I moved to a farm at 21...
The beautiful chaos of uprooting our lives in the city and landing on 50 wild acres…and how we came to be living this extra-ordinary life.
Disclaimer: All locations are referred to by their rightful, indigenous titles. I am not the true ‘owner’ of this (or any) land, and pay my respects to the true custodians– the Jinibara People of the mountains.
Jinibara country (Sunshine Coast Hinterland) is the place where I feel undeniably at home, where people come to be held amongst the towering gumtrees, sandy beach pathways and lush, ever-flowing waterfalls.
Here is where I awoke from the caffeinated stupor of living in the city– and started to slowly untangle the beaten-in expectations of what success, happiness and health are.
People here move in different planes, live with different values. Maybe this was just a reflection of my bone-deep desire to find something else. Or maybe it’s just the magic of this land and the power of its community.
My husband Jordan and I have been on Jinibara country for just over two years now, and to be quite honest I cannot fathom how we have lasted this long!
Amongst the triumphs and beauty of this lifestyle, we’ve navigated many murky waters that come with having NO EXPERIENCE AT ALL in managing land. We often look back on stupid decisions we made with incredulity and humour. In this reminiscence, I thought it would be most appropriate if I was to take you down to the roots of just how we came to be here.
Freshly graduated with a Bachelor of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, I welcomed 2021 with high hopes and big plans. Most of these plans included acquiring a job in nutrition. My partner Jordan and I were working insanely early and late shifts at gyms, to get further along in our ‘careers’ and save as much money as we could. Because times were tough and we were young. This notion hasn’t really changed, but our approach to it most definitely has. Jordan had just bought his first apartment in the suburbs and was taking any shifts he could get his hands on. We were exhausted.
To escape the endless hustle, we bought a campervan. It was one of those old Hiace tin-shell-on-wheels contraptions, and we spent every weekend we could exploring the beaches and hills either side of Meanjin. Even with this beautiful reprieve, I could feel disappointment creeping in. I had no job prospects or pathways in my field.
As a young person, I felt like I was in this purgatory of wanting work and experience, but having none.
Things felt expensive, opportunities felt out of my expertise, and I felt alone in the post-covid world of regulations and mandates. I thought a career was the only way of living, the only way we could live, in this modern world.
Around this time, Jordan and his family suffered a horrible loss. The death of his sister changed many lives forever, as death tends to do. This is a story and experience for another time, but it’s true to say that life had irrevocably altered its course.
Being immersed and surrounded by grief did funny things to my health, as it does for all of us earthblobs. Pain has often hidden, cascading effects, but I consider myself blessed to have my family, true friendships, and an able body supporting me.
My yoga practice was my solace—and still is. After years of being an avid student of yoga, I undertook my yoga teacher training where I relished the chance to have something to learn again. Something to inspire me. It was a very forgiving course, as the tools and practices I learned served me in ways that science couldn’t. In contrast to the performative side of fitness, I could move my body lovingly, consciously, and without result. The intention was the focus.
The community we created in the experience was my anchor, and those few months in the course renewed something within me. I felt such freedom in committing myself entirely to one passion, and it sharpened my focus.
Coinciding with this shift, I started to frequent an organic farmer’s market on the weekends. Alarmingly close to me, I had never been– and now that I was taking more time for myself in practice, it seemed natural to start to ‘care’ again about the food I was eating.
I loved the ritual of getting up early, filling up my bags for the week, and connecting with the storeholders. The abundance! The colours! The affordability! And the people that frequented the market… they seemed so content.
In furthering my desire to get my hands on more quality, nutrient-dense food, (and to keep my bank account from slipping further downhill) I turned to gardening. Being an active part of the growing, nurturing, harvesting, and storage of produce seemed wonderfully rudimentary, and I was hooked. I had never gardened properly before, besides taking care of a sprouting bean when I was 7, and was excited at the new hobby I was undertaking. I watched videos exploring urban gardening, fell in love with DIYers preserving and fermenting, and plunged fully into the rabbit hole of homesteading.
So it began– right there in the backyard of the terrace house we lived in with Jordan’s mother Adele. We lifted the soil, set down cardboard, layered on compost and topped it with mulch.
This small patch gifted me more than just produce, it was the catalyst for a feeling of excitement that was unreachable in me for a long time. Every time I cooked a meal, I grabbed my clippers and colander and fervently headed out the door to my little microcosm.
The sight of the smallest embryo of a pumpkin had me squealing like a little girl, and I spent hours tending to the patch and seeking ways to grow more food.
Our burgeoning passion for gardening, combined with the desire to live a more sustainable lifestyle, led us to start investigating how we can get on the land. A backyard garden wasn’t enough– we wanted to create something bigger, take care of animals, and improve food quality and accessibility for our communities.
Completely uprooting our city lives for rural living seemed quite ridiculous in truth, owing to the fact we had little savings, were unemployed, and had no farming skills or experience to our name.
But we had moxie, and an incredibly generous investor, Adele. It’s thanks to her that we have this opportunity in the first place. I am not one to shy away from acknowledging our privilege here. We count our blessings every day that we had someone in our corner with so much faith and trust.
We soon found a listing for a 50-acre farm in the Obi Obi Valley, just west of Mapleton and Montville of the Blackall Range on Jinibara Country, and fell in love with the property’s potential. With 4 dams, 30 acres of pasture with the remaining being forest, the property had decent zoning and was a secluded oasis for us to trailblaze.
After many discussions a lot of daydreaming, Adele, Jordan and myself made an offer on the property. By a stroke of luck and fortuitous timing, we had secured the farm!
Even then, disbelief flavoured our months before settlement, yet there we landed, on the besa block house at the end of the sloping driveway. The place oozed country charm and coziness, which I totally romanticised, despite the land needing considerable care and maintenance. It’s a small and simple house, but mighty in possibility…perfect for our first home together.
This is how our farm journey began— as grumpy little Gen Zers in the city, plonked in the middle of cattle country with big dreams and no clue.
And there’s so much more to share.