Fare Thee Well Misty Hollow. 

Unfortunately, life has dealt us another challenge.  One very hard one.  We have to leave Misty Hollow.  This place gave me back me in the last year.  It taught me so much.  The animals have been my Councillors my best friends and healers.  I will miss them dearly and hope that wherever they go and whomever has them cares for them always.  I love you all.  I will miss you all and never will forget. 




Goodbye Candice, you were a wonderful help giving us your milk to feed our lambs.  Will never forget your patience as I learned how to hand milk. 

 Goodbye Minky, and your beautiful sisters Ninja and Patches, I hope your new homes treat you well.

 Am so going to miss our little orphaned lambs needng some tender loving and bottle feeding.  Good bye little fellas.

 The random chook that always gets out and poops all over the place.. sorry wont miss you

 My gorgeous girls.  My five baby lambs I reared on goats milk.  Three of you did not make it but Queeny and Sqwarker you two did.  Good luck at the Jondaryn wool shed.  I hope you have lots of babies and live long and prosper.  I loved you so much.

 Now Ginger, the last pup to go.  Wish you well at your new Security Guard job.  Bite a leg off girl. 

 My beautiful budgies... today you were rehomed.  Stop laying so many eggs and have a break for gods sakes!

 Well turkeys were never my favorite creatures.  But they certainly gave us a lot of entertainment.  My only advice to you all is avoid foxes at all costs girls and gobblers. 

Now to our herd of sheep.  The pain of loosing you all is immeasurable. You were our livelihood and our pleasure.  So very deeply will Jack and  I miss your company.  We have no idea of where your fate will take you all.. but wish you love and gratitude.

 Ducks.. Oh wow.. so many ducks.  You fed us.. you entertained us ad you are precious.  Thank you.

My Best mate... Bluey.. I gave you away to a security officer to go bite peoples legs off.  Enjoy it as you are so very good at it.  I have had the privalae of knowing the most amazing dog in the whole world.  One that can jump nearly two metres in the air to catch a ball or Frisbee.  One that loves so very much and protects so ferociously.  We will always remember you.

God Bless you Bluey...

A Fortunate Life

Every day is filled with challenges.  Every day I ask myself what it is I have to do?  Where am I suppose to be?  Is everyone I love OK?  What about the animals?  And every night I go to sleep and get up and do it again.  It is not hard to wonder what this is all about.  Immediately I receive an answer - it is about what matters the most to me.

Children

My beautiful children!  I look at them in awe and wonder how I could have been part of creating such amazing life forms.  So intelligent.  So much strong will in each of them and perfectly unique.  Each one of them are a celebration of my very first breath. 

When it comes to my kids, there is not enough hours in my life where I could even possibly imagine explaining how I feel about them.  So mostly I don't and just hope they know.

One thing I have come to realise is that I want to give them the greatest gift I can and that is of  non-attachment. 

I feel I am a very nurturing type of person.  And it has come with a great amount of courage to realise that if I want my children to be all they can be I must always allow them to be themselves and not force them into a place where they worry about what I think of them and have no expectations.  I believe children should need us more than we need them, and for that reason I release them.  Release them as free, unique, independent beings.  Free to create their own life.  Free to experience the reason they are here on this planet. 

Romance

I am incredibly fortunate in my life to be loved by an amazing person.  A person that understands me.  A person that smiles at me when I feel so damn angry and just tells me I am loved.  A person that aches to spend time with and rushes home to me after work.  I am truly blessed to be so loved.

I have had my share of heart breaks like most others have.  But for some reason I was lucky to land on a soft place.  Perhaps for the first time I am realising I too am deserving of happiness.  Such a wondrous awakening. 

Environment

Wow!  All my life living in the Burbs, all i wanted was to live in the country.  When I was 12 I asked my mother to send me to boarding school in the country, just so I could go there.  Finally, after a very long time I found my way to the land.  Misty Hollow is my santurary.  It has renewed my soul.  Allowed me to reflect back on the haste and bustle of city living and reclaim who I am.


Overall, when people think of what makes them successful in life it is usually money, love, relationships, children, fame.. Money and fame have never meant much to me but; love, relationships, children and peace of mind have.  I have all of these things nearly and like the rest of you I am working on the peace of mind.  But I am so fortunate that I believe I shall find that here in Misty Hollow.

My dream:  To have all my children sit down at the table to a meal, a day filled with laughter, happiness and celebration.  Eating the food that I have grown, cooked and shared.  That is my dream.  A simple one but so pleasurable. 


Love to all.
Rae.

E

Raising Kids on the Farm with Ambitions

Being the mum of 5 kids I have learned VERY slowly over nearly 20 years that they are born just the way they are meant to be.  They are perfectly themselves.  The challenge as a parent is getting to know them and helping them to realize their potential within your financial and emotional situation.

Recently, I had the privilege to watch my beautiful 11 year old daughter Taylah dance.  Dance, is all Taylah has ever wanted to perform.  From dancing in front of me to wiggles at two years of age to singing to songs on U Tube, we have seen her blossom from an out of tune headache to someone that can hold a note.  But mostly, Taylah has learned to dance, and do it well.

I watched her on stage for the first time, and the pride I felt can not be measured.  Not pride in her achievement, that can only be felt by her.  But pride in the fact that I could manage to get her to do what she dreamed of.  I could see her come alive.  I could see her feel good.  I could feel her spirit happy.  I loved it. I loved being part of this little person's dream and helping it come to life.  I felt so happy for her.

How does this tie into farm life?  Well, on a farm you are a fair way off from most facilities.  In order to get to dance class I have to drive at least 20 minutes to the nearest town.  I know this may not mean much to city dwellers, but here in the country when you have to have animals fed and watered before dark it means a lot.  It means buying costumes and paying fees while you think about animal feed and further stock.

But really, I would rather one happy daughter any day of the week than a new chicken.

Cluck on my beauty, you are fantastic!

How can one rock, particularly this rather beautiful tiger coloured rock put such a fear into farmers?  This little rock managed to smash the back of a tractor window and just miss the head of Farmer Jack when he was out slashing.

This rock has caused us to try to figure out math that is hurting our heads because Farmer Jack calculates things in feet and I do in centimeters.  And neither of us are much good at calculating things in our our dimensions.

This little rock was formed a million years ago and is just now starting to be a trouble maker, go figure!

The damage that this little rock can do to a slasher is tremendous.  They can firstly wreck your tractors windows, which costs too much to replace.  Secondly smash your farmer in the head and do damage or kill him.  Thirdly make your farmer work all night calculating how much chain he has to cut and into what lengths in order to put it on the slasher as a net to stop it happening again.








These photos show the damage and the time off a farmer has to have in order to fix his machinery.

A year ago, before meeting my lovely Farmer Jack, I had no clue as to the effort it took for a farmer to bring our food to our table.

99% of the western world just think food comes from the supermarket.  NO.. it comes from hard work, sweat and tears and not much income, after mishaps etc. 

Thank you Farmer Jack and I will keep the tea coming until you have your tractor mate back on track...

Our Queensland Heelers (stumpy's) x Cattle Dog pups

Damian with the little red we are keeping.

Three weeks ago our bitch 'Dog' (a blue stumpy) gave birth to her litter of 8.  The sire being Bluey (a red cattle dog).  At first they were all white.  Being my first attempt at breeding dogs I was suprised to learn that cattle dogs actually have dalmation in their lineage and that is why they are all born white.  Over the next few weeks they develop their spots and colour.

Our main goal was to breed a Red Stumpy and out of the 8 we scored  one.  We are keeping him for the cattle!  He is a little neurotic, growls, barks and screams when you go near him but he is getting over his fear of the world (see him with Damo).  Like everyone else I know, he is accepting that getting over one's fears is part of survival.  Did I mention he is Cute???

Out of the 8 our bitch gave birth to, only three were stumpy like her.  And only one was red.  The rest have tails.  But I won't hold that against them.  They are too sweet.

Alisha holding a little female pup Yes that is me in my PJ's.

The exciting part of this story comes when our neighbour comes over holding a day old, blind puppy and say's "I think your dog has visited my bitch".  His pure bred border collie gave birth to two pups not unlike our Bluey dog with only one surviving.

Ok, there are some similarities to ours and yes we took in the poor little thing and put it with our bitch.  Being the good mum she is, she did not hesitate to adopt it.  And unlike us human women did not hold a grudge.  Now she has 9 pups and our runt is suffering a little due to this usurper.  But we will make her feed it a little extra night and day to make up for their half sister.  Meanwhile I think Bluey needs to find some self control and stay on his own 500 acres! geez embarrassing!  Are there such a thing as dog condoms?

Anyways,  our little pups will go up for sale on Gumtree in the next few weeks  as working cattle dogs x Queensland heelers (stumpy tailed cattle dogs).  They are beautiful little guys and gals and are waiting for new humans to work.  They will be good workers and loving companions like their parents.  We are proud of our first litter of working dogs.

My Milking Goats starter Herd

Yesterday I adopted five Saanen Goat crossbreeds from a good friend of mine as she was moving into town.  Today I have settled the little beauties into their temporary home in the cattle yard pen until we can build them their own fenced off paddock.

I can't describe what this means to me at this point as they are so precious.  I have a dream of being self sufficient and the one thing I dearly need is milk.  Milk is so important.  From it's products a lot can be made.  Cheese, soap, moisturizer, yoghurt, butter and more.  I will be searching for a suitable Saanen buck so as that the offspring are more Saanen.

Receiving these goats as a gift has shown me that I am on course in my life.  That I am doing what I should be doing and that my path is correct.

I look forward to being able to share with everyone the products that come from breeding and milking these beauties.

Welcome to Misty Hollow.  This is my sanctuary.  It is, at 41 years of age, my written expression of what I am learning and discovery of who I am.  I want you to travel with me as I grow and share who I was meant to be.  Life does begin at 40 for some, and that was true for me.

Since I can remember I dreamed of having my own piece of dirt to call home and grow things in.  Have animals, which I love.  Experience a wonderful partner to love me and that I can love back safely.  A place where my children are safe to roam around and have fun.  Here in Misty Hollow I have all that.  

In Misty Hollow, where I live, I am having the opportunity to attempt to become whole.  Come take the ride with me and see a business grow, land transform, seasons change and emotions are shared.  This will be a raw emotional expression of my experience on the land.  For a girl from the suburbs its a hard slog but pleasurable.