Back to the Land

12/02/2022

One thing a lot of farms don’t have enough of is shelter for livestock. We’ve done the whole tree-planting gig, but it’ll take a decade or more before the tr...

11/10/2021

We've had a lot of questions about the post-and-rail fences we build here on the homestead -- probably because there's not that much info out there! So we th...

27/09/2021

Giant nightmare stumps, stubborn stumps from hell, and all manner of back-breaking trial and error as we attempt to extract them from their mighty grips on t...

06/09/2021

In addition to the hay which we bale ourselves, we also get a paddock made into silage/baleage each year. We don't have the equipment needed for this - so we...

01/03/2021

A stellar example of Murphey's Law. Smack bang in the middle of haymaking (the busiest time of year for us), our waterwheel pump decided to pack a sad. When ...

20/01/2021

Every summer we mow, ted, windrow, and bale 500 - 600 conventional hay bales over two paddocks (10 acres/4 hectares), with gnarly old equipment we had to fig...

27/11/2020

There's lots of old treasures to be found buried on the homestead. Came across some 100 year old spring steel and wanted to try my hand at crafting a little ...

22/11/2020

First attempt at sourdough went better than expected! I've been meaning to give it a go for ages, but keep putting it off. Then after watching Sourdough week on decided the timing was finally right.

Amazing that just flour + water + time creates a starter from natural yeasts in the air. Of course I had to name it (swipe to see) as per tradition, so meet Doughrothy 🤣

After using some of the starter to make a dough I promptly realised I had none of the recommended utensils - no Dutch oven or oven safe pot, no rice flour, etc. So I made do and used some less conventional methods but it all worked out.

I've already got the next one rising and I can tell it's going to be better than this one - much more airy. Fresh bread for lunch tomorrow!

18/11/2020

So that's where all the eggs have been hiding! Sansa made a nice little nest for herself amongst the wood in the barn.

16/11/2020

We figured out how to build stairs, yay! We added the finishing touches to the front of our workshop by finally adding a set of stairs to our matching deck a...

26/10/2020

Oh hey there little dude. Came across this centipede while we were working on pulling the last stump (and we're not done with it yet!).

25/10/2020

It took almost 2 years of trial-and-error to get to this point, but we now have a waterwheel that pumps enough water for our cattle and sheep, even through the drought we had last summer.

Prior to this we had a small petrol pump that needed to be filled and run about 4 times a day with peak-summer demand - definitely not something we wanted to be doing long-term, and we wanted to move away from using petrol if we could and move towards a more sustainable option.

Waterwheel can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_HqMk51skA

And photos and info on the build progress and running stats here:
https://backtotheland.co.nz/2020/04/building-a-waterwheel-that-pumps-during-a-drought/

It's been a long journey to get to this final design. But it works! Even during a severe drought... You can read more and see photos of the build process on ...

22/10/2020

Moving day chaos. Always a race to the best grass! Excuse the bedraggled ladies, we're mid shedding season over here 🤣

20/10/2020

Little bumblebee hiding in a poppy. These poppies were from the previous owner and self-seed everywhere. They often pop up in our veggie garden and at first I didn't know what they were and were weeding them out, now I just let them grow.

20/10/2020

One year ago we built new doors for our workshop, now we finally get around to hanging them AND building a new deck too. This has helped us get the workshop ...

18/10/2020

Often when we're working on something outside Mica will be there hanging out with us ❤️

16/10/2020

Our first time growing and eating artichokes. Nick picked this up on a whim from the store last year and it finally grew a flower bud.

Had no idea how to cook and eat one as we've only eaten them pickled before. Turns out they're good steamed, then the leaves pulled off one and a time and dipped in mayo + balsamic. A bizarre eating experience since you kind of just scrape off the soft part of the leaves with your teeth. But delicious!

15/10/2020

Lemonades: a hybrid between an 🍊 and a 🍋. Zesty and fresh but still sweet and delicious.

This is the first year our tree has produced enough to eat and they've been one of our favourite citrus to snack on.

11/10/2020

This is stump number 16? 17? 18? 🤔 we've pulled out over the last 6 months. Thankfully the last stump for a while!

The first ones were much easier, but the ones on this side have been a nightmare - huge and fairly fresh like this massive Macrocarpa or rotten and mushy (suprisingly harder to pull out!) which we've had to cut into pieces and tear out bit-by-bit.

We decided to try and salvage the top for a rustic table top but the chainsaw bar wasn't quite long enough 🤦‍♀️, so we've got half a top instead.

10/10/2020

Just a few more sheep than the 15 we started with 😳. There are 70 lambs in there from this year's lambing season, and only one late ewe left to go. Whew!

09/10/2020

The bees are out in force on this beautiful afternoon. Pollinating the cherries - hopefully we actually get some this year as the birds are hard to beat 😂. Might need to put some netting over them this year...

08/10/2020

Every eighteen months or so we get one of our cattle homekilled. It all happens here on the homestead in rural NZ, done by our local professional who does wo...

08/10/2020

The orchard is one of our favourite places on the farm, six years ago this was just part of a paddock. The shelter belt trees, orchard trees and fence didn't exist. Now we often find ourselves out there at the end of the day enjoying the space as the sun sets.