And here’s where we’ve landed – in the rolling hills and hidden coves of the South Coast. We’ve dived straight into exploring, foraging and getting a feel for the lay of the land… 

On the way over the great dividing range we passed through canyons and by waterfalls. We picnicked. And we wondered.

And eventually we got to the Ocean.

New view from the weekly shopping trip

Kiama’s weekly Wednesday Farmers Markets. Lots of local goodness lives here.

I was excited to make it to the Kiama Farmers Markets for the first time, and to have the opportunity to get an entire week’s worth of food from seriously awesome local providers.

No supermarket for us this week! Not sure how long we can keep that up, but we’ll give it a go.

Can’t look. Scratching.

The other end of the small harbour houses the local fishermans co-op. And itchy pelicans.

And oh so many small pumice stones that simply must be floated out into the water before we can possibly go home.

We’re also getting a feel for the foraging potential of the area. There seems to be plenty.

So far we have a line on kerbside olives, and the gorgeousness of plentiful warrigal greens in the sand dunes.

We’ve also found great patches of dock, dandelion and cobblers pegs where we’re quite sure the council weed sprayers do not go.

So that’s wild greens sorted until further notice.

Warrigal greens, dock and dandelion.

Home made ricotta (made on local raw milk, yay) and wild greens ready to become picnic pastitzis

We’re also exploring the many nooks and crannies of Kiama and surrounds each afternoon when work is done – the Minnamurra river mouth, the hills, the rocky headlands.

So much to learn and discover.

And of course, we’re getting down to work in between jaunts and adventures.

Amoungst all the settling in, we were lucky enough to sneak in a day of filming this week with the fabulous Mr Joel Salatin – that lunatic farmer that largely inspired our early days of Milkwood.

Within the beautiful setting of Buena Vista Farm in Gerringong, we made some how-tos with Jimmy from Meanwhileoutside and Joel, on the important subject of backyard chicken raising and processing.

In between takes, it was great to see Joel sit down with Fiona and Adam from Buena Vista, who are developing their amazing small farm enterprise with ‘beyond organic’ pastured egg laying, pastured meat chickens, pastured pork, sourdough and more.

The calculators came out as everyone started talking the brass tacks of best-practice, small scale pastured meat bird production, and the intricacies of problem solving within a mobile pastured egg laying operation.

Such good conversations! This is what the future of local food looks like – dedicated producers figuring out how to do things better while regenerating their land and communities.

To help Ashar adjust to so much new stuff all at once, we’ve been taking afternoon picnics everywhere we can. Exploring, talking, learning, and just sitting, too.

Yesterday after preschool, we went up the local mountain. To get a sense of the new whole.

We’d like to thank everyone for their beautiful messages of encouragement this last week – we have been mightily overwhelmed from all directions!

We hope to be settled sometime soon and planting our first “whatever fits according to the particular rental context” shortly thereafter.

And debating just how far we can push things in terms of nutrient cycling at home, i expect.

In the meantime, anyone got any great weed pie recipes to swap? We’re perfecting ours currently, and outside influences are always welcome…