beautiful bovine

Rosie

Lovely is the bovine

Who's shiny fur reflects the beautiful zesty spirit within.

Large eyes

and a big nose

Perky udder swaying in the breeze

before she climbs on new-bull-friend Arthur.

Rosie

welcome to our family

who are as full of character as you are.

And when you're done with Arthur

(who lives at the neighbours place)

we'll take you home

read you bed time stories

give you the moozley take-away food you seem to love

and tuck you in safely at night.

We love you Rosie

no trip to the meat works for you.

Instead a life of frivolity awaits!

A sweet milking Mooooooooooo is a

Beautiful Bovine.

home steading

I am currently reading this book, which details about the lifestyle and healthy home made living a la farmette. A friend of mine posted this on my Facebook page which had me laughing: a chicken sitting service for the urbanites. I also know about a business that hires out goats to munch your lawn. So what's the story with the home ca-noodling?


Green, the Sloffood movement and all things yummy and nice are back on the cards for those who have had enough of the concrete jungle, the plastic micro waved dinners and being stuck in traffic. This is not new of course, but it seems back en vogue. In the Netherlands it's quite custom still to have a herbal and even veggie garden on one's tiny balcony on a high rise. Many dream of living in Italy (this I hear on a regular basis at work), sipping some wine, eating some wonderful breads & cheeses and staring at the olive trees sprawled out over generous hills and sloping meadows. Ah yes. The Good Life. So how do we get there?

My husband and I enjoy living on our 64 acre block, the "farm-let" and we are farmettes which is a bit different from the lifestyle block of a few acres and a big farm over say 500 acres. We work in the city mostly while also running our farm-let. While reading Jenna Woginrich's book mentioned above, I had to smile at her hilarious anecdotes! I recognized so much in the early boo-boos that she tells about.

Having a small farm or even a bit of a green blob of land in your backyard is really enough to get you started with a veggie garden, a beehive, or a chicken coop. And what you learn while starting on this fun enterprise is basically that making mistakes or being a doofus is all part of the experience. We now walk easily amongst our highland cattle and move them about without a fuss, whereas in the beginning with the meat cattle we had to jump the fence and the dog too as one bovine we aptly called "Loopy" starting chasing us around the paddock. Very in-dignifying. We seriously wondered whether we had the balls to go through all the motions that were required. We have now graduated from the initial newbie crispiness. We have the experience, know how to do the practical things and keep adding to the farm knowledge. I can clip the goatie hooves by myself without the use of proper yards which apparently is a great achievement.

So how can you get your slice of paradise, even in the smallest ways?
Decide what you would like to start with and read up! Nothing beats the look and taste of fresh veggies, the view of animals snoozing in the sun, and the privacy and tranquility that your own place gives you. What you need is knowing what you want to do and most of all: sheer determination! It is very rewarding.

To learn how to start your career at Homesteading: http://www.homestead.org/
Modern homesteading: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Modern-Homesteading.aspx
Homesteading forum: http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/
Great website to read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/blogs/blog.aspx?blogid=1510

the calling of the goat

I've had questions in the past: "Are you really a goat herderess?"

Yes of course I am a goat herderess! And to show you what fuzzy bounty I am in charge of: viola the evidence my friends. See it and weep with delight. They exist. they are awesome. (Oh and they don't faint, these are mostly Saanen like, they're not the falling down kind. I mean come on!)

They LOVE silver-beet, it's goatie gold, green gold..... yummersssss

Did I mention they are accompanied by Bella, a highland calf who thinks she is a goat... and her brother Kuddles who knows for certain that he is not. But he thinks the white mob is friggin funny.

This outrageous fashionable wonder above is called Teresa (coincidently also the name of our fabulous Canadian cousin). She is half Angoran and proud of it. Fuzz rules amigos.

The plan is to start milking the girls next year and yours truly is still on the look out for a milking machine and storing tanks. It will happen! So there you are: they're real and they kick ass. Not literally though, they rather eat hay and snooze. Or play. And eat silver-beet.

free marketing

so what's the story here?
Goats can be useful. They munch, they are fully eco operational and they provide free cuddles when interested. On top of that: you have yourself a weeds clearing operation. Why didn't I think of this? RENTAGOAT: now available in various breeds to suit your lifestyle... Nico we might have a more sensible use for our fluffy flowers after all (aside from the Angoran wool and the future milking.)

and what's the free marketing? Seeing is believing people.

Summer is here!

Yay! We are ready for some serious sun and icecream action over here!
Hemptech has realeased upholstery fabric 'Cows and Couches' and the cushion prints of 'Summer' featuring Pukeko birds and jandals I designed for them.


The Summer design is available in 2 colour ways! Don't they look snazzy summery perky?

Cows and couches upholstery fabric:

I think they look awesome!

I get asked sometimes, where do you get your inspiration from?
Well... ask Kate (below) and Kuddles. Nieces Cutie and Sweetie also make a dashing note. Their dad Carlin is a fullbreed Highland bull and has a face as broad as a pickup truck's wheel. Many people think he's scary, but he's quite a softie bless him.

Then of course there's the fanclub....

And my personal advisor Diva Spunky. It's true, pigs are very intelligent. She wasn't sure about those funny blue birds as she had seen them just now and again in the fields below, but she was tripping on the jandals. Get me some pink ones she said.

So finding inspiration is definitely not the hardest part of designing, it's finding the time to do it, and to make squishy cushions that are fun for you in your home.