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 … Read More
The hellscape of 2019
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 … Read More
Cam Parker – An unconventional Ag journey
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 … Read More
The Climate Crisis – what can each of us do?
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 … Read More
Drought, Fire & Flooding Rains . . .
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 … Read More
Vegan working to tell positive ag stories
Read on Stock and Land One brave rural woman has decided to try and build a bridge over the rapidly expanding chasm between country and city folk, creating a podcast called The Naked Farmers. Sophie Love bought a farm in the Hastings Hinterland on NSW’s mid-north coast in 2007 as a “single-40-something” year-old. In short shrift she met and married … Read More
Learning to live with Change
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 … Read More
Paw prints on my Heart
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 … Read More
The Carnivore’s Conundrum
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 … Read More
Only humans are hypocrites
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 … Read More