Having studied photography, Joan took some amazing photos. Here are some of our favourite memories of his visit… Firstly my choice to throw that last packet of tobacco on the camp fire rather than smoke it.
A walk to Fishers Point, where nothing lies between there and Antartica
Our drive up Mount Wellington, eventually driving into the clouds
A visit to the Cheese Factory on Bruny Island
Building monuments to the whales that died there (notice Joan’s upside-down monument in the background)
Our spectacular walk along the cliff edge to the very top of Fluted Cape
The ablino wallaby we saw along the way
Joan helping us choose costumes for the cricket
Some of his photos have really captured the progress we’ve made over the past twelve months… The following two photos show the garage site in January 2010 compared to January 2011:
And the following two photos overlook the property from the caravan site in January 2010 compared to January 2011. What we really love about these photos is the evidence that we can work with nature to provide for our needs rather than against it. All of the trees remain except one large wattle, dozens of other trees have been planted, there is a lot more ground cover so the place looks significantly healthier (even after one of the driest winters on record) and the dead forest to the south seems to be regenerating.
Two days after Joan left (sad face) we were treated to a magnificent visit by Simon, Lorena, Archie and Charlotte of the Hatsa clan (happy face!). Archie loved the garden… his grandad has obviously been doing a fantastic job showing him the tricks of the trade because when I pulled out a weed I was pleasantly surprised to hear Archie say “that belongs in the compost”!
We enjoyed a splash in the creek on our property
Braved the heights at the Tahune Air Walk
Enjoyed a picnic lunch by the Arve River
Took a scenic train tour to Ida Bay on our way to Cockle Creek, patted the amazing creatures (and fuzzy Moroccan pumpkins) at Bonorong Wildlife Park
And of course went to the England vs Australia one day cricket match, where Charlotte helped cheer on the Aussies to our victory (yes Hat, I’m still rubbing it in…)
It really was an incredible week getting to know the Hatsa clan even better, and we cherish the fact that Archie now knows exactly who mum and dad are talking about when they mention Karim and Penny :o)
I had one hour at home after the Hatsa visit to pack my sleeping back and tent before Celia picked me up for the five hour drive to a three day Permaculture Skillshare in a community called Lorinna, which is in north-west Tasmania. Being very remote, the drive to Lorinna uncovered some spectacular scenery that reminded us just how vast and ruggedly beautiful this island is.
Lorinna is an incredible place, a community of 60 houses all powered by mini hydro on the creek system. It is a place of spectacular scenery and beautiful people, a place where people must often fall in love, with both the earth and one another. The Skillshare was also simply amazing. Thanks to the organisers, about fourteen permaculture enthusiasts came together and shared a delightful few days of discussions, planning, site tours and designing, all of which will no doubt boost the future of permaculture in Tasmania. We are extremely excited about the next Skillshare and the wonderful things that this group of people are likely to achieve together.
Two days after the Skillshare Tara arrived, who is a friend of Al (our first Wwoofer). Tara prooved to us that the level of syncronicity living in Tasmania is out of this world, it’s definitely not just living in a small community. She emailed us to arrange her visit, then a few days later we picked her up hitch hiking on Bruny Island, where we’ve only been twice! We were chatting away in the car when she mentioned that she was going to visit some people with a permaculture property in Franklin, and we put two and two together.
Tara was awesome and only just left a few days ago. We’ve realised that the only bad thing about welcoming wwoofers is that they leave and then we miss them being around. Apart from doing some really great work in the garden for us, Tara has studied natural health care for three years and gave us some excellent pointers (and the motivation) to investigate and use more herbs medicinally. She also joined and enjoyed our raw food mission, and gave us some useful tips on topics such as different forms of protein, which is so important. We mentioned last month that the cats are becoming used to sharing their home with other people… and here’s the evidence in Atomic (our shyest cat) hanging out with Tara.
We also had new arrivals of the feathery kind in January, two geese that we named Hamilton and Patea. We’ve always wanted ducks and geese, but agreed to wait at least twelve months after constructing the dam to see if they came naturally. We were so thrilled to see that they did, however a few days ago Karim started his 1400CC motorbike to ride to work, and well, bye bye Hamilton and Patea :o(
Because Hamilton was white he glowed in the dark, so we could watch him floating around on the dam at night. We really hope they come back soon…
Thanks to the help provided by the wonderful visitors we’ve had over the past eight weeks the garden is coming along in leaps and bounds. We harvested 6.9kg of food from the garden in January, including broad beans, carrot, kohlrabi, strawberries, radish, cabbage, lettuce, other mixed greens like spinach and silverbeet and herbs such as sage, thyme, parlsey, peppermint and lemonbalm. The goddesses were also kind enough to produce 30 eggs for us, which we fed to some of the wwoofers and traded for things like seedlings, pots and the use of a trailer. We’re keeping a track of how much we harvest, how much we spend on the garden and how much we spend on food, so it’ll be interesting to see the trends once the garden is more established.
Joan will be happy to see that all the wonderful raised beds he built for the mandala garden are now in place. Once the plants are established it’s going to be quite stunning looking over the mandala and across the frog pond to the river below.
The squash vines are doing a wonderful job acting as living mulch under the fruit trees, and are starting to produce fruit.
The pumpkins are huge
The zucchinis are gigantic
And the sunflowers are bigger than my head!
Mark joined us a few days ago, one of the most polite and considerate Englishmen we’ve ever met. But it’s already well into February now so you’ll have to wait until the next blog update to hear all about his visit…
