A Very Busy Day at the Harvest Festival

We were all a bit concerned about what the weather would offer for Autumnfest this year.  On the day before there was definitely a touch of winter about as cooler temperatures and rain settled in (parts of Victoria were even expecting a dusting of snow). However, those who worked the weather magic smiled on Autumnfest, and gave us a cloudy but pleasant day.


The local Seed savers Group answered plenty of queries

The cloudy conditions did not deter the one thousand plus visitors that joined us in celebrating the event. There was a real buzz and community feel to the day as individuals and families enjoyed the various activities, glorious food, talks, performances, demonstrations and opportunities to share information and knowledge. Our photos show some of the day’s activities.

There was plenty to chat about.

Some gave Zumba a go

Others joined the Labyrinth dancing

After the exercise it was time to enjoy some food

Emily the face painter was popular

Tim and Mike supplied freshly juiced organic drinks

Travis was busy all day baking wood fired pizzas

The Medieval games added a touch of history

During the day we met and chatted to dozens of people and were lucky enough to meet several readers of our blog. Everyone we spoke to, seemed to be enjoying the day and gave positive feedback and happy responses. Thank you to all helpers, participants and visitors for joining in and making it such a successful and special event.

Edd and Amanda's goats were a real hit with young and old

Of course it will all be happening again next year in March. If you want to join in as a stallholder or volunteer or just be kept informed about the event, keep an eye on this blog or send us an email (tenderbreak@bigpond.com) and we will add you to our mailing list.

Healesville Autumnfest 2012 on Saturday March 24

The autumn equinox is almost upon us, and that means another big harvest celebration in Healesville on Saturday March 24. As was the case last year, the event also celebrates the first birthday of the magnificent Healesville Labyrinth. 

Tenderbreak Permaculture Farm Stall

This year for Autumnfest we have lined up a continuous program of free entertainment, talks, informative displays, art and craft demonstrations and stalls selling good organic tucker for one and all. Here are some of the highlights from the program:-

SUSTAINABILITY TALKS & DISPLAYS

Learn about Alternative Technology

There will be plenty to learn about on the day: seed saving, permaculture, local plants, environmental issues, solar and other alternative energy and more. We hope to power our sound system using a portable solar system setup.

MEDIEVAL TROUPE

A medieval troupe will entertain and run activities for children. Swords and chain mail will be on display in this interactive fun for kids of all ages.

Patricia and her "Chookmobile"

PERFORMANCES
Performances include music by Murray Goodchild, Michael Arvanitakis, Zumba, flute playing by Rich Eagle Evans and a mass choir performance.

LABYRINTH ACTIVITIES

Fun on the Labyrinth

Apart from walks around the Labyrinth there will be dancing, singing and a parade. For a peek at the Labyrinth website see http://healesvillelabyrinth.org.au .

FOOD STALLS

"Crunchy Love" Wood-fired Pizza

Food stalls will include wood -fired  pizzas, freshly squeezed organic juices and other delectable foods as well as chai tea, organic coffee, Mexican hot chocolate and more. Bring your friends and tell your neighbours. Come along, enjoy the festival, say hello to us at the Tenderbreak stall and eat with your friends under the shade of the old oak trees.

Hats for all occasions

HISTORICAL RAILWAY RIDES
Yarra Valley Tourist Railway will be running rides to Tarrawarra Tunnel along the old historical railway track.

WHERE

Autumnfest is located outside the old Healesville Railway Station in the Railway Park.

Plenty of stalls

Seed Savers will be there

MUSIC FESTIVAL
March 24 will be a huge day in Healesville because Healesville Music Festival is also being held on this day. Both events have free entry and dovetail into each other. Autumnfest runs from 9am to 3pm and the Musical Festival continues the celebration on into the evening.

Hope to see you at Healesville Autumnfest 2012

Enjoying the Moment



Bubble beards!

This year is the first time we have taken on so many helpers over the summer period. Tim and Mike bring the total to 6 so far for this year. We really appreciate the help our visitors offer, but more than this, we enjoy sharing our lives with these generous people. Apart from the work, we try to ensure that there is plenty of time for pleasure, merriment and rest.  A good mix of work and play allows everyone to enjoy both pastimes for what they have to offer.

Face Off!

Many people need to press buttons on some technological gizmo to gain entertainment. Our enjoyment often comes from our natural surroundings – the antics of birds in the garden, the excitement at the appearance of particular insects, birds or other animals, the catch-the-ball acrobatics of our dog Blue, the clouds and the stars, the intensity of colours at particular times of the day and of course the company of like-minded friends.
We also make an effort to show our visitors a bit of the magnificent Yarra Valley and areas close by. Because Tim and Mike are with us for a while, we have been able to make several trips to Healesville, we have visited several parks including Maroondah Dam and Knox Arboretum, one to the Dandenong Ranges with a wander around William Ricketts Sanctuary and one to Dandenong Market. This adds a bit of variety to their stay at our place.
We also create our own fun; usually whimsical in nature. The simple pleasures are said to be the best, and luckily for us, Tim and Mike have a great sense of fun too.

Tastes like moon.

We sometimes play a curious, little game we call “Finding Lizzie”, which works a bit like the “Where’s Wally” books that were all the rage in the 1990’s. From time to time someone hides a soft toy lizard (Lizzie) around the house and the others try and find it. Sometimes it takes hours or days, and whoever finds it then has their turn. It may seem like a bit of silliness, but some light heartedness is a healthy emotion? Happiness can be a choice if the mind is receptive.

Serenading the corn

As a guitarist, Mike has daily practice sessions. When his music is wafting across the garden it not only adds another beautiful dimension to our surroundings, it may even help the plants grow! 

When in Rome........!

Mike also gets on well with our dog Blue, and they often go for walks or just hang around together contemplating life.  

Joie de vivre!

Tim is also an accomplished and creative photographer with a gift for catching the “quirky” or capturing a special moment in his images. He has a knack of being able to reveal different aspects of everyday objects. He shows that there is more to a flower or a face than we see at first glance.

NOW back to work everyone ...chop chop!!

The Kiwis are back

Tim and Mike working in the garden

Two years ago Shelly and Tim from New Zealand spent a few months at Tenderbreak (See link here Tim and Shelly, 2009). It was not long after the Black Saturday fires, and they not only helped us out with many chores around the place, but they helped take our minds off that terrible day and its aftermath. In fact, their youthful enthusiasm, “joie de vivre” and eagerness to learn about the world, inspired a new life force in us. Tim and Shelly became close friends and that friendship continued even after they returned to the “land of the long white cloud”.  



Mike and Blue  keeping the garden up to scratch

Well the wonderful news is that Tim has returned, accompanied by his brother, Mike. Shelly is hoping to join them soon. Although they have only been here three weeks, we have spent many hours sharing our respective adventures over the past few years and discussing the state of the world and possible solutions.

Digging a trench for the new pipeline

We have also been very productive. Apart from mundane tasks such as weeding, planting seedlings, watering, cooking meals, de-nailing second-hand wood, harvesting fruit and veggies and running our weekly market stall they have also helped with some larger projects. We have installed a new water line along the front of the house to provide fresh water (when we need it) under our verandah, have shifted several hundred bricks from Bayswater and started making a new door into our workshop area (see next post).



Hazelnut Truffles. Yum!

One of the joys of having Tim around is we get to devour his delicious food creations. What’s more, he carries around dozens of recipes in his head. He’s a walking recipe book and is only too happy to share his knowledge with others. One of his missions in life is to reawaken interest in good food and how this knowledge can help our bodies maintain good health.  Both Tim and Mike are vegetarians and Tim uses his culinary skills to turn our produce into delectable meals.

Whilst Tim and Heather are busy in the kitchen, Mike provides musical accompaniment on the acoustic guitar. How lucky are we!!!!!!

Ciao Laura!



Luckily they were thornless blackberries

Our latest helper was Laura from Italy. She is spending about 3 months in Australia and chose to spend the Melbourne leg of the trip with us.

Laura is studying landscape design and we took her to "Alowyn Gardens" near Yarra Glen, which has been developed by some friends Prue and John Van de Linde, whom we met soon after Black Saturday. Have a look at the photographs of their beautiful gardens on their web page, http://www.alowyngardens.com.au . It was our first visit to their garden and it was amazing, especially considering they only started creating them around 12 years ago. The gardens are well worth a visit if you are in the Yarra Valley area on a weekend.

Shall I go in again?

Whilst here, Laura experienced one of Melbourne’s heatwaves, so we mainly worked in the mornings and took it easy in the afternoons. We found our hammock and set it up near the dam for R & R. This gave Laura a chance to meet some of the local bull ants, but sensibly she kept her distance, because they can give a nasty bite if they get annoyed. All of us (including the dog) spent one afternoon cooling off in the dam- it was very refreshing.

On the Saturday, Laura helped set up our stall at the Healesville Organic Farmers’ Market and then we dropped her off at Healesville Sanctuary for a chance to catch a glimpse of our famous native Aussie animals.

Take that... and that... and that

Laura helped weed and thin out the carrots, weeded other areas, helped with watering, did some fire prevention work and house work, harvested blackberries, took our dog Blue for walks and joined in cooking meals..... a  few yummy recipes were swapped.
It was such a pleasure working with Laura. As we toiled away, we chatted and laughed, sharing many thoughts on how people could become more sustainable in their ways of life.

Laura and Blue have a break

Whilst on the internet, Laura found a youtube clip that she wanted to share with us called, “A Subversive Plot: How to Grow a Revolution in Your Own Backyard”. This short video by the founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International examines the urgent need to re-localise the global food supply, in a very entertaining and informative manner. The web address is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezuz_-eZTMI . We were very glad that we saw it. Much food for thought (pun intended).

Ciao Laura

We feel really privileged to have people like Laura come here.....there is a sharing of cultures and we learn from each other.  It was a pleasure meeting her and we wish her all the best on her adventures in Australia and when she returns home. Ciao Laura, hope we meet again.

Goodbye 2011. Hello 2012.

Twelve months ago, we set out our dream list of projects that we hoped to complete during the year. It was a big list but we got stuck into it and are happy to report that most of the projects were either completed, or at least a start has been made.

The new steel garage is up, but still needs a concrete apron to make it easy to get into it (there is a 100mm step up which needs fixing). However, even if we did this, we would still be unable to use it as intended (to house our car) because as soon as it was built, it somehow managed to fill up with a whole lot of other stuff (mainly materials for building and future projects). It seems that there is some law of nature that says “create an undercover area and it will be filled”!

The garage has the new woodshed built on one side and this is not only finished, but we have started filling it up with firewood. We have divided it into four bays. Two are for short lengths of wood for our wood fired stove and two are for longer pieces for the heater and steam engine (when installed). The two bays of each, allow one stack of wood to be built up and seasoned while the other bay is being used. Usually we don’t start filling the woodshed until Easter, but because we have to fill the lot from scratch, we are getting an early start this year. This woodshed is also about 50% bigger than our old shed so it will take longer to fill.



Our seedling white sapote in front of the hothouse has put on a lot of new growth

We managed to shift the hothouse to its new location and used the opportunity to improve the design at the same time and change the layout. One improvement was sitting the walls on top of some free pavers that we picked up. This stops weeds from growing against the metal walls and should reduce corrosion at the base.

Our solar system batteries and inverter are now much more accessible in their new location in the house. We also made some minor changes to the system to boost output. Unfortunately the shift gave our old petrol generator a “heart attack” and it “died”. The good news is that we are now 100% solar (at the moment).

We put a new access track in to our solar panels, which also provides a firebreak to southern side of our clearing. This project still needs a fair bit of work because the wet weather earlier in the year made it impossible for the machines to do their thing. Hopefully we’ll finish it off this year.

After a seven year break, we finally managed to get back to house building. We put down a concrete patio, added a verandah and have now completed painting and staining a third bedroom. This room, which is a spare room for visiting friends and family, looks so good we may even spend some nights in it ourselves. They say a change is as good as a holiday!

So, what have we got lined up for 2012? For a start there’s dozens of smaller finishing-off jobs like drainage pits that need to be built, more tree planting, bird netting to go over the orchard, seven more rooms of the house to complete, some fencing and some more pipes and taps to go in. Plus there is our bed and breakfast building to finish, the steam engine and boiler to install, as well as a new doorway to be cut through the garage mudbrick wall. We’re exhausted just talking about it.  I don’t think we will be getting bored for quite a while yet.

Helpers from China

We recently joined a website called Helpx, which links people who need volunteers, to other people who are prepared to offer their help in exchange for board and cultural exchange. Since joining just over one month ago, we have received many requests from travellers visiting Australia from around the world including France, Germany, Italy, Finland, Taiwan, Spain and China. The process involves trying to coordinate dates when we need help with the dates that the helpers are available.  

Jodie, Valencia and Tia having a break

Our very first Helpx friends came from China. Jodie, Valencia and Tia originate in different parts of China but are all students at Hong Kong University. During their term break they decided to see a little bit of Australia and contacted us through Helpx. (http://www.helpx.net/)

Checking for eggs

After a short stay in Sydney, then Melbourne, they came out to our place. We all got on really well right from the start. Our place must be the complete opposite of Hong Kong. We are relatively isolated, surrounded by bush, and at night time it is very, very quiet (when we are all in bed). It must have also been a bit scary with large and strange insects, the occasional growl from a wombat, croaks from frogs, shrieks from parrots and being surrounded by evidence of our recent terrible wildfires. Then there were our stories about snakes, crocodiles (not around here) and swooping magpies.....

Cooking a barbecue

Most of our meals were typical Aussie meals and the girls happily ate these, even though the food was often different to what they were used to.  However they were not keen on porridge (oats) and that Aussie favourite, vegemite.

Collecting firewood

One of the highlights of the trip for them was seeing our wildlife. We managed to catch a glimpse of a wombat and a couple of kangaroos, but it was not until the night after the girls left that those “devious” animals came out into the open. That night we saw half a dozen kangaroos and two wombats, including one near our house.

The girls spoke English really well, which was fortunate because we have no knowledge of Chinese at all. The only tricky bits were our crazy sayings like “we all got on like a house on fire”, which must sound like a very weird thing to say if you are unfamiliar with Australian idioms.

Tia weeding the celery

The stay was not all play of course. The girls were excellent workers and eager to do whatever jobs needed doing. They helped us get what would take us a week to do, done in two days. They weeded most of our main veggie patch, carted firewood, fed the chooks, decorated the chookpen, cleared a mass of vegetation that was growing over the driveway, helped remove a large fallen tree that we had sawn up and they joined in the preparation of meals.

Jodie weeding the carrots

It must have been a big adventure into the unknown for these three 19 and 20 year old young ladies. Travelling outside of Asia for the first time all the way to the other side of the world to a strange land, dealing with the complexities of a different culture, staying with people they didn’t know and coping with our boisterous dog, Bluey.

Valencia weeding the celery

Apart from benefiting from the work they did for us, we gained a new insight into life in China that is quite different to the view we get in our mass media and most valuable of all we got to spend some time with three wonderful people who we hope to remain in contact with in the future.

Leaving messages on the chookpen wall