Four month introspective – What have we learnt

We are four months into our new life – and what have we learnt…..

1. Things take time – get used to it

I am one of those people that makes lists and judges my performance on how quickly things get ticked off. However, ticking things off isn’t as easy when you’re doing a whole lot of things for the first time and you don’t really know how to do them or how long they should take. I have had to get used to country time. I am much better now at recognising incremental changes as projects come together and get closer to completion. I still get a little frustrated sometimes – but I suspect I always will.

2. Don’t stress – things are more likely to work out OK

In the early days, every day seemed to bring another drama. And each drama, felt like it was going to catapult us into the never never. For example, nearly every battery we own has failed at least once, we had endless dramas getting the heater, the hot water and the washing machine to work, our tractor dramas will be the subject of a separate blog as will our fight with red-legged mites. Throughout all these dramas, we have endured and prevailed. Andy and I are now much better at handling dramas calmly and optimistically – at least until the next one :)

3. Rubbish is possibility

Living on a farm with no rubbish pick-up service is annoying – everything that comes on to the farm needs to be handled either on farm or transported back off the farm. This particular challenge inspired us to try a zero waste life – but it was really hard and we failed. We have however managed to seriously reduce our waste. We produce one plastic shopping bag of waste a week. Everything else is either composted or re-purposed on farm. For example, juice containers become seedling green houses, milk bottles become seedling pots and wine bottles become chandeliers. All this focus on waste has changed the way I view waste items – I look for possibilities and re-purpose opportunities before reluctantly loading things into the ute for the hour long round trip to the tip.