and despite our best efforts never get up again. We spent days digging a downer out of a bog, feeding and watering her and hand feeding her calf. We got intimate with maggots in an array of injuries. We learned just how useful hip lifters are. We hauled on heavy cows to turn and lift them. We tried and we tried and we tried . . . and we failed. We lost too many to count. We lost friends, four leggeds that we raised by hand and loved beyond measure: Isis, Damson, Millie, Milka, Henrietta, Big Red, JB and more. And then there were all the cows and steers we had to sell for a pittance because we feared they too would lie down and die.

And then there was Goldie. Our golden girl. Our beautiful bitch. Ben’s dog. There is something so incredibly beautiful about a boy and his dog. Listening to his peals of laughter as she scrambled all over him as she has done since a pup. He loved her so much. We all did. And her puppies were a miracle (unplanned though her pregnancy was, I am so grateful for it now). I stayed up all night and at one point woke Ben to come and see a baby being born. It was a sacred time. And despite her exhaustion and overwhelm (8 babies!!) Goldie was an amazing Mum. She hid under the house for a while that first day (& who can blame her?) and then she would disappear for a little while very day for a rest. Slowly traversing further afield as the weeks passed – down to the river for a swim and explore. Never too far, always back in an hour for the next feed. Until the day she disappeared with Mudji and didn’t come home. As night fell we were frantic and started feeding the babies (luckily I had bought some powdered puppy milk as a supplement for Goldie at the pet shop’s advice). Mudji turned up at the neighbour’s the next day as usual but no Goldie. It was Ben’s birthday weekend and we were out looking high & low, calling for her. No sign. No trace. No sound. Nothing. No body to bury. No real closure. No time to grieve.

We raised her pups, Ben instantly claiming the little lemon beauty as Goldie’s replacement and I held the little black boy close to my heart and refused to let him go despite Ged’s disapproval. And then we had to let them go too. God, that was hard. Every goodbye felt like another part of Goldie leaving us. And they were all so beautiful, just like her. But the fact that they are so loved by the families they have gone to, and that her light lives on in this world, is a source of great joy.

I don’t like who we became last year. Brutal, brittle, broken people. We talked very seriously about walking off the farm. We just couldn’t take it any more. We were in shock, I see now that it was like a war zone mentality – we became immured to death somehow, closed off from it, sealed from its shockingness in order to protect our own hearts.

And then came the fires. Moving slowly, but inexorably our way from Mt Seaview and Yarras. That added another level of stress. I went away to a long planned yoga retreat, hoping for healing. Instead I got a text from Ged with a dramatic photo of the fire now in the neighbour’s place and barrelling down on us. So I learned to live in the moment – going deep into meditation and breathing and then coming out to get on the phone and issue rapid fire instructions what to pack, what to leave, where essentials were, how to protect our assets. I stayed and focussed while fear built in me and then drove home via Bunnings on the Monday, filling a trolley with hoses and sprinklers. Ben was evacuated and we had two days to prepare ourselves and our property for the onslaught.

George, our 85 year old neighbour came by. He was scared. He doesn’t scare easy. He was worried about crown fires and fireballs and the lack of water, how dry it was, how little hope we could escape annihilation. But we did. Although the fires continued around us for months. ‘Watch & Act’ sounds so benign. But it is a state of hypervigilance, of nerves in tatters, of fear that I never want to experience again. And the helicopters overhead hour after hour, day after day, the thick smoke we breathed for months, and the sweet stench of death from my rotting friends gave me a feeling of Vietnam or some other vile warzone.

We went away but Ged had to come back to fight fire, to fix broken water pipes, to take delivery of more unaffordable hay. We couldn’t relax. We were constantly on edge, cranky, snappy.

The first rain came on Christmas Day – the ultimate Christmas gift. In January a slow moving wall of clear rainwater saw the river flowing again. Now we have cleansing floods, trees tossed and bobbing on fast moving muddy flood water as the riverscape is purified once more.

And now the healing can begin. I have begun what I call ‘crying yoga’ the nights on my mat sobbing for my lost friends. And walking the landscape, remembering their faces, their soft pelts, their wet noses.
We are scarred by 2019. We will never forget. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know this – the global human population has exploded over the past 150 years as has our consumption, manufacturing, coal burning and carbon creation as we evolve from horse and cart to steam power, electricity, petrol & diesel driven cars, planes and more. We cannot possibly believe that our deforestation and coal burning has not irrevocably altered the planet and its atmosphere. We have to stop. We have to change. We have to backpedal. We all have to do our bit.

Learning to live with Change

by . Posted on
02 May

It’s been a long, long time since I have written here.  I couldn’t bear to replace Phee’s gorgeous pic.  It meant admitting that he was gone.  It meant moving on.  And how do you do that?  How do you accept that your best friend is no more?  How do you face the world when someone you love so deeply and wholeheartedly isn’t there any more?

Phee had been my partner in all things for 12 years.  He went almost everywhere with me.  He slept on my bed, curled at my back or feet.  He snuggled under the duvet every morning when I drank my tea.  He ruined countless sheets and duvet covers with muddy paw prints.  He welcomed me at the gate every night when I came home from work or town.  He loved me.  Unconditionally.  No matter what.

And when he died it seemed like a part of me died too.  Because only he had shared all those years before Ged with me.  Moving to Australia, Tamworth, Kangaroo Valley.  He was not just a part of my life, but a part of me.  The better part.  With animals we can truly be ourselves – raw, unfiltered and vulnerable.  He saw my insecurities, grief and loneliness and comforted me.  He shared my soul story and healing.  He was a pivot around who my life turned.  He tethered me to the planet when the darkness threatened to consume me.

He, Baby, Tom, Tinkerbell and I were family.  Now only Tinkerbell is left (and she is cranky, not cuddly!) and I am alone.

Not really.  But the fabric of my family as was has been ripped apart and there is a deep loneliness in that.  Daisy gone too.  When I go for walks now I don’t have the joy of looking for her and seeing her head raise at my call.  I miss laying myself against her flank and smoothing and stroking the short silky nape of her skin.  She brought me so much comfort,  joy and peace.  I miss her so much.

No one who has gone can ever be replaced.  We are all unique.  But over time I have begun to understand that we can love another, love again.  Time is truly the great healer.  That and the tears that have to be shed so the heart can open once more.

Grief is such a long and lonely journey.  It seems incredible that the world can keep turning, that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night when the one we love is gone.  And yet, the world is still a beautiful place – birds sing, flowers bloom, life goes on.

And one day, we will be gone too.  I think a lot about that now.  Where to be buried or burnt.  How I want my body touched and prepared and by who.  And now, after 50 years of intermittently not wanting to be here, now I don’t want to die (there’s irony for you!)  I don’t want to say goodbye to the people and land I love, as well as this amazing planet.

But I’m applying to have a burial ground where Baby died and was burnt, where Phee used to sit and wait as I sobbed for her.  Where Daisy often hung out with Baby.  I will go there when my body is spent.

In the meantime, I have things to do, books to write, a legacy to leave.  Something that lasts so my life’s experiences have some meaning.

And others to love.  It has taken me a long time to truly open my heart to Goldie and Mudji.  To realise that loving them is not a betrayal of Phoenix.  On the contrary, it is a celebration that his legacy goes on.  And that all that he taught me about love has been embodied.  That will make him happy.

Paw prints on my Heart

by . Posted on
18 Jun

For five weeks I have been in denial, braving the world and keeping going by just putting one foot in front of the other.  We all have.  All avoiding the elephant in the room, too locked in our own pain to speak to the others, too scared of speaking of Phoenix in case we upset the others.  But Ben’s behaviour has deteriorated rapidly at school and we have been forced to each talk about our own guilt – Ben blames himself because he didn’t call out (but there was no time), Ged blames himself because he was driving, and I blame myself because I didn’t give Phee enough time, love, attention, play, appreciation and I had kept shouting at him to ‘stop licking’.  Poor little Ben was the only one of us who actually saw the whole thing.  I can’t begin to imagine how that memory must be seared into his mind and soul, and how scarred he is from that experience.

We have all been in shock.  That day I had been cleaning the house, and made a new step stool for him to enable him to get on the bed which had become hard for him.  I showed it to him, explaining jump here and then here, he looked at me with such love in his eyes because I was bent down and talking to him, wagging his tail and his whole body with joy.  Later, I planted a kiss on him as I passed him watching out over his world from the comfort of the cane sofa on the verandah.  Later still, I came home from my walk in the dark and as always he launched himself off his bed and then the verandah to give me, or anyone, his joyful wagging welcome.  And then, when he wanted to come into the house, I wouldn’t let him.  If I had, I wouldn’t be penning this now.

It doesn’t seem possible that my friend, who has been my faithful shadow, my stalwart companion for over 12 years, is gone.  How can it be that someone so full of life and love can have left.  Where is he?  The farm is so still without his busy body as he ran to welcome us all at the gate, took himself off to swim in the river, ran up to the Tree House if there were raised voices or a row, licked the noses of each and every one of the animals he loved and looked after.  He was the shepherd for us all.  He was our anchor and our light.  I don’t know who I am without him.

Of course I took him for granted.  I knew intellectually that we would not have him for much longer.  He has had a lump on his head for a long time (that the vet said was fine) but we had found a much bigger mass along one side and I was procrastinating going to the vet about that – well, waiting for the cooler weather when he could have a day with me in the car and office.  He would have been 13 next week.  He was very deaf and his arthritis was getting worse.  It is over a year since he stopped walking with me every day and a long time since I let him come with me for a walk.  He begged to come only a few days before he died, and I denied him.  I so wish now that I had let him come for that last walk over the farm he loved so much.

He loved it here.  He loved the river, he loved his freedom to roam, he loved his favourite spots on the verandah.  He loved us all.  But most of all he loved me.  He made room in his huge heart for Ged and Ben when they came along, and I’m afraid to say that he was sidelined in so many ways once I was busy with Ben.  But we always had our runs and then walks when we could share time and space together.  He hated that he couldn’t come anymore (because of his arthritis) and it took me a long time to get used to walking on my own.

Now I have to get used to being on my own, without my little black shadow following me wherever I went.  So do Ben and Ged.  We all loved him so much.  He was the fourth member of our family.  He was the brother Ben didn’t have.  And now he is gone.  I still can’t believe it.  I can’t wrap my head around it.  My heart can’t accept it and keeps screaming ‘No!’

The house is very clean. No more muddy paw prints, no more farm dirt on the bed, no more muddy paw prints on the bath mat.  No more Phee foraging in the pig bin, or eating chook and duck food with them, or licking timber in the Giraffe shed (I will never know why!) or mousing in the feed shed.  Just paw prints across all of our hearts.

An indescribable loss of my friend, comforter, angel, shadow and anchor.  Beautiful boy, best dog in the world. Phoenix McGoenix, Phee McGee we love you so much.  Wherever you are, be happy, watch over us, help us through this time of pain xx

The Carnivore’s Conundrum

by . Posted on
14 Jul

For an animal lover and long time vegan it was hard to conceive of eating meat for myself, even if I could feed it to my family. I had long before accepted that eating eggs was a whole and healthy protein source for my diet – as long as from my own chooks that I fed, loved and nurtured. I like to know EXACTLY where my food is coming from!

I slowly added some dairy to my diet although it has never really agreed with me (perhaps subconscious memories of the sour, warm, cream rich aluminium top bottles from break-time in my primary school years – yeuch!) When the few steers went either to the sales or slaughter (Hector the Protector, Harry etc) I cried and cried. Harry fed Ben and Ged for almost 3 years. One steer, much loved, no waste.

But I tasted the lamb a few times (picking over the choicest cuts, nibbling hesitantly) and remembered that I had eaten lamb before in my early 20’s when too skinny and unhappy and my sister was worried about my weight! It was ok to eat a boy lamb who had been driving me crazy squeezing under fences to whittle away my garden. We always knew that was where the boys would end up. My precious, beautiful ewes were a source of endless joy and delight as they gradually came to love and trust me. When the wild dogs hunted them down and murdered them so cruelly I was seized with rage against a Mother Nature who was so cruel and wasteful. As I dragged their dead bodies behind the car to the animal graveyard to feed the crows, goannas, eagles and other scavengers . . . such a waste of my beautiful girls.

And I realised that at the end of any of our lives all we can hope for is that we have helped someone, served someone, been of use, of purpose. That our lives have been a waste. And these animals of ours were living blissful lives on a piece of paradise. We are all going to die. Every one of us. Some will be killed in accidents, by others, some will die at a time of their own choosing. If a live serves another or others in a useful way – is that so bad? If it has been a happy life, a rich and rewarding life, filled with love?

These are the questions I wrestled with. Questions to which there are no cut and dried answers (no matter what PETA may say!) I learned to walk a middle path, to tread the fine line between my spiritual beliefs and the base nature of the human body. Is it possible that I could be learning balance??

We had bought two pigs to grow up for slaughter. But I couldn’t bear to be parted from Saddleback Sam and Babe. So we got two more which Ben named gleefully. We took them to the abattoir ourselves and arrived just after a triple decker of glowing white pigs, blinking in the bright sunshine. They had never seen dirt or mud or sunshine before. Never rooted up pasture, digging for grubs and roots. Never wallowed in cool muddy shallows or had the hose cascading over their backs in the heat of the day. Never made a nest with weeds and grasses. Never really lived. And yet that is what most people eat. Now that is wrong.

I cried and cried over our two gloriously dirty and bristled pigs. I know why pigs eyes are always so sad – because they know that almost all pigs are slaughtered and eaten . . . at least ours got to LIVE before they died. I never thought I would be able to eat them. For a long time I resisted the wafting savoury smells of good bacon in the pan. Finally I succumbed and was floored by the rich, smoky complex flavours and the sweetness of the fat. We were like ‘Jack Spratt and his wife’ The boys would eat the meat while I would greedily suck at the fat. I realised I was fat starved after years of following a low fat diet.

Now I eat meat maybe once a week. I am a convert to the fact that the body needs a little meat. Pastured. Ethically raised and reared. No waste. Eaten with respect and honour. And that is what we provide and serve to our customers. Grown with love, served with passion, eaten with respect.

Only humans are hypocrites

by . Posted on
13 May

ANIMAL EQUALITY: Why are some more equal than others?

They are very smart, sentient, soul-filled beings like us.  They are peaceful, relaxed, generally happy.  Pigs, dogs, horses, cows, goats, sheep alike.  They are loving, affectionate, communicative, funny.

In fact, most of them seem to be more highly-evolved than we are.  They don’t have to labour for money.  They are not lashed to the wheels of industry or the never-ending demands of consumerism.  They are happy to forage and roam, to spend time together, to scratch each other’s backs and snuggle up together for warmth and love at night.

They know us as individuals.  They have a stronger sense of our souls and purpose than we do.  They are gentle, kind, patient.  They delight in simple pleasures – sunshine after rain, the warming of the world in springtime, their young, food and fresh water.

We have much to learn from them.

And yet we kill and eat them.  And, like us, they don’t want to die.  They know when they are destined for their final journey.  They struggle and weep as we do.  They buck and rail against their inevitable deaths as we do.

Many of us never give a thought to how animals have lived or died.

How many thousands of miles they have been trucked across the country standing cramped cheek by jowl in fear for their futures, not knowing what horrors awaiting them?  Hoping for greener pastures, struggling as they smell the bloodbath at the abattoir and realising their fate.

When terrorists and extremists engage in the mass slaughter of innocents we are horrified and appalled. But isn’t that what we do to animals?  Who gets to judge that they are less than we?

As humans the horrors we perpetuate against animals in the industrial agriculture model are truly awful – chickens in cramped cages for our daily eggs, meat chooks bred for breast and thigh meat who cannot barely walk so out of proportion are their bodies.

Pigs in huge barns on concrete floors unable to root through earth and run as they love to do, and sows in cramped stalls as breeding machines. Male bobby calves shot immediately after birth because there is no value in veal in Australia. Steers on unnatural grain diets for fattening in overcrowded feedlots, causing communicable E-coli in their guts and bodies.

PETA and animal activists are right to draw our attention to these monstrosities and force us to confront the realities of our thirst for flesh.  Although they conveniently ignore the very many farmers raising animals compassionately, humanely, ethically and with love, on grass and pasture – free to forage and roam.

Humans have always eaten meat.  Have always hunted and killed.  Have always supplemented a plant-based diet with the essential protein from flesh.  Some humans seem to survive and thrive on plant-based diets, some need meat.

There is no definitive right and wrong.

And, by God, Mother Nature can be cruel and vicious in how she takes lives both human and animal.  Let’s face it, we are all going to die one day.  Will we have lived a life of service?  Will our bodies be useful to others after we are gone?  At least the animals we eat can say that.

Regardless of whether we choose to eschew flesh or indulge, there is a fundamental truth. We all need to eat far more fruit and vegetables and a lot less meat.

Because that tray of meat is not just fuel for the barbie, it is a life taken before its time.  It is our responsibility to ensure that it was a life well-lived – a life of joy and pleasant pastures, of sun and rain and soil, of freedom and peace.

Every life deserves the same respect.  Animals perhaps more, because they serve and feed us.  If you choose to eat meat, eggs, cheese and wear fleece and skin, please get to know a farmer, make sure the animals you eat and wear have been treated with respect, love and compassion, that they have lived good lives and died quick deaths.

It’s the least we can do.