23/12/20 – Meet Clair and Lincoln at Caltex and she takes me to farmland in her car. Past Vasse and next to a place called Hidden Valley Forest Retreat. See Wayne there and he shows me where the guys shear the sheep and in this kind of heat, they could lose 2 kgs just working which is 200 sheep sheared each.

Then he drives us to a camp area, then to the first beehive where I wear a different beekeepers outfit which looks like a fencing one. By the way, driving in these bumpy nature areas with a dog on my lap looking out and killing me with sharp nails I had to try and get her to stop trying to stomp my balls. The first beehive was nothing new. The second one was purple and so far both of them have the excluder to keep the queen in it a bit higher than the vids I’ve seen. Finally, he takes us to the big bad one which we didn’t even get out of the car and put our windows up.

Next, he takes us to the damn he excavated and Linc put out bait for marron. We chill, chat, look at nature and talk about farming. He tells me about how it’s important to have water and getting the soil better and non-acidic with molasses and fish emulsion mixed with compost tea. How getting the oxygen to 80% will buff up the microorganisms and to get it out when it starts dropping to 60% as the mixture has done its part.

I ask him about permaculture and regenerative agriculture etc and he says all of these are basically clubs you pay to be part of and do it the way they say when you can do it that way without paying and also without having to stick to things especially if it’s not for you. He recommends just looking up Biological farming as it all starts from there.

Finally, capture some snaps of a big marron. Get back and Linc gets to drive in the rubble areas. We make a plan to go shooting as I told them I’m interested. While driving back the windscreen sounded like it was raining but it was insects. It’s been a long time since I heard that and there is a meme out there how we used to have so many insects before. Anyway I ask Clair how she got into the whole farming and she told me her story of just being in it one way or another with horses, sheep, all sorts and now she does flowers.

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