Eight is enough.

 Hello! How are you? I have a few things to tell you. Eight I think...

The first is that after counting down the months and weeks and days and sleeps, the peonies blossomed and my Jazzy bear turned nine.

NINE!!!!! How does that happen?

We celebrated with pancakes and prezzies and a tea party dinner. The real party is coming soon tho, the new countdown is on.

The second is that I finally worked out how to knit an attached icord and then I cast off this baby.

Do you think wanting to have another baby just so I can cover it in hand knits is a legitimate reason?? The farmer boy doesn't. I think I'm going to have to take a break from new born knits for a while....

This bonnet is for the Chooky soon-to-be baby and is ravelled here.

The third is how grateful I am for all of your kind apple wishes on my last post. So far so good, but we have some nasty weather forecast for the next few days and it would be wonderful if the trees can hold off blossoming until next week.

The fourth is that Rita Hodge is the winner of my Suzy Hausfrau giveaway!!!!!
Hooray for Rita!!!!
Email me your postal details and we'll get that gorgeous wool to you asap.
Hugest thank you to Renae for the generous and gorgeous prize. xx

Watch this space because I have another woolly giveaway coming up very soon.

The fifth is that my Swans Island wool is still sitting next to my computer, still wrapped in its skeins. And I have spent waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time over the past few days stroking it, admiring it and searching ravelry queuing possible projects for it. I'm thinking cardigan tonight. Possibly a bit lacy. I'm hoping to get on with it this weekend.

The sixth is that Joel Salatin, that lunatic farmer himself, is coming back to Melbourne.

One of the highlights of this trip will be Joel's conversation with our buddy Rohan Anderson. According to the website - The pair will discuss Joel's radical farming methods - which have revolutionised the way thousands think about animals, produce and life. 

I'm certain it's going to be an unbelievably interesting and incredibly inspiring evening.

If you are around Melbourne on the 23rd of this month. If you are interested in where and how your food is grown. If you want to know more about what's going on in the big wide world of food production and politics, then this one's for you. Book it in, the details are here.

The photos above are from when Joel visited our farm a few years ago to have a look around and a chat with us about what we're doing here. Joel was an enormous inspiration for us starting this farm all those years ago. He and his books gave us permission to break the traditional farming rules and farm in a way that made a lot more sense to us. I have to say, that visit was definitely a highlight of our Daylesford Organics journey.

The seventh is that I wrote a guest post over at JustB called Bloom Where You are Planted.

And the eighth is that after a very long break, we will be back at a farmer's market this weekend. Yep, Daylesford Organics will be selling certified organic - free range eggs, at the Collingwood Children's Farm this Saturday. Yay!!

We are super excited to be back in town. 

If you are in Melbourne, why don't you come down and say hi, pick up some of the best and freshest produce around and make a lovely morning of it. We'd love to see you.

So that about wraps it up for me.

How about you?

Do you have anything to tell me?

Come on, I bet you do.

I can't wait to hear.

Bye! xx

My photo, his hero.

See that photo over there in the A2 supplement in The Age newspaper?

I took it!

When The Age journalist called me a few weeks back to ask permission to use the photo and for some facts about our farm gate stall, she told me it was going to be quite small.

This morning when I opened the paper up in the car park of the service station in town I screamed. Loudly. I feel a bit bad for all the people filling up with petrol who still don't know what the fuss was all about.

Its also pretty exciting to be number one in their list of farm gates.

Yay!

We're in the middle of a crazy, crazy, crazy weekend here at the moment, but I have been thinking a lot about heroes.

Do you have a hero?

Have you ever met your hero?

Would you like to?

When we first moved to this farm nine years ago and had no practical farming or organic knowledge whatsoever, Bren set about calling every number he could find of anyone who might be able to help us with a bit of information. We didn't want anything for nothing, we just wanted a bit of help.

Nine out of ten phone calls were dead ends.

And then Bren discovered an American self confessed 'lunatic farmer' called Joel Salatin who was breaking the rules and inventing new ways of farming. He bought all Joel's books and became an avid follower.

So much of how we originally set this place up was out of Joel's books and so many of Bren's sentences at that time started with 'Joel says...'.

Fast forward nine years and this time yesterday Joel came to visit our farm and meet us. He wandered around and was only complementary as to what we are doing here, of course he recognised some of his systems and advised us of some new directions we could take.

Like I said, its been crazy here and I still haven't had the chance to talk to Bren about how he felt about the experience but at the end when Joel was leaving Bren asked him to sign one of his books. The book is called You Can Farm and Joel wrote 'Oh yes you can - and yes you are.' Must be a pretty amazing feeling I think.

I hope you are having fun and being inspired out there. X