Life on Fat Wren Farm.

Hey there!

Well here it is, I’m finally finding time to sit and write the loooong put off Fat Wren Blog. Woo! There’s no particular reason for taking so long except of course that running a small farm, small business and a small person, has kinda taken up most of my days up until now. Today is a rainy winter day, and to be honest, I’m having a sneaky hot chocolate (not on my diet allowed list), but it’s cold and bleak outside and sometimes you have to treat your taste buds.

The Gorgeous One, my hubby Nick, is playing around putting together his Grain-father home brewing kit and the Wild Boy, my extra cute three year old Leo, is watching Disney movies and for once sitting still. With this kind of weather its a real inside day.

Life’s been a bit different for us in the past few months living in Covid times. We are spending most of our time on the farm, together. Which is a massive change from our past hectic two years spent growing our small business. Previously most weeks would’ve seen us packing jars and jars of products and driving from the farm down to Sydney. All ready for our weekly farmers' markets. Then back to the farm for cooking and work from Monday. I hadn’t realised just how busy we were! The super early starts haven’t changed all that much, we are still farm folk after all. on the plus side it does mean a lot less driving and on the minus side, a lot less interacting with our market friends and family. And so here we are finding ourselves with time to get stuck into projects which have taken the back burner to the jam cooking, so to speak.

My go-to coping mechanism during this period of social distancing is, if you didn’t know it, COOKING and Nick’s been beer brewing from scratch and some of the results are frankly, delicious. I’m a classic Aussie girl and I do like a beer, or even two. The reality is both of these very pleasant pastimes have resulted in a little bit of podge accumulation around the middle. The simple fact is that my favourite jeans are struggling to do their job (i.e zip up). Hence the diet. Bugger.  

This week we are really noticing the end of the drought. It’s been raining good solid rain and our dam is FULL again for the first time in three years. I can’t even see our “ship-wreck" anymore. We’ve had over 60ml in the rain gauge, so much so that I haven’t had to water the veg patch or my new plantings for a week. Thanks for the holiday Huey*                                                                                  *for those who don’t know Huey, he’s the Aussie God of rain – and yes, he’s a thing!

-Wait, ship-wreck? I hear you ask - Ok so there’s lots of history and stories about our farm which will make appearances now and then. This story goes: At our wedding we had thought it would be nice to row around on the dam in a boat like some sort of English countryside whimsy, Wind in the Willows style.Unfortunately for those involved in the maiden voyage of our bonny vessel, it did not end well. Turns out that when you have a boat to row around in, it generally helps if someone reasonably nautical, or even reasonably sober, is in charge. We had neither present at the time. It was quickly discovered upon launching, that a BUNG is a very important addition to a boat. So somebody (I’m not mentioning names here - you know who you are) sank a boat in the dam. And its still there.

Whilst you may have met us at markets or follow our farm online, I’m taking time to write this blog essentially hoping to keep you updated and take you with us on our journey, wherever it may lead or what it may be. Sharing some life stuff, work around the farm, learning how, renovating on a tight budget and moving toward sustainability while juggling family and food obsessions. I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome aboard, and have you bought your bung?!

 Love Mel xx