Eight Acres

The book  Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making  (affiliate link) sets out a guide to developing a holistic goal for your farm or business.   See my introduction to Holistic Management here , and  part 2: four key insights  for the reasons why holistic management is important and  part 3: holistic goal  for understanding what you are managing and what you want from it.  I reviewed the  ecosystem processes in part 4  - the water and mineral cycles, energy flow and community dynamics.   In part 5 the book takes that understand of ecosystem processes and discusses the tools that we can use to manage ecosystem processes in brittle and non-brittle environments, including: money and labour, human creativity, technology, rest, fire, grazing, animal impact and living organisms. In part 6, we learn about questions to ask to test our management decisions against the holistic goal defined in part 3.  This ensures tha...

We have some areas of our property with severe erosion damage that we are trying to repair (more here ).  This means that the cattle need to stay out as they just do more damage, however we don't want to be building massive permanent fences all the time, particularly when it may only be a temporary need.  The solution is electric fencing. fencing off our drain area and hoping something will grow Now that we have the gear and fence set up, I can't believe we didn't do it before, its so easy!  It can be a little expensive, but so are permanent fences, so you just have to weigh up the benefits and if you want something that's quick to set up and easy to remove later, this is the way to go. Firstly, we were given a small energiser (father-in-law bought it at a garage sale, amazing what he finds sometimes!), and a small roll of tape.  We bought a new car battery and some electric fence stakes.  We plugged it all in and dared each other to touch the tape.........

As you know, I really don't like using chemicals in the house or for the animals, but it is gradual process to reduce and change what we use.  For the laundry, we already use a grey-water friendly product, as all the washing-machine water is used to water my vege garden , however I was sure there was still opportunities to improve.  I'd read a bit about soap nuts and thought about it and hadn't done anything about it until I saw them at the local market and finally bought some.  I admit that I was a little skeptical, and I do have a boilermaker husband who can come home in some pretty dirty work clothes, so these soap nuts had a challenge ahead of them. soap nuts are actually dried berries For those who haven't heard of soap nuts, they're actually a dried berry from the  sapindus mukorossi  tree, which grows in India and Himalayas.  They are imported to Australia by various companies (just google soap nuts and you will find them).  This is the o...

This is another herb in my garden that I'm not entirely sure about.  I know its a nettle, because it stung me.  Fortunately it was only small at the time and it didn't hurt much, but it did make me stop and look at this new plant in my garden, growing in amongst the chickweed.  I can't remember if I had some nettle seeds, I think a friend did give me some, and if I "planted" any (by planted I mean threw seeds around at some stage), but I can't think where else they would have come from.  Unfortunately, I therefore don't know which nettle I have!  There are three suspects: Urtica dioica - Greater Nettle - this one grows to 1-1.8 m, so far the plants are small, but the leaves don't look quite right for this one Urtica urens - Lesser Nettle - this one is smaller and grows in QLD in the cooler months Urtica incisa - Scrub Nettle - native to Australia and hardy, it looks like the right leaf shape It doesn't matter too much, because the us...

It has been a gentle start to spring.  We've had HOT days, but the nights are still cool and a few showers and storms have kept the grass green (only just!). Food and cooking Just for a change, we've been eating a bit of pork and lamb that we've bought from friends, so not just beef! Land and farming Somehow we found some time to mow the perennial pasture and let the cows in to trim it.  I was starting to feel uncomfortable about the long dead grass near the house, both the fire-risk and the damage to the pasture of over-resting it.  Now we just have to judge the right time to get the cattle out of that paddock, and find the right time to plant the rest of the grass seed! Chickens I am locked in a battle of wits with a certain hen who has found a way to get into my garden and scratch up all the mulch.  Every time I think I've won, I find her in there again.  At least she doesn't do too much damage by herself.  And this photo is pro...

Beeswax is a wonderful natural product.  I love the smell of it and I use it to make balms and salves, as well as melting it in a wax melter with essential oils instead of using candles.  In the past I have bought it from beekeepers in big blocks, but now we have our own bees I've had to learn how to refine it myself.  Here's how to convert raw honeycomb directly from the hive into a clean and useful beeswax product. Whenever we check on our hives we take a small bucket with a lid so that we can collect any comb that we have to remove from the hive.  Bees will tend to build what we call burr comb, which is bits of comb in odd places, including the lid of the hive, which can get in the way, so we scrape it off and put it in our little bucket.  The other source of comb is the "uncappings" when we extract honey we have to cut the top off the comb containing honey.  Finally you might remove very old and dirty frames of comb from a hive.   ...

We had our new floors laid a few weeks ago and before that we had to take all the doors off their hinges and trim them to make sure that the would open over the new floor.  If you just want to see what our new ironbark hardwood floor looks like, skip to the end.  I searched the internet for clever ideas for trimming doors and there is a special power tool you can buy called a "door trimmer" (of course), but it doesn't seem to be common in Australia and we didn't want to buy another power tool just to do one job (it looks like you can hire them in other countries).  It does look like it would be very useful if you had a lot of doors to trim, something a builder might invest in.   Without a door trimmer, our only other option was to take each door off its hinges, trim it and rehang it.  We were not really keen on removing hundred year old doors, but we had no choice.  Luckily it was easier than expected.  First Pete cleaned the paint off each hinge ...

For several years I made yoghurt using my Esiyo thermos and the Esiyo packets .  Then I started using powdered milk instead , which was cheaper and just as easy.  And then we got Bella our house cow , so I started using real milk, not as easy, but more nutritious and just as tasty.  Bella won't give us milk all year, so when she is dry I think I will use organic milk or maybe milk powder again.  This is a summary of what I've learnt from all my yoghurt experiments to far. What is yoghurt? Yoghurt is the result of fermenting milk using bacteria ( Lactobacillus delbrueckii  subsp.  bulgaricus  and  Streptococcus salivarius  subsp.  thermophilus  bacteria. Lactobacillus acidophilus ,  bifidobacteria  and  Lactobacillus casei  are also used for some yoghurts).  The bacteria convert the lactose in milk to lactic acid, making it tangy, and also act on the proteins in milk, which causes it to thicken. Ing...