This Blog post is to introduce our farm "Serenity" and ourselves, Kim and Lucy, to potential wwoofers, volunteer helpers or other people wanting to learn about living a permaculture lifestyle, including long term options. For regular updates and newsletters, sign up to my Substack newsletter here.
We have a 50 ha farm in the Gympie Hinterland, just over an hour from the Sunshine Coast and very close to National Parks. Our farm is managed using regenerative farming techniques like rotational grazing, permaculture principles, syntropic, organic and biodynamic methods, as well as Natural Sequence Farming. We grow a lot of our own food, both plant and animal and buy organic foods that we can't grow.
We run a small commercial herd of cattle that we manage in a rotational (cell) grazing operation, which enables us to reduce or completely remove any need for chemicals. In very wet years, we have had some trouble with ticks and fly, but mostly rotating them and not allowing them to stay in one paddock too long, will work to break the life cycle of these pests.
We have goats and sheep, which we rotate around paddocks using electro netting and moved every few days. Chickens are raised for eggs and meat, and of course the composting services they assist with. We have ducks for meat and slug control. Our milking cows provide milk, cream, butter, cheese and with a little help from the chickens (eggs), we make delicous icecream.
Volunteers are always welcome on the farm; however, we are now targeting those that want to learn more about living a permaculture lifestyle. This will mean, learning about and helping out with feeding and caring for the animals and gardening jobs of various nature. Eating this kind of food is another experience in itself and we value the no waste principle by preserving any excess. Longer term volunteers will learn how to make cheese and many other preserves. We expect 4-6 hours work in return for accomodation - per day. If someone is here for only a couple of weeks, we expect volunteers to work every day, however for those staying for a month, we are happy to give you time off when required. Some days there is not much work and other days there might be more (never more than 6 hours).
Apart from short term volunteers, we are also looking for someone, preferably a couple to stay on the farm long term. This could be living on farm and working for board and keep and working off farm, or setting up their own farm enterprise - maybe a market garden, free range chickens or we're open to other ideas. This offer will not be gone into lightly, as we need to be able to all get along. The important thing being that we have mutual respect. We are an older couple with a lot of knowledge and skills that we want to be able to share with the younger generation. Land is expensive today and not easy for the average young person to get into. We have the land and as we age and want to reduce our workload, we would like to give the opportunity to someone to utilise our land, in return for a little help on the farm so that we can continue to grow and process our own food.
If you are interested in coming to Serenity (short or long term), please send me an email with your resume or other reason for wanting to come to us. It's guaranteed that you will eat well and you will be welcomed into our family. We practice what we preach and are keen to share our knowledge.
healthyfarminghealthyfood@gmail.com
If you are reading this and know someone that might be interested, please share this post.
