Spring has arrived with a bang again this year! Oodles of rain, grass just starting to scream out of the ground, water running everywhere, bees swarming, cattle arriving by the truckload and high hopes for a wetter than average Summer...
Due to the uncertainty of snap lockdowns and seemingly ever changing guidelines around gatherings we have decided to postpone a number of workshops planned for the Spring, but will be holding our signature Introduction to Biodynamics workshop at Hanaminno on the 7-8 December and are hoping to hold workshops in Bryon too. Our trip to VIC, TAS & WA will be pushed out to early 2022, when I trust our lives will be back to some normality and commitments can be made to events and attendances. More on workshops later...
Food sovereignty has been a bit of a theme in the last couple months. As the uncertainty of lockdowns and restrictions has us thinking much more about the security of our food system, our contribution to it and even how we as a family and business plan to mitigate against possible shortages and supply chain disruptions……this might sound a little pessimistic, however I firmly believe in the phrase ‘luck is the confluence of preparation and opportunity’, and preparation for opportunities is high on our agenda at the moment…..
Enjoy the read!
Coming up for you this month...
PODCAST NEWS – Podcast Awards & season progress 🎧
SEPTEMBER FOCUS –Food Sovereignty 🍒🐏🌾
HANAMINNO UPDATE -Spring has sprung 🌻🤠
A MINUTE W/ CHARLIE ⏰ - Trees 🌳💚🌳
WHAT'S COMING UP – Rescheduled dates & a free webinar coming your way... 👨🏻🌾🌱🌄
AND FINALLY….another giggle 🤣
PODCAST 🎧🎧
We are up, up, and away with Season 4 of the podcast and it's great to be back!
It has been a cracker of a few weeks so far and our weekly download numbers are creeping up nicely… we’re hitting just shy of 10k downloads a week which is epic. Tammi Jonas’s episode last week received listeners from a whopping 44 different countries … I’d struggle to name 44 countries 🤣 what about you?! I dare you to give it a go.. it's not easy!
Other news. This month we ‘ve burnt the midnight oil preparing our submission for the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards. We pressed send on our submission last week and we're hoping to go one better this year if we possibly can! We’ve entered 4 x categories this time around: Best Interview, Smartest Podcast, Best Entertainment and Wellbeing. The shortlist will be announced in October, so wish us luck 🍀.
And finally, coming soon for our Patreon members is our very own Regenerative Journey Book Club! We’ve received a number of requests for a book club of sorts and we think you will love what we have planned. If the additional bounty of discussion groups, book giveaways and guest author webinars sparks your interest, then why not join our Patreon community now!
SEPTEMBER FOCUS 🌾🌱🥜
Last week I was invited by Tammi Jonas of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance to join a webinar that was a COUNTER MOBILISATION against the UN Food Systems Summit. The summit was designed to empower all people to have a say in how the world should sustainably and fairly produce, distribute and consume food, however we felt that the corporates had infiltrated and captured the summit to fulfil their own agenda. Tammi is possibly one of the hardest working food advocates I know and is more determined to ever to draw attention to the nonsense that is the UN Food Security Summit and it’s ongoing corporate capture of our food.
I joined Costa Georgiadis, Vivien Yii (Australia’s Right to Food Coalition), Tim McCartney (Indigenous Food Sovereignty) and others and we discussed a lot of things, but the main takeaway I took was this: Corporates and Farmers have very different intentions and ways of executing those intentions (read agenda in the case of multi-national corporates…!)
Corporates promote a supply based economy. They promote the notion that more food needs to be produced to feed more people. Focus is on quantity, profit, prescriptive production and mechanisation at the expense of peoples involvement, all the hallmarks of a ‘commodity’ mindset. In order to achieve high yields more inputs such as fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides are required and it’s exactly the companies that produce these artificial inputs that are hijacking the UN Food Systems Summit.
It could be argued that the polar opposite of this is Regenerative Farming. Regenerative farming promotes food sovereignty – it is inclusive, adaptive and is supported by demand based food economies based on quality of nutrient dense foods that benefits the environment and the people who eat our food.
Anyhow, you can find out more about my thoughts here and watch the webinar in full here.
To keep abreast of the conversation be sure to follow the AFSA and you might even consider joining their organisation to help grow this very important cause.
HANAMINNO UPDATE 🐖🐄🤠
We will be using Spring's longer days to plant 3,000 native trees and some 7km of direct seeded native tree and shrub species in newly planned wind breaks and ‘corridors of green’ tree lines. These are primarily in paddocks that were cropped many years ago and are in need of improved fauna habitat and biodiversity. We are partnering with Gallagher and Westonfence to build 7 kms of fence to provide protection for these trees. I will be doing a few videos of their construction and the planting of the trees and direct seedling process over the coming months & so be sure to check out (& subscribe) to our YouTube Channel for this and other informative videos on our practices and activities on Hanaminno.
We weaned off our calves recently, and as we do every year, we used EasyWean nose rings to do so. We find that they help us wean our calves with much less stress than the other methods of weaning (yard or paddock weaning) and result in both the mothers and calves being removed from each other in a considered and staged way. Weaner weight loss is minimised, post weaning behaviour is improved (less time looking for mum, more time eating pasture) and much less stress on the handlers (and those trying to sleep in the cottage next to the cattle yards😅!)
A video on how and why we use Easywean nose rings will be going up on YouTube in the next week or so. We will also be releasing the follow up video of the natural drench we made and administered to some of our ewes earlier in September. Watch this space!
Talking ewes we marked 1100 lambs this month, 1100 last month and Jim and Brock are relieved that there will be no more to do till next year now 🤣!
We bought a number of bulls this season, spending more per bull than we have ever done before! A reflection on the very buoyant cattle market and our objective to increase our breeding numbers and produce a particular product to meet an ever more informed ‘eater’ expectation of beef.
A MINUTE WITH CHARLIE..tick tock ⏰
To tie in with our tree planting activity at Hanaminno this month, here's a video we posted earlier in September. Trees play a vital role in encouraging balance & biodiversity within our landscape...
WHAT'S ON 📅
First the bad news… as mentioned above, our best efforts to keep our Spring workshops series on the road have sadly been thwarted by the ongoing Covid19 situation. It’s a real shame to have had to pull up stumps and postpone our VIC, TAS and WA plans BUT .. the good news is, come 1st December we’ll be making up for lost time 😊 with workshops in Byron and Boorowa 🤞🏻 planned before Christmas 🎄🎅🏻 yipee....and of course, whilst we might not be able to meet in person we can still meet online!
‼SAVE THE DATE‼
Thursday, 7th October @ 11.30 AM AEST
We are running a FREE Intro to Biodynamics webinar for anyone who is interested in learning more about our biodynamics workshops. In the 40 mins session Hamish and I will introduce you to biodynamics, run through the workshop structure and answer any questions you might have.. see you there!
AND FINALLY....
Lordie's epic blurt to camera last month certainly caught your attention! Following on with the light hearted theme.. how many men does it take to change a light bulk OR un-bog a tractor I wonder?! 🤣🤣
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