Eight Acres

In 2013 I interviewed chicken flocksters on different sized properties, from suburban blocks to small farms, in four different countries, about getting started with chickens. This was a continuation from my first series of interviews about “ getting started with growing your own ”. One thing was the same in every interview, everyone loves watching their chickens! I really enjoyed reading these interviews, so I hope you did too. It is interesting to read about how people keep their chickens (and other poultry) and why they make those decisions, with lots of great advice for new chicken keepers too. Here are all the interviews: Ohiofarm Girl of Adventure in the Goodland (USA) Gavin from the Greening of Gavin (Aust) Madeleine from NZ Eco Chick (NZ) Tanya of Lovely Greens (UK) Adam and Amy from Sustainaburbia (Aust) Linda from Greenhaven (Aust) And my interview with myself (Aust) I'm looking forward to more chicken discussions... By the way, my ch...

The more I learn about the bees, the more I'm fascinated by them and amazed at the things that researchers have figured out!  To be successful beekeepers we need to try to learn as much as we can about the bees in our care.  Some of the books on beekeeping use a kind of rote learning approach and tell you exactly what to do with your bees, but they can't possibly cover every situation, so you need to also learn to think for yourself using bee-knowledge to make the best management decisions for your bee hives. The book The Buzz about Bees: Biology of a Superorganism  (affiliate link) was recommended by the awesome Rusty on Honey Bee Suite  so when I decided that I needed to know more about bee biology, I purchased a copy ( using Amazon credit from you guys clicking on my affiliate links, thank you!! ).  This is a good-sized book, packed with information and wonderful close-up photos of bees (they look all fuzzy and cuddly at that size!). I learnt s...

Every time I share a book review I include Amazon affiliate links, and if you use those links to buy things I gradually build up Amazon credit.  Earlier this year I used my credit to order a couple of books, which I finished reading ages ago, but haven't had a chance to share with you until now.  I just wanted to say again, thanks for using my affiliate links because it does help me to buy more books! One of the books that I bought was  The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World .  I had heard an interview with the author of this book on ABC radio national  which had really caught my interest.  We own a lot of trees, as you can see in the image below.  Our property was on the market for a long time before we bought it because it has so many trees (about 100 acres of our 258 acres) and most are protected under QLD vegetation management laws , so they can't be cleared.  Farmers around here b...

A friend told me he had read the China Study and it sounded really interesting, so I asked for a review.  Here's what he thought about it and, spoiler alert, he's decided to go vegan as a result!  I can't see myself following the same course, but it was interesting to read the review and his comparison to Michael Pollan's writing and diet recommendations.   **** I came across Dr Campbell’s ‘The China Study’ ( The China Study: Revised and Expanded Edition: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health  - affiliate link) as I do with so many other reads, even music. When watching a documentary or a film, I graze the credits for future readings. This is how I have built up my jazz collection, or how I first read Michael Pollan thanks to the film Food.inc .  Lately my Netflix has taken a turn towards food documentaries, not only for the acclaimed ‘ Cooked ’ but follo...

In 1974, an American, Larry Korn arrived at Masanobu Fukuoka's farm in Shikoku Japan, to begin an informal internship that culminated in him translating into English Fukuoka-san's book  The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming  (affiliate link).  The book was published in 1978 and Larry then hosted Fukuoka-san in the US and started his own business teaching natural farming techniques.  Now Larry has published his own book,  One-Straw Revolutionary: The Philosophy and Work of Masanobu Fukuoka  (affiliate link). which is the tale of how "The One Straw Revolution" came to be.   I first heard about this book on the Root Simple Podcast here . I reviewed "The One Straw Revolution" back here  and I have been strongly influenced by the idea of "doing nothing" and observing nature.  I know several people who have read "One Straw Revolution" and really struggled with it.  I had to read it three times myself before I came...

I love the gum trees on our property, but I only recently realised that so many of the trees ARE gum trees.  I was lucky enough to pick up a book called Gum: the story of eucalypts and their champions  by Ashley Hay (affiliate link), that our local library was selling off, so I only paid $2 for it, but its a great little book.  I was hoping to learn about gum trees and how to identify the different types, but instead I learnt about the complicated history of the taxonomy of gum trees.  Its a fascinating story, with chapters about Cook's botanist Joseph Banks, to Ferdinand Muller who continued Joseph's work and then May Gibbs, author of the gum tree baby comics and books.  Apparently there are hundreds of types of gum trees in Australia (and millions of gum trees) and they are all hardwood. They are great for firewood if the wood is split and allowed to dry out.  Some gum trees grow straight and tall, perfect for fence posts and building mate...

I reckon there are three types of people who want to make soap: 1) people who just want to follow the recipe and don't want to understand the chemistry behind soapmaking 2) people who want to know enough to design their own recipes, but not the full detail 3) chemistry geeks who want to know everything about soapmaking The third type are probably the rarest, but that is the category that I fall into, having studied chemical engineering, I do find the chemistry and process detail very interesting (and I know a few chemistry geeks who will join me here).  I recently found a book that satisfies that interest, Scientific Soapmaking: The Chemistry of the Cold Process , by Kevin M Dunn (Affiliate link) . This book explains in great detail how oils and fats react with caustic soda to make soap, how to test and standardise your soap and how different processing conditions affect the final product.  You can following through different experiments in the book to see ...

I've had a compost worm farm for several years now.  Actually I currently have three worm farms.  They are a little addictive!  I didn't know anything about compost worms before I got them, but I fell in love with the concept of having somewhere to dispose all our organic (vegetative) waste that would also reliably produce compost and liquid fertiliser.  The worms and I have been very happy with our relationship and I thought I knew everything I needed to know, but then a neighbour (who we respect as a very good hay farmer) recommended this book - Organic Farming with Worms, by David Murphy  (and that's not even an affiliate link because its not on Amazon).  Not just recommended it, he actually raved about it and showed us his new compost worm farm, and he said he'd bought copies of the book for all his friends!  This really got my interest, so I ordered a copy for myself. This book is for anyone who is serious about getting more out of their ...

I wasn't sure if I would like The Hands-On Home: A Seasonal Guide to Cooking, Preserving & Natural Homekeeping , by Erica Strauss, so I requested it from the library rather than buy it.  I really shouldn't have been surprised by how much I enjoyed reading it, as I have been following Erica's blog Northwest Edible Life  and she always explains interesting and complex concepts with a dose of humour and common sense.  Her blog has covered canning, fermenting, eating in season, growing vegetables, backyard chickens and ducks among other things.  Also lots of cooking because Erica is a trained chef. I (incorrectly) expected this book to be mostly recipes.  As in food recipes.  So I was very pleased to see recipes for cleaning products and body products.  Not only does it begin with a comprehensive explanation of kitchen basics, fermentation, canning and making chicken broth, she also goes into detail of how various cleaning products work (and therefor...

I love to read and I love the process of critically reviewing a book and noting down my thoughts.  I hope you find it useful for finding books that you need.  Some of the books are sent to me to review, some I buy new or secondhand and some are from the library.  No matter where the book comes from I try to give my honest assessment.  Sometimes I read a book that I don't like for one reason or another, and I tend to not review that book at all, I don't see the value in writing about something I didn't enjoy.  I aim for about one review a month.  Sometimes I'm reading more than one at a time, but I at least try to FINISH one a month! One of my bookshelves! I include affiliate links where possible, and I make a few cents in Amazon vouchers every time someone clicks on my link.  This year so far I've accumulated $10.95 in Amazon credit.  If you were going to buy something from Amazon anyway, getting there through my links doesn't cost you an...

In Joanna Blythman's book "Swallow This", the author has somehow gained access to the food industry's inner circle.  She attends trade shows and obtains information about the hidden ingredients in processed food that you will find shocking.  The food industry is onto us consumers, they know that we are reading labels and avoiding weird ingredients and anything with a number, so their latest technique is "clean labels".  Complex and unnatural ingredients are shown on clean labels with familiar or safe sounding names, such as "yeast extract" or "modified starch" or "beetroot extract", this means its getting even harder to read processed food labels and avoid eating artificial ingredients. I've taken key points from each chapter in the book, however there is so much detail, if you are interested in this subject I recommend you read the book yourself.  It is written from a UK and EU perspective, I can only imagine tha...