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

Yarnauwi Farm

~ Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia

Yarnauwi Farm

Tag Archives: hack

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 →

A moveable sheep shelter: the sequel

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by Joel in diy, livestock, trees

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

building, farm, hack, livestock, recycling, reuse, sheep, southwestern Fleurieu, summer, waste

IMG_5448

With recent temperatures climbing into the 40s (about 107 degrees Fahrenheit), and tree-induced shade still a few years away, we’ve constructed another moveable sheep shelter to ensure our sheep and alpacas have a cooler place to recline on the most hostile of days.

IMG_5444

Employing the off-grid carpentry prowess of Jeremy and Pete, we knocked up the second shelter to the same rough plan as the original: salvaged hardwood for a sled base, allowing it to be dragged from pasture to pasture, fallen redgum for uprights, and tin reclaimed from the gullies for the roof. The previous life of the tin means that a hole is already cut for the installation of a pot-belly stove, should the sheep find one that fits their budget. This sheep shelter also includes a perch, should passing birds need a break while searching for a tree. Continue reading →

Farm hack: stock trough hose outlet

23 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Joel in diy

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

farm, hack, livestock, reuse, seasons, southwestern Fleurieu, trees, water

IMG_5325Every week or so we empty our stock troughs, sometimes for cleaning, sometimes to shift it into a new paddock or location to prevent the soil getting bared out. As dry springs like this one remind us, water is precious. The dam fills in winter, we pump up to the tanks, then try to gravity feed the stock troughs from spring until the rains come again. When it came to empty the troughs, we tried some judicious bucketing onto nearby seedlings, but that’s long and arduous when you have 450 litres to decant.  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 →

Restoration Man: Resurrecting Junk

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by Joel in diy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

farm, hack, picnics, recycling, reuse, waste

Restored!

Restored!

We’ve written a fair bit about our relationship with the decades of farm junk strewn across the property, including our page of curated finds. A couple of months ago, when clearing another trailerload of scrap metal from the gullies, Sophie’s cousin Andrew spotted some treasure amid the trash. It was corroded, missing legs and other bits, but still identifiably a spirit-burning, post-World War II camp stove. Continue reading →

Fleurieu Stile

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Joel in diy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

building, design, farm, fencing, hack, reuse, southwestern Fleurieu, stiles, zones

Stile Design #1, the crossed tread option.

Stile Design #1, the crossed tread option.

Fences are amazing things. They totally reshape the way you think about a landscape by cutting it into smaller, yet still expansive, rooms. They alter the movement patterns of humans and other animals and we’ve very quickly discovered the bits where, far from any gate, we’re regularly having to launch ourselves between strands of high-tensile barbed wire. With a bit of research, we came up with a couple of simple designs for stiles allowing easy pedestrian access at high-traffic points. 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 →

Yarnauwi on Etsy

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

Join 217 other followers

Yarnauwi on Instagram

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.
It might have an Instagram-unfriendly level of detail, but here's a comic Joel's been working on about our relationship with a particular weed, and some of the people who have inspired us to rethink how we manage it. You can have a look at the whole thing on our blog.
For the last few years we've been planting acorns in our front paddock. They're for Holm oaks (Quercus ilex), adapted to a similar dryland Mediterranean climate as ours. They're evergreen, and in decades to come will offer shade, fire suppression and both stock and human feed throughout their acorns. They're slow growing at best, but we've been able to get them growing with mulch, complete organic fertiliser and occasional watering. We've sliced pickle barrels into rings and partially buried them to form a well to hold water in the root zone when watering. The difference between those with and without the wells is pronounced. This little one is perhaps 3 years old, direct seeded.
After a couple of years, our stone terrace garden is complete and freshly planted with a pomegranate, mulberry and loquat. Thanks to @anacotillasprings for the stone! The scraps of mesh and sheep panels will keep the kangaroos off while we establish the garden.
The nopal with a fighting spirit! 💪 For years this single old prickly pear pad sat in a metal bucket only half full of soil, repeatedly gnawed at and knocked over by roos and presumed to be long dead. A bit of heat and dose of summer rain and what a resurrection! With its delicious fruit and young pads, we are so lucky to have such tough plants in the world!🌵#opuntia #pricklypear
We have reached a major milestone with the arrival of a Superb Fairy-Wren family! This is one of the species we have most been trying to attract by planting plenty of dense bushes for cover. In the end they used chest-high brassica weeds to hop up from the Anacotilla creek valley, and have set up a nest in one of our Old Man Saltbushes. One blue male and two brown females/juveniles can now be heard merrily cheeping as they flit along our wildlife corridors from saltbush to saltbush to kangaroo thorn to feral fig tree - just goes to show weeds have their place in habitat creation! 🌿 (this image taken at a different location). #maluruscyaneus #superbfairywren #fleurieucoast
"The best fertiliser is the farmer's footsteps," goes the old proverb, so we try and make a habit of walking and observing what's going on, whenever we can. Here's a few spring time happenings: Christmas beetles arrive, shinglebacks on the move, callistemons in a pollination frenzy, and roos chilling in the shade in small family groups. Observing helps us to understand what's working and inspires us to keep going.

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 217 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...