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Yarnauwi Farm

~ Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia

Yarnauwi Farm

Category Archives: tools

Farming with young children

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by Joel in planning, regeneration, tools

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

children, farm, Fleurieu Coast, hiking, kangaroos, permaculture, photography, southwestern Fleurieu, trees

IMG_8221One of our motivations for seeking land beyond the city was the hope that it would support our children to develop a deep connection with a particular patch of ground. Of course, in imagination, it’s all pretty easy: self-directed kids building cubbies in the golden light of late afternoon, climbing trees and constructing dams. In truth, it sometimes feels like masochism.

There are so many things we could have done (and are now trying to do), that would have made the first years of working with Yarnauwi easier. Our restorative ambitions meant that we chose a piece of land that, while superbly located, is highly exposed and has been much abused over the last almost-two centuries. It brings with it endless challenge, and the need for constant monitoring and intervention. The weather sometimes feels defined by the kind of driving winds that take water tanks for excursions around the farm. There’s always work to be done, and sometimes it feels like you’re working without progress, in an environment that can be hostile to weather-beaten, outdoorsy adults, let alone toddlers.

IMG_7155

Mother and child, with mother and child.

Continue reading →

The ground beneath your feet: resources for exploring soil

13 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by Joel in ecology, regeneration, tools

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

design, ecology, erosion, farm, fencing, permaculture, planning, soil, southwestern Fleurieu, water

2Env_Res4Soils

Soils of South Australia, divided into 16 subgroups, from the 1986 Atlas of South Australia.

Recently we’ve been thinking a lot about soil. After all, it is the International Year of Soils, and really, without dirt, there’s not much else. Understanding how our soils work and how to restore them is an essential part of our regeneration project and their structure and composition help define the boundaries of what’s possible on our patch of ground. As Adamson and Osborn asserted in their pioneering 1924 study of the ecology of the eucalypt forests of the Mount Lofty Ranges, climate and soils are the primary factors in determining ecological variation in the region, so even where the scrub has long been cleared, soils can also offer a memory of past ecosystems.

However, it’s taken us a while to unravel meaningful information about soils. There’s a whole new vocabulary, and when you don’t yet know your Kandosols from your Kurosols the whole experience can be a bit mystifying. To make things even more complex, there are oodles of different technical terms for describing any particular soil type, depending on era or classification systems. So we thought we’d share some resources that we’ve come across that may be of use in working out what you’re sitting on. Continue reading →

Testing water quality

27 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by Joel in ecology, planning, regeneration, tools, waterways

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

design, ecology, farm, permaculture, planning, seasons, southwestern Fleurieu, summer, water, waterways

IMG_5573

The DIY water testing kit, including big buckets, little buckets, ice-cube trays, teaspoons, magnifying glass, pH strips, homemade Secchi disk, EC meter, pool net, boots, ID charts and recording sheets. If you have a toddler in attendance, you may consider a change of clothes for yourself and toddler.

Inspired by permaculture’s commitment to observation, over the last couple of years, we’ve become enthusiastic/compulsive gatherers of data about our farm. Everything we can think of to measure, we’ve tried to measure. Now, as we scale up our interventions, we can begin to track our impact and refine our management accordingly. As part of this, we’ve started a seasonal water quality testing program to monitor changes in the quality of our catchment as we revegetate the catchment and manage grazing more intensively.

We’ve assembled our own water testing kit, all stored conveniently in a secondhand mayo bucket from the local chip shop. Using this, there are a few characteristics we’ll test seasonally:

  • salinity and temperature (both tested using an EC (Electrical Conductivity) Meter from your friendly local hydroponics vendor),
  • pH (tested using pool pH strips from the hardware shop),
  • turbidity is a measure of the amount of solids suspended in the water (measured with a DIY Secchi disk or turbidity tube),
  • macroinvertebrate populations, the presence and composition of which is also an indicator of pollution levels (gathered with buckets and nets, and sorted with teaspoons into ice-cube trays).

Continue reading →

Farm Hack: Nursery tables

23 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by Joel in diy, tools

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

design, farm, hack, nursery, propagation, recycling, reuse, revegetation, trees

nurserytableOur passion for growing trees has in many ways outstripped our capacity to grow them, and so our growing space has become overrun with foam containers balancing precariously on the edges of hard rubbish chairs, bricks and scraps of wood. Some months ago, we claimed some old school tables from a local school’s throw-out pile, and thought they might be good for more growing space. Predictably, the manufactured timber tops very quickly fattened in the moisture, buckled and then started getting slimy.

Continue reading →

Ross Reborn: Fixing the Tractor

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by Joel in diy, tools

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

reuse, summer, tractor

IMG_3617A little while ago, some very generous friends offered us an old tractor that wasn’t suitable for their needs. We took delivery of the 1960s McCormick International Harvester A414 a few months ago, and while it mostly seemed to work, shortly after arriving some hydraulic lines blew-out, leaving the tractor unmovable. We contacted a couple of local mechanics to come out and have a look, generally receiving a response along the lines of “Fix it yourself.” While I’m not sure about how that works for them as a business model, it’s definitely in the spirit of the tractor, designed to be maintained, fixed and customised indefinitely with the assistance of a manual and some creativity.

IMG_3591After several weekends of tinkering, evenings of poring over manuals and the occasional visit to auto-parts shops, the mighty A414 roared into life. It handles like an ocean liner, sounds like a freight train and gets from 0-10km/h in a time comparable to the entire Jurassic Era, but boy, that slasher sliced through the dry grass of next winter’s reveg plantings like only spinning steel can. Continue reading →

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