Organic Life – Stories from the farm
Good food quest
Good food quest asks questions about how to source or grow and raise food sustainable and healthfully. Good food is fun and with all the convenience of the modern world we have lost the art of slowly and magically preparing our foods.
Home schooling on farm
We call it hands, head, heart learning. It is a kind of material intelligence – learning to know with our hands. This place helps foster a thirst to understand how things operate and how nature in all her complexity works—a desire for exploring and a continual sense of wonder.
Glass trap
As a human invention, glass is a remarkable thing. It helps us see, keeps the elements at bay and holds our precious liquid tonics. If you have even watched a bee when it comes to a window and suddenly finds itself in some kind of living cycle of a nightmare, it goes a bit like this.
Nesta - a spider story
Yesterday morning, Nesta was gone. She had been there for months. All that was left was one leg, ironic really since she was missing one leg from the start, our particular seven-legged spider.
Jimmy the Worm - an adventure
It so happens that one of our worms, one that came on the trip today is named Jimmy. And from his point of view, today was the most exciting adventure he has ever had.
Little Bee!
Little girl, little bee, what a life! I see you struggling there on the bowing green leaf of that blade of grass – rising up and climbing over, falling back down between the blades as your veined wings catch the shimmering of the reflected light and the sun shine burrows down beyond the dark dirt on the floor of the world.
The tale of the peanut
One day we visited the agricultural centre. This was in the early stages of establishing the farm and DT’s dad, who was there too, casually pocketed three peanuts while they were taste testing.
Karo's story
She wakes at 4 am and starts her day. Now she is not one to have read seven habits, or even heard of such a thing, but she embodies routing, efficiency and productivity. It never stops. With balanced breaks for food, tea and beetle nut, she plants, makes animal food, makes seedlings, transforms gardens and propagates from pre-dawn to past dusk. She is old but tireless.
The Ghosts in the Rock
There was some tension in the air. The air itself was thick. After-noon, tropical and plush. But today it seemed more oppressive than usual. The guys were glistening while they worked. The task that had most of them stop what they were doing and gather around was the peak centre of the large rock which had been exposed. It was now ready for the next stage of digging out.
Scale and the Ant
The leaves of the ornamental lime, not precisely a lime, more a limequot tree, had turned black. “It wasn’t like this the other day,” said Ertay, who was immediately distressed by what looked like a celestial invasion.
The leaves were sticky to the touch and utterly covered in what looked like soot from an old steam train. “No stream trains around here though” Ertay pondered.
The Mormon Butterfly
Never has black been so velvet. Stare for even a moment and it draws you into a vast abyss of mesmerising travel. It is the black of al colours yet none at all. A huge with echoes of rainbow. This black absorbs light but does not quench it. It reinterprets it and as each wing flutters, each movement takes place it slows down time against the hurried movement of the Monarch Butterfly. It is this time of year that we will see her. She is laying and looking. No butterfly comes close.
Bananas - what's the deal
We have discovered a couple of interesting points about bananas:
1. There are many varieties and uses – including loads of medicinal uses of the banana plant, stem, fruit & flowers
2.You can make strong banana wine (as it is technically a berry).
3. There is a thing known as a banana circle that makes good compost.
Stories from the Farm
Reflections of life on the farm in an Indonesian setting. Exploring the worlds of little creatures, the wild, adventures in recycling and adaptation and perspectives on society at large.
Learning in nature – between the trees