About Us and Who we Are: Owners of Countryfarm Lifestyles

In case you were wondering more about us, and who we are, we thought we would fill you in. We were born proverbial gypsies. My first move from my hometown came a year before the birth of my first child, and we found ourselves the owners of a lifestyle block, where we owner-built our first house.

Here we grew our own vegetables and fruit. We collected strawberries by the bucket-load during the season and we made jams, preserves and canned our produce when the fruit from the extensive orchards was harvested. Two Welsh ponies were added to the picture with chickens next on the list.

More children were added to the family, and they thrived on the fresh air and had access to the fruit and vegetables that were all organically grown. Nothing was wasted. The horses and chickens provided good farmyard manure which went back onto the veggies and around the fruit trees, enriching the soil in preparation for the next harvest.

Over the years we improved in what and how we planted and gained more knowledge of natural pesticides for our produce. In addition, we were lucky enough to be able to buy raw milk from a neighboring farm and had lots of fun making yogurt, soft cheeses, butter and buttermilk, and waiting impatiently for the cream to rise so that we could scoop it off.

For a while our homesteading lifestyle came to an end due to unforseen circumstances and we ended up living far away from home in diverse places such as Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Australia.

However, no matter where we lived I grew my own vegetables and fruit on a smaller scale, and even learned the art of spinning, natural dyeing and pottery while living in these places.

Another move was on the cards, this time in a place where one finds it difficult to be have some semblance of self-sufficiency; the Middle East.

For five months of the year when the weather was cooler, I grew vegetables in raised bed gardens built off concrete floors, made marmalades, cordials and lime aid from the lime tree, used the dates that grew prolifically and even the mulberry tree obliged from time to time.

We still managed to make our own compost, but this time from kitchen scraps, newspaper and some horse manure from the racecourse horses a block away, and then from our chickens that we kept in the hen house we built out of wood and shade cloth. We also kept quails.

After that we moved to Perth, Western Australia. A beautiful part of the world, with great weather and the Swan river that seems to go on forever, but terrible sandy soil that needs lots of compost before you can even think of growing anything. And then it was Northern Queensland, before finally moving to our farm in Italy.

Wherever we have lived, be it on a small holding, the suburbs or even on a large farm, we have always had some degree of self-sufficiency in our food. I try not to use too many chemicals in my home and so am also big on homemade cleaning products, homemade cosmetics, medicinal herbs, making soap and homemade crafts.

Now, in our mature years, another exciting phase has opened up to us. We are the owners of a farmhouse in Tuscany where we are busy at present renovating the old farmhouse, grow grapes, olives, have an extensive orchard and vegetable garden, and keep chickens, ducks and sheep for wool, cheese and meat.

With a lot of hard work and research we believe that we will continue the same level of satisfaction we have always enjoyed in being as self-sufficient as we possibly can.