Rohan Anderson's Blog, page 5

Boots, Beans and Blood

It seems that every time I go away somewhere far far away, something from the ‘disaster realm’ comes to visit my home. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a bit of travel. But more often than not, something shit is waiting for me on my return. There’s not much I can do about it. The older and greyer I get, the more I learn to simply accept this reality as some sort of fate driven trickery.

A few days into my trip to talk at the Do Lectures in Wales we got a call from home. Initially it was reported that some sort of ‘weasel’ had attacked and killed a bunch of our chickens. We don’t have weasels in Australia, so I asked for a photo. Thats when we discovered that a ferret had got into the chook pen and done the killing. Where the ferret came from, I have no idea. It’s probably some kids hunting ferret that’s cunningly escaped from its cage, and ended up feeding on our chickens. What ever the case may be, we’re short most of our laying hens. There is nothing I can do about it now. The ferret was caught and disposed of. Now I have the task of locating some new productive hens.

The second piece of poo was brought to us with 100km hour winds that rushed up the valley to our hill. Last evening that wind roared with fierce menace, with destructive power so wicked that it flattened the north side of my poly tunnel. The entire structure has now been compromised, and will have to be pulled down and rebuilt. I obviously won’t rebuild using the same materials, but I will have to build with steel. It’s just far too windy at this property to use PVC conduit for the frame. Again it sucks. I invested that combination of time, money and effort into that build. It’s just one of those things you can’t do much about. Like my mate said, “pick yourself up, take a deep breath, dust yourself off and start all over again”.

I appreciated the advice but I hadn’t actually fallen over, and there isn’t much of a chance of being dusty this time of year, it’s winter. It’s wet, muddy, windy and bloody freezing. There was a day last week where we didn’t even see sunlight at all. Just cloud. And grey.

It’s the time of year when the house fire is lit every day. Without fail. It’s the time of year when I appreciate the days of work I put into building my cache of fire wood. And it’s the time of year that I look at my wood pile and wonder if I cut enough wood.

It’s the time of year when wool lined rubber boots are an everyday item. It’s the time of year when a good pair of warm wool socks is worth more than the muddy boots themselves.

It’s the time of year when carrots, celery and onions seem to get chopped every few days for stews, casseroles and soups. It’s the time of year I wonder if I planted enough carrots, onions and celery.

It’s the time of year when I find myself soaking beans overnight, to use in my chilli bean stew. It’s the time of year when I shell the last of the dried beans and pop them in jars for temporary storage until they’re eventually needed for a hearty bean brew. It’s the time of year I ask myself if I planted enough beans last summer.

It’s the time of year when I look the bleakness of winter dead in the eye and say ‘fuck you’. It’s when I cook with food I’ve grown back in spring or summer and eat like it’s still sunny outside. Like this mug of mushy broad bean, with mint lemon and goats cheese. It tasted like spring. And if I got close enough to the fire place and closed my eyes, I could almost imagine that it was a warm day with the sun warming my body.

Even though it can be emotionally, physically and mentally challenging, I do love winter. It’s the season that bests suites me. It’s challenging, difficult and miserable. We seem to have a lot in common.

 

 

Cyclic

The evenings have become quite crisp. The dusk mist sneaks up from the valley to our hill, often leaving us in a blanket of moist air. Seasons are shifting. You can tell something is up. Ewes are birthing early lambs, field mushrooms are becoming hard to find, magpies are flying around with straw in their beaks and rabbits well, let’s just say they’re busy too. There are signs every where that winter is on it’s way.

Autumn is my most treasured season, I lament that she’s almost done for another year. I love it when she returns each year without fail. I’m so excited at the subtle hints of her return. Then like a rainbow she’s is gone as fast as she arrived. And now we have winter knocking vigerously at our door.

I feel the best prepared for this oncoming cold season than ever before. My larder is stocked with the basics. I have a deer, lamb and pork filled freezer. I have over a hundred bottles of passata, baskets of nuts, endless pumpkins, dried summer beans and just enough garlic. I have squirrelled away corn, peas and broad beans from the spring and summer harvest that we are just now starting to enjoy and eat.

Excited by cool weather and the return of camp fire cooking, I found myself stoking the coals of the fire pit in my veg garden. I set up my camp cooking tripod which I’ve carrying around with me since I was about 13. The large hanging frypan is perfect for cooking paella, and sure enough I had bubbling away a broad bean paella, with home made chorizo, home grown onions, garlic, parsley, passata and wild duck stock. It’s a beautiful paella, fresh and delicious. And not an ounce of seafood to be seen.

 

Sitting by the fire admiring my handy work in the garden, I couldn’t help but notice the new broad beans popping out of the ground. I planted them a week or so ago from seeds saved from the same crop I was cooking my dinner with. Here in the ground was the my future food. While I was eating the paella I enjoyed the feeling and comfort of the cyclic nature of nature. Seed gets planted, they germinate, they flower then fruit and finally get harvested. Eventually the next round of seed returns to the soil to continue the cycle. It’s a beautiful thing. Just wondrous when you take the time to thing about it.

I’m currently preparing a new talk for this years lecture series. I’ve written about my own cyclic history, how I was raised on the land with nature, I then left for the city, lived a corporate life, then finally returned as the older version of me, to a life deeply embedded in nature. Just like the bean seeds, I can’t help but be cyclic.

Pathological consumption has become so normalised that we scarcely notice it.

I’ve never done this before, but this article rang true so much that I just had to share it.

 By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 11 December 2012

There’s nothing they need, nothing they don’t own already, nothing they even want. So you buy them a solar-powered waving queen; a belly button brush; a silver-plated ice cream tub holder; a “hilarious” inflatable zimmer frame; a confection of plastic and electronics called Terry the Swearing Turtle; or – and somehow I find this significant – a Scratch Off World wall map.

They seem amusing on the first day of Christmas, daft on the second, embarrassing on the third. By the twelfth they’re in landfill. For thirty seconds of dubious entertainment, or a hedonic stimulus that lasts no longer than a nicotine hit, we commission the use of materials whose impacts will ramify for generations.

Researching her film The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard discovered that of the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remain in use six months after sale(1). Even the goods we might have expected to hold onto are soon condemned to destruction through either planned obsolescence (breaking quickly) or perceived obsolesence (becoming unfashionable).

But many of the products we buy, especially for Christmas, cannot become obsolescent. The term implies a loss of utility, but they had no utility in the first place. An electronic drum-machine t-shirt; a Darth Vader talking piggy bank; an ear-shaped i-phone case; an individual beer can chiller; an electronic wine breather; a sonic screwdriver remote control; bacon toothpaste; a dancing dog: no one is expected to use them, or even look at them, after Christmas Day. They are designed to elicit thanks, perhaps a snigger or two, and then be thrown away.

The fatuity of the products is matched by the profundity of the impacts. Rare materials, complex electronics, the energy needed for manufacture and transport are extracted and refined and combined into compounds of utter pointlessness. When you take account of the fossil fuels whose use we commission in other countries, manufacturing and consumption are responsible for more than half of our carbon dioxide production(2). We are screwing the planet to make solar-powered bath thermometers and desktop crazy golfers.

People in eastern Congo are massacred to facilitate smart phone upgrades of ever diminishing marginal utility(3). Forests are felled to make “personalised heart-shaped wooden cheese board sets”. Rivers are poisoned to manufacture talking fish. This is pathological consumption: a world-consuming epidemic of collective madness, rendered so normal by advertising and the media that we scarcely notice what has happened to us.

In 2007, the journalist Adam Welz records, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa. This year, so far, 585 have been shot(4). No one is entirely sure why. But one answer is that very rich people in Vietnam are now sprinkling ground rhino horn on their food or snorting it like cocaine to display their wealth. It’s grotesque, but it scarcely differs from what almost everyone in industrialised nations is doing: trashing the living world through pointless consumption.

This boom has not happened by accident. Our lives have been corralled and shaped in order to encourage it. World trade rules force countries to participate in the festival of junk. Governments cut taxes, deregulate business, manipulate interest rates to stimulate spending. But seldom do the engineers of these policies stop and ask “spending on what?”. When every conceivable want and need has been met (among those who have disposable money), growth depends on selling the utterly useless. The solemnity of the state, its might and majesty, are harnessed to the task of delivering Terry the Swearing Turtle to our doors.

Grown men and women devote their lives to manufacturing and marketing this rubbish, and dissing the idea of living without it. “I always knit my gifts”, says a woman in a television ad for an electronics outlet. “Well you shouldn’t,” replies the narrator(5). An advertisement for Google’s latest tablet shows a father and son camping in the woods. Their enjoyment depends on the Nexus 7’s special features(6). The best things in life are free, but we’ve found a way of selling them to you.

The growth of inequality that has accompanied the consumer boom ensures that the rising economic tide no longer lifts all boats. In the US in 2010 a remarkable 93% of the growth in incomes accrued to the top 1% of the population(7). The old excuse, that we must trash the planet to help the poor, simply does not wash. For a few decades of extra enrichment for those who already possess more money than they know how to spend, the prospects of everyone else who will live on this earth are diminished.

So effectively have governments, the media and advertisers associated consumption with prosperity and happiness that to say these things is to expose yourself to opprobrium and ridicule. Witness last week’s Moral Maze programme, in which most of the panel lined up to decry the idea of consuming less, and to associate it, somehow, with authoritarianism(8). When the world goes mad, those who resist are denounced as lunatics.

Bake them a cake, write them a poem, give them a kiss, tell them a joke, but for god’s sake stop trashing the planet to tell someone you care. All it shows is that you don’t.

www.monbiot.com

1. http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-al...

2. It’s 57%. See http://www.monbiot.com/2010/05/05/car...

3. See the film Blood in the Mobile. http://bloodinthemobile.org/

4. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_dirt...

5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7VE2w...

6. http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/07/comm...

7. Emmanuel Saez, 2nd March 2012. Striking it Richer: the Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States (Updated with 2009 and 2010 estimates). http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-U...

8. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p424r

Where there is stubble

It’s hard to imagine that in just a few weeks time Autumn will be over. I’ve never liked calendar seasons, they’re never on cue! I’m hoping Autumn weather sticks around for a while yet, but I know that before long the black hole of winter will return. I’m well prepared though. My larder stores are just fine. The meat freezer is full of venison, lamb and soon another whole pig. I’ve also been able to sneak in a few wild ducks this season, which end up as the key ingredient in a few our favourite family dish’s, the arancini of which I’ve  been reminded to cook soon my smallest ratbag. “Dad when are you going to cook the duck arancini?” she’s five. I think I might be in some trouble here.

As much as we all adore the taste of a hearty duck meal, I cannot pass up the flavour of wild quail. I know it’s tiny and fiddly to eat, but I can easily look past this, for it’s that beautiful meat thats so alluring. Nick my quail hunting mate and I, have been trying to book a day or two working the field with the dogs the season. A mixture of bad weather and busy schedules have been conspiring against us. That is until this past weekend. Finally the two of us were able to meet up and walk those fields, hunting the feathered delight that is stubble quail.

 

Late in the afternoon I arrived at camp. Nick had already set about with the saw preparing some wood for the fire. I came prepared with a cache of dried split firewood in the truck. This time of year you can’t trust the weather so I figured instead of trying to start a fire with soggy wet wood I’d bring my own ready to go.

The window of oppurtunity was fairly tight, we agreed to work with the time we had and keep our fingers crossed for a successful hunt. To be honest, I’ve never walked away from a quail hunt with a heap of birds in the bag. It’s a wild meat that I’ve found to be a far from a freezer filler. For me it’s more sought after because of it’s flavour. It’s very much like wild duck for me. I never get many each hunting season but the ones I do are a real culinary prize.

There is another reason why I hunt quail. Similar to hunting other birds, it requires both hard work and skill. If it all comes off right, the whole experience is rewarding as hell. It’s nice to able to share the experiences with a another dedicated and passionate hunter. On some hunts the notion of a shared passion with your fellow hunter is strictly unspoken. But out here with Nick, we talk constantly about why we hunt, and what it means to us to be responsible for the meat we ultimately have to kill for. He’s very passionate about his right to hunt. His right to a particular way of life. I can respect that.

We walked the fields, across acres of stubble left over from the summer crops. Harvested maize and grassy fields dominated the landscape. Perfect habitat for the stubble quail, although that maize was tricky to traverse!. That hard corn stubble poking out from the soil, had me tripping all the way to China. It’s hard as nails, easy enough to walk down, but as soon as you need to walk across the neat rows you can find yourself as clumsy as Mr Bean.

There was still enough spectacular autumnal light for a quick session over some dams for duck. Nick had been hunting these dams a few weeks prior and the hunt had been good. With the amount of fox poison laid from the local farmers we decided to leave the dogs in the truck while we jumped the dams. As soon as a duck was shot, we’d let a dog out to obediently retrieve it. With a wet dog and hungry bellies we headed back to camp. Nick had found a great spot next to an abandoned farm house, a ghost house really. A remnant of a time when labour workers populated the area, but now they’re replaced by efficient machinery so many a house sits idle. Eventually these haunted shacks fall into such disrepair, they’ll crumble and fade into the past, just as those laborious workers have. Only ghosts will remain.

The following morning fresh from a night of star gazing, we rose from our warm swags, geared up and headed straight out to the surrounding paddocks hoping to locate some quail. Wadding through the wet grass I couldn’t help but acknowledge the irony of the present situation. Here I was, taking a stand, a hunter of wild food. Hunting for my meals, all in an effort to remove myself from the supermarket food system. And what ground was I hunting in? Why it’s Victorias richest vegetable growing region of Gippsland. The paddocks were filled with broccoli, asparagus, potato, corn and leek just to mention a few. All of this food would end up at the wholesale markets, then to supermarkets. Theres a good chance most of it’s been sprayed with some pesticide or fertiliser. I couldn’t help but smile at it all.

Setting aside all things ironic, we walked those fields soaking in the stunning scenery and weather show. To the north sat the rising mountains of the high country. Majestic and proud. Thats where my heart lies. I grew up at the base of those mountains. I cannot deny that they have some power over me.

All other directions it was flatlands, allowing for full skies, and super sized vistas. Just another great bonus to being a man that hunts for his food. When you put yourself out in nature, it rewards you with stunning skies, moonlight nights and moody clouds. Far prettier than the inside of any building. No matter how talented a human can be at design, they’re no match for the beauty of the outdoors. And no match for what the outdoor provides the soul.

The dogs, Nick and I worked into the day, our legs dragged through the wet grass, jagged stubble, across muddied fields. Nicks dog Jack is an experienced quail pointer, my dog Henry however was new to quail pointing. I was concerned that he’d diverge off to the hint of rabbit, his favourite beast to hunt. But in the end I finished the day a very proud fella. He pointed a few birds and I shot over him just like we do with Jack.

With a little bit of encouragement and training he got the gist of what we where doing. It’s a phenomenal feeling working hand in hand with a hunting dog. Henry zig zagged the fields, his nose to the ground, a hundred miles and hour, covering the ground searching for any hint of quail. He chased a few, but eventually got it. He ran right over a bird, stopped in mid air, and spun around on point, starring with his bee sting tail hard as nails pointing behind him. I walked to his rear, and the two of us flushed the bird out. With all the excitement of his first point (on quail) I missed that damn bird. But he allowed me to shot over him and it’s the start of many years of quail hunting for the pair of us. No doubt a life long partnership.

We ended up with a bag of quail and two ducks. Not much for a days work, but enough to keep us happy. Nick and I parted ways, shaking hands until the next time we meet.

I got home to my girls excited to see me, but in reality they where probably more excited to see a basket of birds. They know those birds will make some delicious meals for them to enjoy. We lit the fire pit in the vegetable garden and spent the afternoon plucking birds. Even though the girls had girly moments of “eeewww blood” and “grossssss” they still managed to help pluck the birds clean with me. I guess after all these years, they know that the end result is worth the gore. It is after all, ‘gore-met’ food.

I marinated the quail with a smokey pimenton, thyme, garlic and cumin rub. With a bit of melted butter the birds were well covered flavour and I placed them over the hot coals of the fire to cook. They sizzled away as the girls and I started to salivate. I didn’t realise that the afternoon had slipped away so far, I guess we’d been so busy plucking we lost track of time and totally missed lunch. I don’t know about the kids, but my belly was grumbling! When I was sure the birds where cooked well, I removed one to check. Perfect! The feast was on! The girls and I had marinade and juices all over our faces. We squeezed over the lemon juice and devoured each bird with fervour.

 

The quail hunt signals the beginning of the end of Autumn. We sat in the vegetable garden to pluck and cook these birds, where we were surrounded by the bare garden beds of Autumn. The clock has been reset now.  It’s a time of transition. It’s the one time of the year when the larder is fully stocked with food from the three productive seasons, Spring through to Autumn. Now it’s time time to rest. It’s a time to allow the slow down. Soon the hunting season for birds will end, and we’ll retreat to the warmth of the house, where most of the winter we’ll hide, enjoying the spoils of seasons past. It’s been years in the making this system of living. I reckon I’ve finally got it running smoothly.

 

 

Under my Hipster Beard

Accepting the things you cannot change. That’s one of the things I remember from my one time stint at AA. I may not have succeeded as a regular member attending meetings, but that message sure planted itself firmly in my mind. One of the hardest things I’ve learnt about being ‘self reliant’ is that most everything in nature is controlled by cycles. And in some ways thats a hard pill to swallow. It’s often the case that when something is new, it will eventually be something old, and ultimately it’ll be something very much dead. It’s a reality that insists on some level of contemplation. I spend a lot of time think about it.

 

When the first frost arrived a few weeks ago, I knew it was curtains for much of the warm season summer type vegetables. I hang on to them, these summer veg, hoping that they’ll solider on that little bit longer. Deep down though, I’m aware of the inevitable. They need to go. In their place the winter crop will carry on. Right now the priority has been garlic, broad bean, kale, chard and onion. All of which I can never grow enough of! Especially the garlic. But right now, I feel like a rich man when I rummage through my garlic cloves, selecting the biggest for planting.

 

Come harvest time I pull up the garlic plants and pat myself on the back with how large the crop is, but come middle of winter or spring my back is void of patting. It’s then that garlic runs out and it sucks for cooking. No garlic! What the heck can I cook without garlic?

The leaves of most of the sensitive summer veg have been burnt by the cold, the zucchini has contracted it’s autumn leprosy, tomatoes have just soiled their undies, and the corn has gone on strike, stunned by the shock of the freezing wind. One unfortunate eggplant was sitting too close to the opening of the poly tunnel, and it’s so droopy and dead looking all because of the thats snuck in from the ventilation window. It’s wilted beyond repair. Pussy. It’s a sad looking hungry puppy that I just can’t help. Even though it only has one sorry looking fruit still hanging on, I’m reluctant to pull the whole plant out. It would mean the end for that plant. The total end. As mad as it may sound, I’ve developed a one way relationship with this plant. Stop giggling at me! I’ve raised it from seed, watched it germinate and observed it’s growth to maturity and now it’s time to let it go. Ok so I may have gone a bit tropo here right? Or not? The juries still out. Do I talk to my plants? Maybe just a little but of encouragement chit chat. That’s ok isn’t it?

This damn relationship with the nature things around me! It’s been a sneaky fox and embedded itself into my life without me noticing. I’m so entrenched with this relationship that I’m pretty sure I may be completely out of touch with most of the outside world. Ok so that’s a bit over the top, but you get the drift. I don’t follow sports, read tabloids, or pulp magazines, I don’t own a television, I have no idea what is happening in pop culture. I guess I’m a bit of an outsider now. Well thats not entirely true, I think in fact I’ve always been an outsider, I never did fit in at school or in the offices I worked. I am however, well and truly right at home with dirt under my fingernails, out in the cold planting garlic and pulling out on strike corn plants! I sure as hell don’t miss any of that old life. Zilch.

Walking the garden this morning, pulling old bean vines from the garden fencing and intently searching for any sign of garlic spouts, I had this realisation I’ve been trying to explain earlier. I have a million emails to catch up on, plans to make for overseas trips, lectures and talks to write and this damn book to finish, yet here I am, full of anticipation for new season crops that will eventually feed the family. That’s the thing that’s most important to me still. I finally get it. I finally get what makes me pretty darn content in life. When all the poo gets to me, when the internet is not my friend, then I just think of how rad my life is and a smile lights up under my hipster beard. Happy as fuck. And the best thing is that no one can take that away from me. Not even the corn on strike or the digital trolls.

 

 

 

 

 

Veg boxes…..lets go off with a bang!

Each saturday morning since January, my alarm slaps me in the face with its rude alert. I put a coffee on the stove and wipe slumber from my face. Man I wish I was still in bed with my warm lady. But I’m up and ready to go. I have a duty.

Over the months of veg season, I see the mornings progressively get darker, then cooler, and finally wetter, drizzlier and basically shit house, until the early saturday mornings feel like a mix of an arctic morning slash a frozen Armageddon. I wish the heater in my truck worked a bit better!

I drive down the road to the farm, load up the boxes of vegetables, count them, and then count them again, you can never be too sure. With the load secured, I climb back into the drivers seat, and head down the western highway for Melbourne. On the way down I’m often passed by 16 wheeler semi trailers, on their way delivering grocery food for all the main players, Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, IGA etc. My truck seems minute in comparison. In the scheme of things, lets face it, I’m only delivering food to a handful of households in Melbourne. But I love that the opportunity exists for me. I love the interaction with my weekend pickup people. I love seeing the same faces each week, and hearing about how much they’ve loved eating this real food. The best way to describe the feeling? …..well it’s very satisfying. It feels like I have purpose, especially when people say, “thanks for doing what you do, we love this veg”. A secret internal tear of joy erupts.

 

I don’t kid myself. I know what I do isn’t really making a big difference, but I’m encouraged by the responses from the customers who by the veg. Those guys just get it. And that’s how I wanted the veg season to work. I believe that the produce should sell itself. Although I do appreciate the help people have given by sprucing the veg boxes on social media. Keep that coming by all accounts! I love hearing what people have made with the produce, and what they plan to make with it. I love the interaction and friendships that have developed. I love that there are people that just want good fresh food that’s not been treated with chemicals. Yes it’s officially classed as organic, but set that terminology aside and it’s just real honest food, free of the things that we know are not natural (and no doubt have been contributing to many of our health dilemmas these past 50-70 years).

I love hearing about how sweet the carrots where when roasted, and how the cabbage made crispy fresh slaw for a dirty pulled pork feast. I love hearing about how some of the excess veg has been preserved, or shared with friends and neighbours. All round, it gives one a sense of being part of some sort of community. We’re all joined by a box of vegetables!

It’s cooled right down up here in the Central Highlands. We’ve already had a few frosts and no doubt there will be more on the way. We have about three weeks left of deliveries before the veg production slows right down to a trickle. I guess I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that has support me these past few months. Thank you for spreading the word of mouth. Thank you for coming back each week or fortnight and meeting me on saturday mornings with your smile and gratitude. You make my weekends full of purpose, enough to keep getting me out of bed at 5:30am!

Like I said, there is only a few weeks remaining before we close for the winter, so get your orders in, tell your friends, your mum, your neighbour, the crossing lady. Lets finish up with a bang and put a smile on Farmer Rods face before he retires to his man cave for the oncoming winter.

Details for ordering veg boxes are here. 

Redux

This morning the rain came. It’s been a time since we’ve had a drop like this. I’ve missed it. Rain has a remarkable way of rewinding things. Of washing away the dust, leaving everything clean and refreshed.

Obstacles or challenges, what ever you wish to call them, they’ve been haunting me in recent times. Niggling there in the back of my mind, eating away at my resolve until there is no more. I don’t know how words can explain, what words would do justice to describe what the mind attempts to calculate, what it attempts to figure out and deal with. Sometimes it’s all light and fluffy and sometimes it’s as dark as the heart of a storm.

 

A dear friend reminded me today that if I am to put my thoughts and opinions out for someone else to read, then I should expect to hear the loud roar of response, be it a somewhat unpleasant sound. It’s a double edged sword, for that I will not argue. But if no voice was heard, if no hand waved, no fist clenched in anger, then would anything change?

I speak over and over again about rampant consumerism. You know it exists. It’s everywhere around us. On trains, buses, trams and taxis our eyes fix on what marketing and advertising tells us what we need to spend our money on. Our society is based on behaviour that defines us as individuals, or so we like to think. These things do not define us in the way we would like, instead the define us as fools. I know this because I was a fool. I admit to my shallow past. I am ashamed but also very relieved to woken up from my slumber.

 

What we do as individuals in our lifetime, that is what defines us. What difference we make, how lightly or heavily we tread, these are the things of which we will be remembered by, not what we wore, who we hung with or how much we ‘owned’. We have a chance to be enlightened. To think past the barriers of society, only there will we find sense, maybe even peace.

We sure have some problems in the western world, be it with food production or consumerism. If you can see the problems you surely must be able to see some solutions for your own little world. No one else will have those answers for you, I sure as hell don’t have the answers for you. I have some answers for me, they may not be right, but their mine and I’m happy to accept that I often get it wrong. The greatest thing we can do is allow each other to get through it in our way. To find the solutions for a better way of living. We have the chance, right now to make a difference. I can no longer say what is good or bad. All I can do is live the way I believe to be right for me. I’ll continue to live in a manner that I see has a reduced impact, a lighter print. It’s not perfect, but it’s my way.

That rain is always welcome here. I can hear it drop this very second. On my roof and down the gutters. It’s reaching my soil, wetting my plants and preparing the garden for the next round of plants that will feed us. It’s a very obvious cycle. It’s a train we all ride, whether we want to or not.

Eventually the rain will reach us as we return to the earth, finished as beings, reborn in soil.

Warning. Reality may offend.

My hands and shirt, bloodied and dirty. My heart racing like a rampant stop watch. At my feet sits a buck, shaking the final electricity remaining in its nervous system. I knelt beside it, my hand on its hide. It was already dead. The moment was so surreal that I’d reached out to touch it, to see how real it was. My 308 had found its target, the large animal had dropped in a flat second. Before I was joined by my spotter, I uttered a thank you to the beast, alone. We’d spent the morning following a myriad of deer prints on muddy tracks. We stalked our way to a pair of fighting stags, their antlers crashing as they pounded each other. They were too far from our position and I couldn’t take a clean shot, so they lived to see another day. The stag however had not been so fortunate. Our meat freezer would now be well stocked for the oncoming winter. Filled with deer meat from an animal that lived wild and free. The only human interaction this animal probably had was the sound of distant 4WD’s and finally the crack of my rifle. I’m omnivorous, I eat a balance of vegetables and meat. Sometime ago I decided to acquire most of my meat from the wild. I have my reasons. Most of which I think are obvious now. I’m not happy with how most meat is produced for human consumption. So I took matters into my own hands in the knowledge that parts of it would be plain ugly. A fact I had to accept. Or become vegetarian. And for me, that is not an option I believe is right. For me. Many years in transition, and I’m finally at a point where a deer sits at my feet. I started small with rabbits, ducks, quail and hare. Now a large deer is dead by my hand. I truly no longer outsource my killing. I know that under that hide lies valuable rich meat, that when butchered will feed us many meals through winter into spring. I know how this animal died. I’m comforted in the knowledge that it lived free and wild. It may sound like an oxymoron as I’ve just killed the beast. It’s difficult to verbalise effectively the feeling and knowledge that I’m no longer cheating myself as a meat eater. I don’t care what any other meat eater does or how they choose to acquire their meat. This is my journey. Right or wrong it’s my choice. I’m doing what I believe to make the most sense to me. I’m doing what feels the most natural. I can say that I’ve seen the brutal reality of being a meat eater. I have seen it for years now. I accept that I am a meat eating animal. A meat eating mammal beast. We all are. I know many people choose to be vegetarian, and I wish there where more of these people. Although there are some farms doing it right, doing it ethically, the majority of the meat ‘industry’ is flawed. It’s 2014, if you haven’t heard about factory farming, if you haven’t heard about the chemicals and antibiotics applied to stock then you must be living under a rock of ignorant bliss. Last night on the radio was a feature story about the correlation of human diseases and the introduction of agricultural chemicals and antibiotics over the last 50-70 years. What impacts will this nature tampering have on us humans and our future generations? We don’t know. We may never know. But I’m prepared to do what I need to do to remove myself and my family from that system. Where food has been tampered with, where no definitive science exists to assure us of the potential health impacts. Where the industry is regulated by the very companies that produce the food. I’m more comfortable eating wild beasts than tampered meat. Consider this. Could any one person walk into a shop, look at a slab of meat and honestly state what is in that meat. Could they state how the animal was treated? What conditions it lived in? How far the animal was transported in its lifetime? The method in which the animal was killed?What chemicals or antibiotics where given to the animal? What health impacts may result from the tampering of natures way? No one can answer that. I surely can’t. Frustrated, I simply walked out of that shop and started hunting for meat. It’s difficult to explain this feeling of truly providing for my family. I don’t provide like I did in the past. When I once earned tonnes of cash, where I used to buy lots of ‘stuff’. I’ve transformed like Optimus Prime. I looked to the past, to a time when people survived with nature, when people had a true understanding of seasonality. Not in a wanky foodie gour-met way, but a real surviving, by using your brain, your muscles, your determination and a strong work ethic. Like I’ve said, I don’t care for what any other man chooses to do. I’m not sharing my story to shame anyone, nor to make anyone feel guilt for buying a farmed chicken, far from it. I’m sharing it because it’s one hell of a journey. One I think some people may benefit from hearing. I understand that I’m, in many ways considered backwards in what I do. I know in some circles I’m considered barbaric because I hunt. That holds no water with me. What frustrates me is when people express a distaste for hunting wild beasts, yet happily eat a chicken sub made with from intensively farmed animals. How can one value an opinion shadowed by contradiction. We have a plentiful supply of contradiction in this world. Yet out here, where nature gives and takes, contradiction is absent. We live in a time of senselessness. Where so much does not make any sense. Living this way though, I’m comforted by the realness of what is around me, and how I choose to live. No matter how much it mayst times, offend me. I accept the reality, and that allows me to see past the bullshit. I’ll forever be cynical of it, criticise it and discuss how it’s toxic of us. This age will not be known as one of enlightenment, one of inner reflection. Instead, it will be known as a time of extreme inequality, rampant consumerism and an unquenchable thirst for natural resources. Lets face it. Sometimes you just have to say, fuck everyone else. Fuck what anyone else thinks. Just do what feels right for you. You know you’ve said it to yourself. Thanks for the photos: Kate Berry 

No straight lines in nature

As soon as that break in the weather came, my mind wandered to where mushrooms huddled en masse, patiently waiting for the sharp side of my knife. The excitement builds inside me, just as it did when I was a wee laddie, sporadically searching for field mushrooms all over our farm paddocks. Excitement for that moment when you’re fortunate enough to spot a specimen lurking under grass, weeds or pine needles. They hide so well, and ever vigilant eyes are a mandatory for a successful picker.

It’s a similar high to what I used to get as a kid, clambering under the supermarket registers looking for small change. I guess I’ve always been looking down at the ground for some kind of treasure. Once it was coins, now it’s wild mushrooms. The buzz equally exhilarating.

The season has definitely started. How long it will stick around for is anyones guess. It’s never dependable, it’s not open for calculation. It just is what it is. Like most everything else in nature. No straight lines. No certainty.

I don’t know what I’m doing when I cook. I just do it. Here there is also no certainty. The outcomes are never predictable. But I just do it. It’s not like I’m throwing caution to the wind. I just do what feels right at the time. Most times it works, sometimes not so much. I’m no expert. I’m far from being able to say “this is the correct and only way” to do any particular thing. But at least I try. That’s all we can do.

 

In culinary terms, if someone tells me I can’t to it, or I’m doing it all wrong, well it just makes me want to do it even more. Not only because I want to prove them wrong, hell I just don’t like being told. Why? Because if you’re told you can’t do something, then chances are you’ll stop having a go. And then, what do we become? All the same. Boring and void of imagination.

I keep telling myself that I need to retreat. I need to get away from the noise and visual pollution of 2014. I find myself walking forests looking for food, facing my fears and talking to myself…a lot. My time alone in the bush is when I feel most real. With a basket of found mushrooms and a mind of new ideas, I’m a complete man. When I cook a meal, I take pleasure in the possibility of it succeeding. When I consume said meal, I experience what I’ve just worked for. I feel contentment in a job done, done all the way to the end. When I look at my food, I can see truth and beauty, I see no bullshit manufacture, I see real. I cannot communicate well enough, how much this has altered my life. Let me assure you though, it’s totally rad.

Pizza with wild picked saffron milk cap mushroom, home made chorizo, home made passata, home grown garlic, jalapeño, sage and thyme.

 

Filling my nut sack

I hunted over a few dams this morning hoping to get another duck for the pot, but to no avail. I spotted two pair of blacks but they where too fast for this old boy. Hiking back to the old farm house, dreaming about a roast duck stuffed with chestnuts got me thinking. I have no nuts in my larder, it’s time I did something about that. You can gauge when the chestnut is in season because they pop up at the Daylesford Sunday market. Each autumn, there’s a few boys who stand diligently over a bed of hot coals roasting chestnut. The smell is powerfully alluring and I bet those fella’s make a killing from their trade. Each sunday I hold back from buying those bags of hot roasted chestnut, because I have a few places up my sleeve to fill my own baskets with.

I’ve been checking in with a few of my nut locations of late and it seems the nuts are all ready for me to harvest. On that walk home today, with my shotgun resting over the shoulder, I decided that this day was as good a day as any to fill up my nut sack. For a few days now, the Autumn break has been keeping us on our toes. Wet but not exactly cold. It’s hard to decided whether the weather is really turning or it’s just a little precursor for more wintery conditions that are sure to arrive a few months down the track. Either way, it’s drizzly, overcast and wet underfoot. It’s perfect whether for harvesting Autumnal nuts. And perfect weather for walking through puddles like a pair of turkeys.

This time of year there are a few varieties of nut to forage for. Three that get my attention are hazel, walnut and chestnut. All substansially different from each other, but all very delicious in their own right. And like many things that are natural, these nuts magically pair well with other natural in season ingredients such as autumn hunted meat. Chestnut stuffing for ducks and geese, walnut and rabbit salad or hazel nut and quail roast, they all work well together. That’s saying something about the benefits of eating seasonally right?

I dragged the ratbags to our first spot. It’s a farm located not far from home and that’s well covered with fruit and nut trees. Here all three nuts are available, some in more abundance than others. The girls and I quickly get busy bending down picking this bounty from the ground. Chestnuts have fallen in great numbers this last week. Their spiny outer core stings if you’re not wearing gloves. Luckily for us pickers many of the nuts have already popped out of their spiny casings and are easy to pick.

Chestnut are a funny creature. Well funny to look at anyway. They clearly lack any ability for conversational humour. I’m sure I’m not the only one that can see the resemblance of Banksia Men, from the May Gibbs classic, Snugglepot and Cuddlypie. Or maybe it is just me. Those evil banksia men haunt my dreams.

As I pick nuts from the ground each year I can’t help but ponder two things. Firstly I think how much nuts have been an important food source for humans for thousands of years. Serving many cultures well, year after year. Secondly I can’t help but giggle at the fact that I’m eating food that’s fallen to the ground. It’s natures junk! Sometimes a nut tree will reside in a paddock, the same paddock stock live in. Today sheep poo was everywhere! But we still picked up those nuts. Those nuts that sat peacefully next to piles of sheep manure. It’s like totally natural dude.

The big old foraging sack starts to get heavy. The girls start to wain in the enthusiasm department, and the drizzle became as thick as politicians lies. We call it a morning and decide to move it on over to the next picking spot. In the truck we go, wet denim, wet skirts and a wet and muddy dog. With the heater on full blast we drive a half hour over to the secret spot for walnuts. I’ve been taking the girls to this secret spot for about four years now. Every school holidays, around easter time we return. There are usually so many walnuts, that we can fill our baskets in no time. Our pesto nut is then sourced for the remainder of the year.

This year however was different. There are two trees at this spot. One massive old girl and one a little smaller but still well over 80-100 years old. We hit up the big tree first, but the catch was poor. The summer has been dry, not as many nuts as last year had formed. I walk over to the second tree a little ways off. To my disappointment instead of a big mass of leafy tree it was open and light. I discovered that all that remained was dirty big stump. That beautiful old tree had been cut down. Can you believe it! All that remained to mark that she ever existed was a a sad grey stump. I didn’t cry but I wanted to yell, I wanted to scream. This tree had given people nuts for decades! Kids probably adventourosly climbed her, birds and insects called her home.

A few walnuts from the previous year sat rotting at her feet. They where her children, hanging around what was left of their mother. A bitter day for this forager. I’ve lost an old mate. I felt like that kid at the end of ‘The Giving Tree’.

On the drive home I lamented that I’d been unknowingly forming relationships with bits of nature here and there. A secret pear tree, a fig tree or a prime mushroom valley. These places and things in nature I now love. I lamented that I do, because when you loose them, you loose a part of your life. But that I guess, is what it means to be with nature. I must accept that even though everything seems intact, the illusion is false. Everything around us, everything we can sense, is all working towards return into a state of disorder, just as quantum law suggests. Chaos.