• About
  • Anacotilla: History & Hearsay
  • Junk: A Curated Collection
  • Resources
  • Species List
  • Yarnauwingga and beyond

Yarnauwi Farm

~ Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia

Yarnauwi Farm

Tag Archives: fencing

A tour, a shed-warming and four years of change on the farm

03 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by Joel in building, events, planning

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

art, design, events, farm, fencing, Fleurieu Coast, map, permaculture, photography, picnics, revegetation, seasons, shed, soil, southwestern Fleurieu, tour, water

Guests take a tour of one of the revegetation areas, inspecting the growth of four years of planting. Photo by Jeff Catchlove.

On a balmy autumn afternoon, we celebrated the new shed with sixty of Yarnauwi Farm’s friends and supporters. Following a tour of the farm, we settled into a shared dinner and drinks by the campfire.

To mark the occasion we also produced a self-guided tour map of important developments and points of interest on the property, hard copies of which were gifted to our guests to be stuck on fridges and toilet doors.

Yarnauwi Farm Self-Guided Map. (Click for a printable A3 version).

The changes that have occurred at Yarnauwi over the last four-and-a-half-years have only been possible through the encouragement, support and labour of our community of friends, neighbours and family. We hope that this celebration went some way towards expressing how grateful we are.

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 →

Farm hack: Making a sheep working race

11 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by Joel in diy, livestock

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

building, design, farm, fencing, hack, livestock, Plastic-free July, recycling, reuse, sheep, southwestern Fleurieu, waste, winter

IMG_6533

One of our hoggets, sizing up the new facilities.

We’re great fans of temporary. Not aiming for permanence tends to mean that ideas can be trialled inexpensively, can be easily changed and that learning from failure can be quick and low-impact. In that spirit, as we develop the sheep enterprise of the farm, we’ve tried to keep things low-key. For yards, we use locally-made portable panels, but when working closely with sheep, we found the mesh sides problematic due to the ease with which horns or feet can become entangled. In more established circumstances, yards would have a working race for such a purpose, but the cost of a manufactured race can be steep. It was time to get out the tools and make our own.

IMG_6530

The ‘new’ working race in position, with sheep, also in position. As a further refinement, we need to attach bracing to the far end to help it stand up to the inevitable knocks and bumps.

Continue reading →

Observe and Interact: Strategies for Learning the Landscape

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by Joel in ecology, planning, regeneration

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

design, ecology, farm, fencing, permaculture, planning, revegetation, soil, southwestern Fleurieu

The following article was developed while preparing to host a forthcoming farm tour for the Southern Fleurieu Permaculture Group on applying permaculture principles in property planning. You can view a printable version, including an updated One-Page Place Assessment here.

doc20150407084803_001

After several years working in and advocating for sustainable food systems, in November 2012, we purchased 19 hectares of grazing land near Second Valley, 80 kilometres south of Adelaide. Our vision for the property is to cultivate a diverse, small farm that meets a large proportion of household food and energy needs as well as an income through direct marketing. With integrated forestry, grazing, revegetation and horticulture, we hope to develop Yarnauwi as an experiment in viable, sustainable small farming for the Fleurieu Peninsula. Farm enterprises and elements will be stacked to perform multiple functions and increase profitability, and will be developed at an economically and personally appropriate pace.

For our first couple of years, we’ve spent a great deal of our time trying to engage in thoughtful observation, learning the rhythms and patterns of the landscape. As we’ve tried to reconcile our own impatience to get things done with the pace of the climate and the land, we’ve adopted Wes Jackson’s assertion that “if your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough.” It’s a reminder to be patient, to acknowledge that ecological systems have their own sense of time, and that many of the intentions of our planning may only be experienced by our grandchildren. Continue reading →

Upcycling a farm sign

15 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by Joel in art & craft, diy

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

art, craft, design, farm, fencing, logo, recycling, reuse, southwestern Fleurieu

IMG_5895Now that we have a new entry to the property, it was time to knock together a sign announcing the property’s name. In August 2014, we were granted the name Yarnauwi by Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi, a property name that both describes the landscape (“bald (hills) water”), and references the traditional meeting ground Yarnauwingga just beyond the back fence.

In the spirit of our intentions for the property, the sign is entirely constructed from materials salvaged from around the farm: a surviving piece of corrugated iron and timbers seasoned in the mud and sun of the gully floors. The text and logo are stencilled with spray-paint. The rather wonky nature of the timbers made it tricky to hang, but we’re reasonably confident it’s level-ish. Give it a honk next time you’re passing!

The Farm Year in Review: 2014

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by Joel in events, livestock, planning, regeneration

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

design, ecology, events, farm, fencing, food, hiking, livestock, permaculture, planning, propagation, revegetation, seasons, sheep, southwestern Fleurieu, summer, tractor, water, winter, zones

2014 was a year where the dry season came early and stayed late. It seemed as if the rain barely had a chance to soften the ground and throw up some soursobs before our clay soils began to crack again and the pasture browned off. Despite this, after two years observing the rhythms of this patch of ground, I feel like we’re becoming more resilient and optimistic: where previously we despaired at every lost seedling, now we celebrate every survivor.

shingleback

Summer: a shingleback lizard soaks up some sunshine.

In the spirit of permaculture, this year also marks a transition from our observational period towards beginning to implement infrastructure for a sustainable farming enterprise. With fencing and water infrastructure for livestock, our appreciation of the need for water only deepens, and despite its challenges, we’ve learnt to stop worrying and love winter.

Continue reading →

Life and Death

16 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by sophie in food, livestock, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

fencing, food, livestock, sheep

Our first lambing season has come to an end, with four boy and four girl lambs gracing our paddocks. All our ewes birthed successfully and recovered well for which we are proud (none were first-time mothers). Our two alpacas have done a great job at keeping foxes away from the lambs, making this freaky high pitched ululation when even a small elderly house dog sets foot on the property in a car with its owner! We’ve kept mothers and lambs together so that mothers can pass on their nutritional wisdom, and to self-wean whenever they choose to.

Asha, Simon and Joel wrangle lambs in our moveable sheepyards

Even though we completed an excellent NRM sheep course, we’ve had to largely teach ourselves how to do a range of lambing operations. We’ve docked all the tails, given two rounds of vaccinations, tagged their ears, and castrated the boys (this was a real challenge!) Thanks to Simon, Asha and Rob who were guest sheep wranglers at various points, and without whom we would have struggled to complete the jobs.
Continue reading →

Regeneration: Two years of practising patience

16 Sunday Nov 2014

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

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

before and after, ecology, erosion, farm, fencing, kangaroos, permaculture, planning, propagation, revegetation, seasons, southwestern Fleurieu, trees, waste, waterways

IMG_5332

Some might consider Shark-mesh overkill for allowing rushes to regenerate.

In our first year of working on the farm, we really tried to practise the permaculture principle of long and thoughtful observation, but it always competed with our own impatience to see change. In that first flurry of clearing gullies and planting seedlings, I remember trawling the internet for before-and-after shots of other people’s reveg projects: something to help imagine a future for the block. Seasoned tree-planters told us we’d see real change in five years, the optimistic suggested three, others, fifteen.

PycnanthaRegen

Self-regenerating golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha) after two years, and protection from kangaroos. This wattle was one of four trees present on the entire property in 2012.

Now at the two year mark, we are noticing change. Removing cattle and fencing sensitive areas has allowed a fuzz of groundcover to begin growing over the barest of gullies. Fences have reoriented deer and kangaroo movement and grazing patterns. Some seedlings planted in the cold, soggy winter of 2013 appeared to die, but then surprised us by resprouting and growing at a cracking pace the following autumn. Other plants that were repeatedly pruned back to their tree-guard height by roos have invested their growing energy into roots and woody stems.

Continue reading →

Fencing Phase 2: Rotational Grazing and Zoning

06 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by Joel in livestock, planning, regeneration

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

design, farm, fencing, kangaroos, livestock, permaculture, planning, revegetation, sheep, southwestern Fleurieu, zones

IMG_5287_2

A new fence and a kangaroo. Neither are particularly concerned about each other.

A year or so ago, we celebrated the first phase of fencing on the farm: defining our ‘wilderness zones’ by carving out seven-ish hectares of erosion gully, remnant vegetation and waterlogging for regeneration. We commented at the time at how much a few posts and wire redefines a sense of space. Now we’ve almost completed all of the major fencing for the property. What began as essentially one vast, 20-odd hectare paddock, has now been reshaped into 8 smaller paddocks, together with 3 revegetation zones/habitat corridors. Continue reading →

A moveable sheep shelter

22 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by Joel in diy, livestock, planning, trees

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

building, design, farm, fencing, hack, livestock, recycling, reuse, sheep, southwestern Fleurieu, summer, trees

The moveable sheep shelter in fresh pasture.

The moveable sheep shelter in fresh pasture.

While the name Trees, Bees and Cheese might suggest otherwise, one thing we’re short on is trees. So with the arrival of sheep, and now lambs, we’ve tried to get in before summer with a sheep shade-shelter. With our soon-to-be-complete subdivision of the property into smaller paddocks, we thought we’d build a moveable shelter that would allow us to rotate it from paddock to paddock with the flock, rather than building seven or eight smaller structures. Continue reading →

← Older posts

Yarnauwi on Etsy

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 219 other subscribers

Yarnauwi on Instagram

From where we'd rather be...actually there's nowhere we'd rather be! Big thumbs up for the kids' new hammock under the old gums. So glad to finally be here at last! Happy 2023 all 🌿
First fig of the season. A monster Black Genoa, organically grown in our little windswept orchard.
As proof of the recent confusing weather patterns, these Amanita mushrooms came up a few days ago! We've never seen mushrooms here in November, they're usually all finished by August, and we've never seen this species or anything like it here before! Amanitas are mycorrhizal (they form a partnership with a tree/plant to help feed and nourish it in exchange for sugars) and these ones were growing only 1m or so from a Eucalypt we planted about 7 years ago which has always grown really well. I just wonder if this species has been there all along, waiting for perfect conditions of 45mm in one day in Nov to be able to fruit! And now it can reproduce and spread to other parts of the farm. It makes me wonder what else is out there ready to take advantage of crazy climactic conditions!
As long time admirers of @thegreenhorns we're thrilled that Joel's comic about weeds will be published in Vol. VI of "The New Farmer's Almanac". It all releases this January and pre-orders are available now through @chelseagreenbooks
Frog spawn! 🐸 We've never seen this before at Yarnauwi but with the best rains in years our dam is filling up, the air is full of the calls of the Spotted Grass Frog and the Common Froglet, and we seem to be providing enough grassy water habitat for these eggs to be laid with enough shelter for them to grow into the little black tadpoles you can see inside! Lying next to the dam listening to frog calls definitely takes us to our happy place and makes it all so very worthwhile 💚
2022 marks a decade since we started working to regenerate Yarnauwi. To celebrate Joel's been working on a little comic to acknowledge all the amazing folks in our community near and far who have supported us and this place over the last 10 years. Here's a sample, but the whole thing is on our blog - follow the link in our bio!
Thanks to everyone who came joined us on our farm tour as part of @historyfestival and @heritagefleurieucoastfestival - we really appreciate your interest and enthusiasm!
We're honoured to have this story pop up on @abcnews_au sharing some of the work we've been doing to regenerate our patch. Our deepest thanks to all the friends, neighbours and family who have helped transform the property over the last decade!
It's been a good year in our little orchard, with plenty of ripe figs for us - and others! Here's one we found, positioned just like this on top of a fence post. I'm looking for a raven with fig juice running down its chin.

What We’re Writing About

alpacas annual report art art and craft bees before and after birds books building cheese climate change craft damara design downloads ecology embroidery erosion etsy events farm fencing fire Fleurieu Fleurieu Coast Fleurieu Peninsula food fungi future hack hiking history illustration insects kangaroos leather leathercraft linoprint livestock logo nursery permaculture photography picnics planning Plastic-free July printing propagation rain recipes recycling regeneration regenerative agriculture reuse revegetation sea seasons seeds shed sheep sheepskins shop soil southwestern Fleurieu summer textiles tour tractor trees ute waste water waterways winter zones

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Yarnauwi Farm
    • Join 219 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Yarnauwi Farm
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...