How do you stop

When I designed the dairy, one feature I had in mind was that each room should have two different sources of natural light. The hardest room to achieve this in was our bedroom which has only one external wall. To overcome this I put a high window into the hallway, high enough that you couldn’t see in, and then almost directly opposite it I put a window out to the outdoor laundry. The pair of windows also have the added function of letting cooling summer breezes from the south into the bedroom. The other room that was a bit challenging to light from two sources was the bathroom/toilet, although it ended up being a classic case of problems turning into opportunities, with the high, long window that I made for above the toilet framing a beautiful view for any men tall enough to look out on as they stand, straining the potatoes as Barry McKenzie might say.


We received an invitation from the local Landcare group to a farming workshop as part of their Small Farmers Network. We’ve already been to a number of workshops as part of the network and each one has been great, for the things we’ve learnt, the people we’ve met and the farms we’ve got to go and see. And they're free. I really love going and checking out what other people are doing, talking to them and learning how they’ve dealt with the same problems we struggle with. Like how do you stop Monitor lizards from stealing chook eggs? The last workshop was on pasture management and we came away making plans to introduce a cell grazing rotation system using electric fences, followed by chooks. The idea is the cows, being confined to a smaller cell, have to eat everything before being moved on to the next cell thereby circumventing their tendency to just eat the most delicious feed. It also can help control unpalatable weeds by keeping the cattle herded together, trampling the weeds down rather than just picking around them. The chooks spread the dung and eat the fly larvae, and make eggs of course. And meat. We’re waiting until the spring growth before we start but we’ll need to invest in some electric fencing and we’ll have to sow some more pasture species next autumn. Probably some perennial ryegrass to start with but we’d like to build up to a diverse range of pasture species, providing different minerals and creating a more resilient pasture, able to handle a range of conditions and seasons. I have found an old trailer in the dump in our gully and I’m wondering about doing it up as a dual-purpose mobile water and mineral supplement station.

“I’m grateful that I waited in the car for Mum to send that present.”
(Confused? Look)