Wednesday, 3 July 2013

The beginnings of peace farm

Hello Fellow being of nourishment,
My name is Matt Daniele partner of Cat, step father of her two kids Jasmena and Marlowe and father of a toddler Luca and a new born Ollie.

The beauty of the Yarra Valley became the chosen place and when I got the job as Edible nursery manager at ECOSS community environment park we had to quickly find a place to rent. One year on we have bought our own land, a place to call home, a place to express all my interests, to grow my family, to plant all my plants for the wild, for stulpturing our land and for economic purposes, to share with my friends, to have fire circles with my brothers and sisters, to generally find my place in the cycles and seasons of this great part of the world.
 I love yoga when I make time for it, building projects- domestic, creative and commercial such as hothouses. I enjoy a home picked meal and a home made wine with my friends. My favourite thing is creating gardens for pleasure, beauty and nourishment.
I've brought the pigs to the farm, three berkshire boys. They are pretty good temperament, not too bad at ploughing as long as they have lots of water to drink, spill and wet the ground so they can work it in.

We are enjoying the goats milk and making great fetta cheese. I must say that home made quality cheese is easily up to the best standard cheese commercially made. Give it a go!
Also we have enough eggs for three families with approx 25 layers of assorted breeds, some yet to start laying, though it is mid winter.
Its great to be on animal care at least two days each week, each family collects the products of the animals (eggs & milk) for their weekly requirements. Luca, nearly 2 sometimes helps me and loves playing with water. Last week he experienced frost bite for the first time when we had minus two degrees celsius mornings.
From spring we shall start moving from subsistence to making a small income using various methods of economics such as sell, service, swap and barter.
The dream for me here is to run a nursery with a little cafe, teach, co-create a market garden, mixed orchard, meadow, food forest, animal rotations and wild haven by the spring dam and generally be filled by the joy of the peace and creation of our spaces, be that, sacred, bountiful, beautiful and enjoyable.

I believe I have started giving up my own needs and expectations of  how and when the elements of the orchard, market garden, nursery, etc will be in production and instead begun the learning of good communication, being available for my community.
I would just like to end on, I'm still pinching myself to have this opportunity in life, like coming home, feeling blessed.


1 comment:

  1. Gosh the pigs have grown since that photo was taken!

    ReplyDelete

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