Greetings people of the world, greetings to my family and friends, each and every one of you is welcome here.
This is my space, and I aim to use it to voice my feelings, to share images from my life, to show you how I make things from the raw materials I find in this beautiful land I am currently custodian of.
I live with my American husband deep within the juniper forest, far from “civiliation”, along the Moggollon Rim, in the White Mountains of the incredibly beautiful south Easten USA state of Arizona.
Don’t get me wrong, I am an Australian by birth, and my heart is firmly attached to that wonderous ancient land, however, I also find myself feeling very at home here.
This Juniper forest is ancient. The smell of it evokes memories I did not know I had. The soil, the waterways, the birds, the fossils I find…all make me feel that I belong, and that I am welcomed here. I climb mountains, and scramble over rocks, I walk in beauty everyday. I am fitter and healthier now than when I first embarked upon this journey…the journey I hope to share with you. It is a journey of self discovery, of awakening, of a deep connection with nature, that while I always knew I possessed, did not feel quite so deeply until now. My journey is a journey of intense and deeply satisfying gratitude, it encompasses soul searching, travelling, lonliness, adventure and the discovery of peace within myself. It is about learning to like, and then to love myself, flaws and all, mistakes and all, for without any single experience, I would not be the human I am today. I have no regrets. I can only express gratitude to this planet for my life, for the wonderous sights my eyes are gifted with, for simply being and for being here…every day, I walk in the forest,and everyday I am gifted by the forest, by our Mother, and everyday, I make an offering to her, and a gift from my heart.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
Its been a little while since I wrote. .what a wild ride its been. So far, so good…we’ve survived a pandemic and all the stuff that throws at us all…you know what I mean….still, we’ve survived , and even thrived. We have solar and wind power hooked up, so, not powered like city power, just enough to charge a phone or laptop, an hour of light to cook by.. we reallydo need so little. We have a rainwater collection system,and it caught a little rain and snow melt…our chickens grew and gave us eggs…. we were gifted goats.. all pre-loved, and all with issues… and we fell in love with them, and it now appears that we’re creating a Sanctuary for Pre-Loved goats
I have never had much to do with goats, consequently, I was unaware of how easily they steal your heart. I guess the story that goats and humans share an evolutionary history is true. In so many ways, their antics and personality traits demonstrate this fact…their faces mimic humans, their actions mimic human behavior.. do not let their cloven hooves fool you…they are very clever, and it appears that they spend a lot of time thinking about how to manipulate their humans…I mean, honestly, much of my day is spent dutifully catering to their needs ( wants … ).
First, there was a phone call from our neighbors…”would you like a baby goat?…he has an abscess,… he needs a home or they will just put him down”…
What do we do? We say yes, of course, and so begins our journey.
Goats can’t be on their own, they need a companion…
So, enter Angie, formerly Angel…Madame with issues…older, high maintenance…she doesn’t know how to be a goat, and had been butting other, pregnant, does in their bellies…she needed a home… desperately.. of course, she came with us… and, we were told she was pregnant. She has the most psychological issues of any so far…
We treated the abscess on little Bilbo as we called him…Bilbo Baggins…because he brought so much baggage with him….people had also tried to cut his horns, in an attempt to stop them growing, they had sawed them off, and applied battery acid…?
Why anyone would do this is a question I can not answer 😦
We were so happy when his abscess finally cleared and healed. He is such a loving soul. He soon made friends with Angie, and peace reigned for a short time.
And (above) here he is, Bilbo Baggins, crooked horns and king of all ❤
Next, another neighbor told us of some other goats in need of a home… Enter, Rachel and her daughter, Amy… emaciated, unfed..left to roam the paddock of scant juniper and scraggly weeds.
We brought them home, but, unfortunately, that led to Angies’ premature labour…I had to deliver her of two, stillborn doelings…that really upset the already unstable Angie, and it took her several months to recover. She is a trooper, and she did recover, and took her place as Queen of her little herd.
Angie
Some weeks after the dust had settled, my husband came home with two more young goats…twin baby bucks, he’d found abandoned in the forest.. left to their fate, they were starving, half dead from dehydration, ready to succumb to death by thirst, or coyotes… We called them Bill and Ted.. they’d already had an excellent adventure, and were quite ready to rest and eat and grow.
This is Rachel
With all the hungry animals making their way to us, it soon became obvious that we needed a way to feed them…yes, we have 20 acres, however it grows juniper and pinyon pine trees, sage and wormwood…and, because it’s mainly unfenced, the range cattle eat everything …they are so destructive, and of course all this beautiful national forest surrounding us is leased for next to nothing to a few privileged ranching families…but, that’s another story
Bill and Ted, and Bilbo too, and Rachel up on top of the mountain. They love to walk with us anywhere and anytime
We built an Etsy shop. I make a variety of salves, soaps, we sell crystals and make incense and other things sourced from our land…and, it is dedicated to helping us feed our hungry, expanding family. Should you be interested in taking a look, you will find it at fisheyetreasures@etsy. First, we had six goats, now, with all our new additions, we have thirteen … and we love them all.
Amy and her twins, Elvis and IvanAngie, learning to be a mother , with her twins, Henry and Maisie This tangle of arms and legs are Maisie, Henry and their adopted brother, George (triplet of Rachel, and almost twice their size)These three get bottles. Because George doesn’t know where to find the good stuff and Angie doesn’t make enough Two of Rachels’ triplets, Lucy and Louis.
Born the first of 5 children to a farming family in rural eastern Australia in the 1960s, I learnt the basics of independent thought from my father. His adages were words such as, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” , “if you can’t fix it with fencing wire, (or hay band (baling twine)) it’s probably not worth fixing.”
Mum was mum, and she taught me everything she knew about cooking and food, both growing and preservation. She taught me how to crochet, and to sew…both with a needle and thread and a machine, ..I can follow a pattern or make it from my head. She would let us cook with her, get us to help with the preparation and preservation and the cleaning and the general household duties. We had many household chores, along with general farm chores, and I could ride a horse, drive a car, a truck and a tractor long before I was out of primary scool. All of this had to be acomplished between school and homework, and before anything like out of school sports or socialising, or even just riding out on our beautiful horse. Consquently, I am self discliplined, and well educated, and I know how to work.
In those days, nothing was wasted, and I still hear my Nans’ words, (mums’ mum), “waste not, want not, and “count your blessings” … All of the above spoken wisdoms have long since become my own adages, and of course have served me well…and never been truer than in the situation we now live.
I know how to preserve food, how to cook from scratch, how to grow our food, no matter where we are…This farming way of life also equipped me to be resourseful, how to make anything from nothing, how to create, and the older I get the more grateful I am to have had this experience.
It was hard, farming is a tough choice for any man, and we experienced many droughts and many floods. The floods used to come almost every year, and I remember being in a tiny dinghy with dad. We were rescuing sheep from the rising flood waters..much of our land is in “flood country” and it comprises hillocks and flood channels, and the water flowed rapidly through them…it had quite a current, and could be very dangerous. Dad would row across to each hillock where the sheep were huddled together, then we had to catch each terrified sheep, tie its’ legs together, heave it into the boat, and row them across to safety. From memory, we could only fit about 3or 4 sheep in on each trip..we had a flock of at least a hundred in this paddock, and so it was a very long day.
Early last year, I returned to Australia, and took my daughter and granddaughter to visit mum and my brother who now runs the farm. I told this story, and my brother said “you know Pop (mums’ dad) built that boat…it’s still here, by the dam” , and he took us to see it. Oh my gosh, it was quite literally a tin floor and 2 sheets of corrugated iron…God alone knows how we managed to survive that day. On another occasion, our sheep dog was lost to the raging waters…swept away after working all day…Dad returned on his horse without him, calling and calling… I was maybe 5 and I remember calling for days too. To this day I still feel the pain of Smokys’ loss.
There was almost never any money for luxuries, and I only remember one holiday by the sea . However, there was always enough to go around, and my siblings and I never wanted for anything…there was money for school excursions, out of school sports on weekends, we were fed well, and with hind sight, perhaps we did grow up in a golden, utopian era… we knew how good we had it really, even then and we wanted it to last for ever, and to be for everyone. I was so grateful to take a ride out. To be on horse back as I rode through a mob of resting kangaroos who would barely raise their heads on the long hot days of school summer holidays. As we swam in the house dam, or picked buckets of mushrooms from the paddocks or Yabbies and Redfin fish from the creeks to take home and feast upon.
I still hear the squawking galahs and cockatoos as they greeted the sun or settled in for the night. I still smell the ozone as the rains beat down upon the hard soils and the smell of the dust and the redgums in the summer haze. Life was simple then.
We live off-grid…that means that we are deep within the forest, surrounded by mountains and trees and animals and birds and rocks and things…
We have no running water, no electricity, except the small amount we are currently able to harvest from the sun…enought to run a light when it is dark outside…it is winter here, so it is dark quite early, and this means that I can cook dinner by sunlight 🙂
All of our heating and cooking are by wood fire…luckily, there is a readily available source just outside the gate…
If we want hot water, we heat it upon the fire…even to do dishes
We can buy water and bring it in, however, that costs money, and requires time and fuel…since we are usually snowbound or mudbound… (the roads(dirt tracks) are treacherous), most of our water is collected from rain and snow melt. We store it in 55 gallon drums, or the sweet little water trailer we were lucky enough to buy for the princely sum of $150 and a few leak repairs. We filter this water, and it makes a wonderful cup of peppermint tea…my guage of water quality is how good my herbal teas taste…this water is really good 🙂
I run a small Etsy shop, selling hand made cat/dog toys, beautiful (ancient magical) wands, and my incredibly gentle and powerful Yucca soap…soon I will have woven Yucca fibre products, heart rocks, natural jewellery, petrified wood, shaman stones, .Juniper resin, Juniper berries…the list of things I wish to offer for sale is long… The Ancient name for this forest translates as “Land of Many Uses” and it is, and I am so very grateful to call this place my home
The sun sets outside our front door, and every day we thank Great Spirit for this opportunity.
I am Australian, and proudly so.. I live in Arizona, with my American husband, and our beautiful dog, and we live in the middle of a Juniper forest, on 20acres of Off-grid Paradise… We would not have it any other way
You can take the girl out of Australia, tho’ you can’t take Australia out of the girl… ❤
I love to take and share photographs of our surroundings, of the incredible beauty of the natural world, of the beautiful birds i am learning to identify and the magical mystical creature known as the Antelope Jack Rabbit…anything and everything beautiful and natural.
I am here because my mind is filled with thought, questions, sheer wonder at the place I find myself, and I feel a need to share…to “learn something new everyday” has been an adage of mine since I first remember learning anything… It’s what keeps me young, and I love that there is so much to learn here ..
We have no running water, no electricity… I use an old wood stove to cook with and for heating…to wash dishes, iIhave to heat a kettle. I have an “off-grid”washing machine…put your laundry in, screw the lid shut tightly, and turn the handle…does not have a spin cycle,… luckily my “dryer” is quite efficient here ..combination of wind and solar…I hang it out wet and dripping, after a few hours it is dry…even in the winter time. Arizona is capable of drying my wash as the snow lies upon the ground.
We grow and preserve food using a pressure cooker and an outside fire…
Our “roads” are little more than rough, rocky dirt tracks, and frequently, we are snowbound/mudbound… I really dont mind… rather like it actually…
We do have a small generator, however, it requires petrol to run…ie…money…so we only use it to run tools for building or otherwise.
We have a small solar setup…we use this to run a light at night time …we do not have many batteries, so we do not run a refrigerator or freezer or any mod cons like that …
Our phones are charged from an old car battery that is in turn charged by the sun, as are our lap top computers…
The laptops and phones are our contact with the outside world… despite our desires, it is not pracical that we live entirely disconnected from the other world, after all, we have to buy fuel for the generator, or pay for our phone service, and so I run a small Etsy shop… I make and sell things sourced directly from our land… I make organic olive oil soap from scratch, and double mill it before utilizing Yucca as a special additive…truthfully, the best soap you will ever use…the combination of natural oils and the natural saponins create a soap that will remove even the worst of stains…like engine oil on hands, in Cold water …this soap is gentle enough to wash your entire body..even your face, and tough enough to wash your dishes and laundry ..I use it to do everything
I make Organic catnip toys, herbal soothers for dogs and cats…these are also good as focus and relaxation aids for children and adults alike…
I like to find the perfect stick fallen from a juniper tree and finish it with the salve I also make …beautiful to look at, to hold, to smell the forest …Juniper is ancient…they take many, many years to grow and they have a scent unlike any other tree…a natural incense, refreshing, soothing …I love the smell of this forest
I love the Yucca that grows here…not only is it fabulous for soap, it grows an incredibly strong fiber, which wound together creats a very strong cordage…
I am aiming to use this cordage as bindings for the heart rocks gifted to me on every walk, and the other beautiful rocks we find upon this property…I also find many fascinating pieces of petrified wood…truly, I am blown away by the bounty of this land…
The name the Ancient Ones’ called this land translates as “land of many uses” and it is!
…. there are so many more things… I am adding as much as I can as often as I can
Everyday brings something new, and everyday the sun sets out our front door. I am so blessed to call this land of many uses our Home, and every day I give thanks and praise for its’ beauty, and for my incredible luck at being able to call it “home”.
From Australia to off-grid living, Arizona, the things I think about. 