Picking carrots in the Winter garden with my two loves. Trialling Azolla as a chook feed. Driving many miles to visit my parents and to teach my little boy how to fish.
Learning how to make Labneh. Hoping we’d move into the Tinyhouse someday soon.
Two years ago I was…
Doing a jig that we finally had figured out how to create vaguely stable remote area DIY solar powered internet. Permablitzing in Alexandria, Sydney.
Planning to create a market garden on the creekflat. Wondering how many more years it would take for us to build our tinyhouse.
Three years ago I was…
Watching my toddler run through high winter grass. Hosting our first part-time PDC in Sydney. And our first permablitz.
Putting a roof on our tinyhouse frame. Feeling happy that our chickens were finally in a fox-proof, gravity fed chicken run.
Four years ago I was…
Building a geodesic chook dome! Bathing my new baby in a rocket-powered shower. Wishing our swales worked better.
Trying to figure out the extremely painful riddle that is partial tongue-tie on a newborn so I could keep breastfeeding. Eating scarlet runner beans all winter long.
Five years ago I was…
Recovering from our first ever on-farm Permaculture Design Course, which took a whole lotta cookin and organising.
Planting endless acacias on the swales, which mostly refused to live because of the drought and crappy soil. Thinking about motherhood.
Six years ago I was…
Living in a pop-top caravan with Nick on a naked hillside and cracking the ice on the water tank each morning so we could boil water for coffee. Wondering how we were going to build a house with no prior knowledge.
Wondering how we would build a dam, and where. Wondering if creating a life on the land was the craziest idea we’d ever had, and if we should go back to the city on the next train before it all got too serious.
Mid winter’s week is a time of reflection, for me. It’s my year’s start and end.
How on earth did we get to this place?
My child is now playing in a sandpit up the road with his best mate (and without me !!!), the woodstove is on, the tinyhouse is toasty warm, there’s puppies outside, an amazing market garden down the hill and an incredible farm-based social enterprise all around me that I and others have co-created.
We spend our days creating, articulating and delivering education in small farm and urban permaculture, we grow good food.
We collect eggs, chase pigs, discuss the future of the world around a kitchen table full of incredible people, go to bed early and rise again with the dawn.
I am not quite sure how I got here.
But I’m glad I did, and I promise to make the most of it, to live well and simply, and help others learn to do the same.
Happy mid-winter xx
So very inspiring !
thanks
Fantastic.
You blow my mind with what you have accomplished in a short amount of time! I hope you will check out what I am doing in my verge and front yard food garden in Los Angeles. latebloomershow.com – Thanks! Wish I could visit. – Kaye
Great post! I am currently in the middle of making decisions about work and lifestyle changes that are very similar to yours, and this post, among may others, gives me a lot of hope and even more enthusiasm. It can be done!
Lot of hard work involve but, it is doable.
Thanks a lot for your wonderful blog, your posts fuel my daily dose of optimism towards my future plans.
Congratulations on all you have achieved. I look forward to embarking on a similar journey one day soon and look forward to learning from you.
Very inspiring!! Thankyou!
Love your work Kirsten and Nick! =)
Amazing. It really makes me think our dream of getting a micro permaculture farm is possible and we will continue to be inspired by your posts. My husband is applying for the chefs position you have but whether that happens or not we both look forward to doing a pdc at your property in the near future 😀
Beautiful post from a beautiful person doing beautiful thing!
Nice one K
Wow, congrats, that’s great progess and innovation for such a short period of time. Was there any small or simple thing you did that surprised you with the result? Here are two more OK questions, if that’s OK. We (my wife Colleen and I) asked ourselves these two Q’s this week as have now finished decorating our home, well almost, and the appraisers are giving us their valuation / ideas today. We’ve be here in the UK for almost 17 years… Now we are coming home to Oz… So; 1. Would you change anything? 2. Have you seen how seemingly… Read more »
and your living from the heart ..good on you. For all those who are contemplating a similar scary move ..go for it. I had the same dream 45 years ago and wished I had followed it.Today my dreams are smaller and geared to my aged body and limited energy but still dream the garden patches and rain tanks and anything else I can do within my limitations to green my present space, and have created them in my past 5 years. We need to follow our dreams no matter how big or small.
time to write that book!
You are an inspiration to many. I will be posting this at Grammy’s Potager (on face book) for my Tribe, to kindle the Permaculture fire in them. Stick to your dreams and continue to manifest them. The World needs more like you!
Peace Grammy
I am sure I am with many others who are delighted, really really pleased, to have been a part of this. Long may you flourish with love. x
What a fantastic post! So inspiring. I love reading your posts, they feel so compassionate and wonderful. Thank you for sharing your amazing life and all that has happened in six years. You make me realize that my only limitations are self-imposed.
Awesome! Don’t stop blogging. This is one of my favourite reads.
Gobble gobble.
Hi Kirsten, first saw you guys on old blog, in caravan – thought wow, good on them, then I couldn’t find you and wondered what happened. Found you again a couple of years ago and love reading of your developing permie life. Thanks for sharing.
Wow I got goosebumps, that is amazing.