Give up, go home?

A young woman I know sent me a message on Facebook.  She has emigrated from an Asian country to New Zealand.  After 7 months she is wondering if she has made the right decision. 

I have responded to her note as I always do when asked by young people what they should do next – with the best mix of affirmation and common sense I can manage. 

But as I finished the reply, I suddenly thought of a story told to me by a man who was once in a position not entirely dissimilar to that of my friend.

My maternal grandfather was an Englishman who emigrated to New Zealand in the 1920s.  He was then in his mid 20s.  He had fought in the trenches of northern France as a teenager, where a brother lies forever.  He lost his father shortly after the War – and then found that the family fortunes were not what he had expected. 

He told me 50 years later that he decided he wanted to go somewhere new – and start afresh.  He could not recall then why he had had chosen New Zealand – he said he might as easily have gone to Canada.

He arrived in Wellington Harbour on a clear still morning the type of which there are few.  He remembered the little painted houses on the hillsides. 

He went to work at what he knew best – which was farming.  In England he was more towards the gentleman end of things, but in New Zealand he ended up cutting scrub for someone he called a ‘hard man’.  Weeks and months on a cold, wet Taranaki hillside working ‘til he was near to dropping.

I think it was more than 7 months, but there came soon enough a time when the young Englishman had had enough.  He was a musician, a bit of a bon vivant – and in New Zealand … he had access to none of that, none of his old friends or family - or his Clumber Spaniel.

He also decided to ‘go home’.

While he was getting together what he needed to implement his decision, he was staying in a 1920’s version of a Backpackers hostel.  One night he struck up a conversation with the stranger in the next bunk – and, eventually, poured out his sad story. 

The stranger said he was the son of a farmer – and harvest was coming up.  Could he do with a bit of work before he went back to England?  My grandfather said yes. 

The stranger became a friend, and then a brother in law.  Grandad stayed in New Zealand and built a good and full life – a life that still anchors my own and those of many other descendants.

Performance of the next generation

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We got home this week after 4 weeks and 2 days away.  

Moora Farm had been in the care of our son and daughter - both of whom were working in the city, often later in the day.  As a result their time to look after things was concentrated in the morning - never a good time for most under 25s.

Well ........ two less chooks, but otherwise everything else pretty good.  Well done Anna and Neil!
F
  

The Somme

We are now staying in Flers in the middle of the British part of what was, between 1914 and 1918, the Western Front.

We are here because both of my grand fathers fought through this area.  They both survived, but my Grandad had an older brother who didn't.  Here they are - Harold Lee Spark (Grandad) on the left and Thomas Edwin (known as Eddy) Spark on the right.

Here is what my Grandad said about his brother in a recording made in December 1976:

He was wounded on the Somme, got a bullet through his lungs and they sent him home to Britain to recuperate.

That was the 1st of July 1916, a terrible battle.  They kept them back for the Somme, and by Jove mankind are a lot of idiots, fattened them up for all this and then they were only in battle for about half an hour and they were just about all wiped out.

They were saved for the Somme like many other regiments were, and they just got completely cut up.  They couldn't face the machine guns.  It was the machine guns that did it; they mowed them down in waves just like grass, one wave after another.  How the British soldier stood up to it - or any soldier.  They just went forward, they had to do it.  It mowed them down like grass, it was absolutely amazing, the spirit, the bravery.  But that's history.  I don't think they'd do it today; in fact I'm sure they wouldn't.  But these silly fool had to do it.

... he was wounded on the Somme, got a bullet through his lungs and they sent him home to recuperate.  And then the sent him back and got him blown to pieces.  He was stretcher bearing, five of them were, and he was absolutely blown to bits, bringing in a wounded officer.  

And he's commemorated at Pozieres. 

And there he was on the western wall on a list of those lost with no known grave along with hundreds and thousands of others.  Perhaps he lies beneath one of the many headstones that say:

A Soldier of the Great War

Known unto God

Perhaps not - perhaps he's just part of the Picardy soil that now grows beautiful crops of wheat, barley, potatoes, rape and sugar beet.  Now they would find some DNA and give every one a grave.  In the end does it matter?

Eddy was first wounded in the 'big push' at Authuille Wood on 1 July 1916.  He didn't go back to the front until the Spring of 1918 - a few weeks later he was killed in action on 28 April of that year.  He was 22 years old.

As I read my Grandad's words, I can hear him speaking.  Over 50 years in New Zealand didn't dull his northern accent.  I knew him well - and spent quite a lot of time with him.  He always spoke as though he had a lot to say - and couldn't wait to get it out.  And he said things with conviction - or with a twinkle in his eye - and sometimes both together. 

Agree, then, about the folly of war.  But give the participants their due.

Herbert Fairlie Wood

Rain and Cold

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It's darn cold and wet outside at present.  In spite of this, quite a lot has been achieved over the last week or two.

We followed up the planting of the apples with another 27 bare-rooted fruit and nut trees - and one flowering cherry.  Right from the start at Moora I knew where I wanted to put the main orchard.  In 2006 I planted out a good part of it with a sheltering surround of ornamental pears, about 12 fruit trees and even a couple of nut trees.

Then the cattle got in.  The first time I caught them before too much damage had been done.  The second time I was away - and I came home to a right royal mess.  It was almost too much ... and I just left it.

Now, with the help of my nephews Sam and Finnbar, we've well and truly back on track.  We have 24 fruit trees planted in the main orchard - pears, plums, peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots .. and a quince.

With the shelter trees - I managed to recover 10 from the 24 (expensive) trees planted in 2006 - and we filled the gaps with new (equally expensive) ones.  They are Pyrus Calleryana 'Chanticleer' and they should shelter the orchard, put on a modest show of blossom in the Spring and then some spectacular Autumn colour.

Below the orchard we have planted 6 walnuts.  All trees I plant are in honour of my grandfather Len Holdaway, but walnuts more than anything.  On the farms where I grew up there were walnut trees planted by Len and his brother Charles.  My grandfather lived long enough to see his walnut trees produce huge quantities of nuts - which his grandson had to pick up.  Uncle Charl didn't live to see his great grand-nephews earn pocket money by harvesting nuts from his trees throughout their teens, but I'm sure he got his share in earlier times.

Finally - I'm trying a couple of figs back up by the house.  We had a beautiful fig tree when we lived in Gardenvale in the 1980s.  My wife loves figs - so I'm trying them for her.

Our garlic is up and moving now.  I'm very pleased that Neil and I did the bed forming before planting.  This block of the vegetable garden is just downhill of a very wet spot.  While it's possible there is a spring I think it's more likely that there is some sort of natural underground drainage from the higher area up by the house.  In any case, the rain has left water lying in the trenches between the beds - but the beds themselves are wet but not soaked.  And they dry reasonably quickly.

On the weekend the boys and I got our potatoes in.  We have planted 12 metre rows of 7 different varieties: Pontiac, Kipfler, King Edward, Otway Red, Nicola, Desiree ..... and .... well 6 out of 7 isn't bad.  They are in a block of the garden that is not as wet - thank heavens.  At the moment we've just planted them about 4 inches deep.  We'll mound up later as the shoots appear and need frost protection.

Tonight I spoke briefly to my Uncle Barry.  He was telling me about the bullock team he has in training.  He has a couple of what I imagine must be steers - one a Simmental and the other some sort of Friesian cross.  I wasn't aware of my great grandfather and his sons having used bullocks as opposed to draught horses, but there are many, many things I don't know.  Later this month we'll be back in Blenheim for a few days - and I can't wait to see the team.

Kristina has also found a newspaper article referring to a previous owner of Moora Farm - one Willie Benson, who lived in our house for over 40 years.  The article was on standard bred horses - and Willie was a registered trainer / driver.  It also mentioned him as having Clydesdales and standing various stallions.  We certainly find plenty of horseshoes and other ironmongery whenever we move any soil around the farm yard.  I also think I've found an old stables location - which I deduce from what looks like a stable floor of rock from the paddocks.  It's an area of similar sized rocks laid out roughly flat.  It can't be natural - so why would it be there?  I think it has to be a stable or perhaps some other type of farm shed.

More Wendell Berry - and go buy some wine

I've been reading some more of the American poet and farmer Mr Wendell Berry of Kentucky. He makes a heap of sense. There is quite a lot of his approach to life on this page.

In another spot I found this extract from one of his poems:

I walk this ground
Of which dead men and women I have loved
Are part, as they
Are part of me

The place I think of when reading this? Here it is:

I built a tree house just back over my left shoulder. I picked up potatoes and later shovelled them into a potato grader, buried dead sheep, tried to shoot sparrows with a slug gun, weeded fodder beet and later fed it to pigs, cut corn to feed cattle, sewed up bags of barley on a header harvester, stapled droppers to fences, walked around mobs of sheep looking for any sign of flystrike - all in what used to be paddocks in the foreground.

Wine made with grapes from this vineyard (or maybe another one not so far away) is now available in Melbourne from Gisborne Peak Wines - see here.

Rather than just order on line - take the trip to the cellar door where Bob and Barb Nixon run a great little operation. Our Savignon Blanc is not the only good wine available. And the pizzas are great as well.

Retirement Planning

When my son David (against explicit instructions to the contrary) met and married an American wife, I got a lovely daughter in law - and, in her father Bob, someone who has become a good friend.

Bob and I correspond about many things - political, philosophical, financial and even culinary. Bob introduced me to Nicholas Nassim Taleb and Benoit Mandelbrot. Taleb I understand and adore, Mandelbrot and fractal geometry went somewhat over my head (like about a mile).

Given the times, we talk a lot about the global financial crisis (GFC) at present - sending links to various articles and blogs back and forth. The other day Bob managed to provoke a little ‘outburst’ from me. But because we’re both polite guys, we always try to pre-apologise when either of us writes anything that gets too close to a ‘rant’.

On this occasion - I made an appropriate self-deprecatory reference to ‘writing a book’, but Bob came back with an offer to ‘write the foreword’. So I reproduce the essence of the argument below.

There is a fundamental problem with a lot of the literature that addresses retirement planning or personal investment strategy.

The problem is that investing in financial assets in the hope of one day being able to retire only ever happens in a wider context that is so important relative to the investment issues that general rules are actually quite hard to derive.

One might think of the wider context as planning for The Rest of My Life (TRoML). Let’s call it TRoML planning. It has a number of components:
- one’s relationships (family, friends and acquaintances)
- one’s mental health
- one’s physical health
- one’s physical assets (housing, and other 'things')
- one’s business assets (wealth and income from business activities)
- one’s financial assets (wealth and income from tradable financial assets)

Maybe it's just me, but I think the first three items are hugely more influential on the quality of TRoML than the final three. If it were possible to develop something akin to a correlation coefficient between component success and TRoML quality I think you would find:
- relationships - highly correlated
- mental health - highly correlated
- physical health - correlated - up to a point
- physical assets - correlated - up to a point
- business assets - minimal correlation
- financial assets - no correlation

This suggests a strategy for TRoML optimisation should start with relationships.

It’s clearly not possible for everyone to have perfect relationships. But it is important to set aside the insane baby boomer attachment to individualism - over the family and the community. Actually a good start would be to simply make anything ending in ‘-ism’ subservient to the inter-related interests of family and community - and that even includes capitalism!

Let’s say a man or a woman is approaching 60 years of age and has had the same life partner for 30 years, has a halfway decent relationship with adult children, has grandchildren, has cared for or is caring for aging parents, has contact with siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and old family friends, has a modest group of close friends and a wide circle of acquaintances and community connections. Does it seem possible that such a person will not be reasonably content - and the other components will have taken care of themselves.

If, instead, some unhappy combination of failed and failing relationships applies - is it actually possible for a combination of good health and wealth to compensate and produce reasonable TRoML quality? It seems unlikely.

So priority one for every day of one’s life should be on the maintenance of a web of family and community relationships in the best order one can manage. And an interesting feature of relationships is that they are almost always repairable - or, at least, more repairable than any investment gone sour.

I could go on - but then I’d be starting to write the book. And it’s probably not very original anyway.

In Bob’s response to my email he included the following good story:
John Bogle (founder of the Vanguard mutual fund group) just came out with a new book titled "Enough". …… it is based on a conversation between Mr. Bogle and a well known author who attended a dinner at a billionaire's house. They were quite impressed by the opulence of it all, but the writer remarked to Bogle, "You know John, he has it all, but I've still got something he hasn't." "What's that?" replied Bogle. "Enough" said the writer.

Like many things: easy to say - harder to do!

My confidence in the absence of a positive connection between wealth and contentment has been affected by my relationship with a country (Indonesia) that has a GDP per capita of just under US$4,000 pa. Australia is said (by Wikipedia) to have a GDP per capita of between $35,000 and $39,000 pa depending on who measures it.

My personal experience is that people are just about equally happy (or unhappy) in either place.

The same seems to go for other countries where I have spent a reasonable amount of time - New Zealand ($28,000) - the UK ($36,000) - the US ($47,000). All these figures are calculated on a purchasing power parity basis.

So following all this - my strategy for dealing with the GFC is ………..

I guess it is to make sure my relationships are in as good order as I can manage. And then because I’m me, and because I’m a male in the (late) middle of my most productive years, I know that I’m an important part of the physical and financial security for a quite a range of people.

So I need to ‘tend’ the various things I’ve set up over the years - and make sure that they continue to fit the circumstances and needs of those around me.

For over a decade now my strategy has been to build business assets (component 5) and pretty much avoid tradable financial assets (component 6) entirely. I decided in the late 1990s that there were some serious principal agent problems in capital markets. The alternative I settled on was to invest directly in forestry and agriculture.

As a result the GFC found me with no shares - or any other tradable financial asset - not even indirectly through superannuation. My only connection with capital markets and the banking system in recent years has been to borrow from them!

Lest I be accused of hubris - let me freely acknowledge the opportunity cost of staying out of stock markets between 1998 and 2007 - and also that our investments, in the main, are illiquid and difficult to value.

Also, when I started, I didn’t really know that much about the businesses I was getting into. But over time one learns.

For the future - I continue to fundamentally distrust capital markets’ and the banking system’s capacity or willingness to properly respect capital providers / savers. We’ve edging painfully towards an understanding that we have allowed financial intermediaries to systematically and (mainly) legally extract enormous returns for doing a disastrously bad job of managing other people’s money. But I don’t think we yet know what to do next!

I’m in the camp that wouldn’t prop up failing banks and other financial institutions - and I’m also doubtful of the net benefit of stimulus packages. It seems to me the outcome of a determination to ‘rescue’ the old system may well end up being sovereign default and a whole new stage of the disaster.

Economic relevance - timeout for discussion of fertility

Before I go on to the next component - which will be vegetables - I want to take a timeout and blog about fertility.

So far our fertility program has been basically conventional.  We have put a tonne of lime to the acre across the farm twice - and we have used nitrogen based fertilisers when we have planted break crops and permanent pasture.  

This is the system that our contractor uses - basically the same as would be used if we were seeking economic relevance through scale (owning 500 acres) rather than chasing the extra $ through poly-culture and intensity on a smaller area. 

We have also sprayed a product called NutriSoil several times .  This has been an attempt to start a program of improving soil biology following a system called the Soil Foodweb.  We have done various soil tests and soil biology tests - which all tend to show no glaring defects.  But I'm not happy that we're even halfway to where I want to be.

For the future program I'm going to draw on 3 sources: 

• our own gardening experience (vegetable and ornamental) where we have always used compost extensively;
• a guy called Peter Andrews - who is an Australian farmer with particular ideas about how Australian landscapes function; and
• Joel Salatin - whose commitment to farming smart I find a constant source of inspiration.

A slight diversion - I married my dear wife in 1973 when I was 20 years old (she was 19).  The following year, we bought our first house.  It was built on platform carved out of the side of a Wellington hill. What wasn't rock, was solid clay and distinctly unpromising - as soil goes.  

My Mum gave us a copy of Yates Garden Guide - now in its 77th edition since 1895. The book talked about compost and how to build a compost bin - which I immediately did.  I can see it in my mind's eye now - as though it was yesterday. 

I've since built 4 other compost systems for various houses we've lived in - plus one for my Mum.  The best and biggest was at our Kilmore house - where annual applications of compost helped turn a paddock into a beautiful garden over a few years.

When we arrived at Moora, there was so much to do I just drove 4 or 5 starposts into the ground and put a circle of Ringlock inside.

  That took the first few cubic metres of the cleanup.  The second version of this system involved the same circle of starposts, but a wall made out of welded mesh.  I'm very impressed and think it's a good way of composting larger amounts.

Following on from things the Peter Andrews and Joel Salatin say, I'm going to:

• Set up a Compost Yard where we can accumulate composting material and organise everything.
  
• Put starpost mesh circle compost heaps on high spots all over the farm.
  
• Compost everything we can lay our hands on.
  
• Once a heap is complete just take away the supports and leave it to decompose in place - gradually releasing it's fertility from higher to lower land.
  
• Build other compost heaps in the Compost Yard to provide additional material for the vege garden.
  

We'll compost all our food waste, all garden waste and animal manure from the feed yard.  We'll then have to go looking off farm.  In the past we have composted offal when we've killed for our own use - and the odd dead animal.  I thought we were being a bit naughty doing this, but have recently found out that there are actually web pages on how to do it - and recognition that it's a sensible thing to do.

Peter Andrews is also big on planting trees on high ground and allowing the fertility associated with this to move down through the landscape.  What he says is consistent with what I feel so there are plans for much more tree planting.  Another thing he says is that, while all trees are good, deciduous exotic trees are often better in their effect than native trees.  Look out for the poplars, oaks and plane trees in future - as well as the natives.

I can't wait !

Ideas - and where they come from

“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

JM Keynes

Some of the people I've read and who have had an influence on me would probably object to being categorised as either economists or political philosophers.  No matter - I should acknowledge those who have influenced, and are influencing, me.

I grew up on a farm and spent time on other farms where the farmers did their best to farm according to what might be loosely described as 'best practice'.  Their conception of best practice was dominated more than anything by diligence and hard work - but the technologies and systems deployed were largely conventional / modern.  

My respect for where I came from and the way in which my parents and extended family worked and cared for their properties means that I certainly didn't start out with a negative attitude to 'modern' agriculture.

That said, I've always been curious about how economic systems work - and don't work.  Farming is no different.  I always knew that there has been a disconnect between the way our economy values agricultural endeavour and my own perception of what it properly should be valued at.  

Michael Pollan (in The Onivore's Dilemma) wasn't the first person I read who raised major questions about the sustainability of conventional / industrial agriculture, but he was the person who bought the argument together in such a way that I could really buy in.  His extended section on Joel Salatin and his Polyface Farm did it for me.  I got to the end of those chapters - and went right back to the start to read them all again.

I've since read various books by Salatin - and the more I read the better I like him and his whole approach to life.  http://www.polyfacefarms.com/books.aspx

Pollan and Salatin then take me back to things that I have followed for many years, but regarded more as one way of thinking about things rather than the way to think about things.  

I think particularly of Permaculture.  I bought Permaculture One in the 80s and various other books along the way, but found it difficult to apply to my own circumstances.  Just before Christmas I bought Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability .  Perhaps I'm now ready for it, perhaps Permaculture has evolved, but I found it flat out inspiring.  

Part way through it I gave my copy to my son John and his fiance Shelley.  I've now got to get another copy so I can continue using it as an inspiration for what we are doing and will do at Moora.

There are other books I've read that have had a substantial influence on me.  They include:

• Farmers of Forty Centuries by F H King
• A couple of books by Helena Norberg-Hodge - who I met in Bali last year - Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness and Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh
• A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction and A Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein
• Back from the Brink by Peter Andrews

The vegetable garden (to be)

This photo looks west from the laneway across the vegetable garden to the farm beyond.  

You can see a mainly empty garden here (and my 'tidy gene' on display), but also some signs of how things will be.  How I wish my dear Mum could see it - and share in the excitement of planning and then seeing through a project like this.  'Stickability' was what she thought people needed and gardening was one passionate expression of her own stickability.

In the foreground is a part of the cypress hedge that will surround the garden on 3 sides and protect me from the cold south westerly winds.  If you double click on the photo for a bigger view, you can actually see some of the trees from the western side just the other side of the cultivated area.  The hedge has only been in the ground for about 18 months - so the growth is pretty good.  It's amazing what good watering will do.

The shed in the middle of the photo is the old garage from up by the house.  A year ago we pulled it down and relocated it.  At the moment it has furniture from the house in it, but in time, it will be vegetable HQ.  Already I can sit on the bench by the door and contemplate ...

To the left of and behind the shed is the asparagus patch.  One hundred asparagus plants went in there last winter.  Barbara Kingsolver, in her wonderful book Animal Vegetable Miracle, talked about the asparagus patches she had established in gardens she was soon to leave "for no better reason than that I believe in vegetables in general, and this one in particular".  I too believe in asparagus - and know that the multi year wait to first harvest will soon pass.

To the right is the compost heap.  I built my first compost bin at the age of 21.  I've never been particularly fastidious about compost recipes - I've found patience a reasonable substitute for diligence in this regard.  Perhaps in future I'll do better, get my carbon, nitrogen and moisture right and produce compost in months rather than years.  Certainly I like the design of this heap.  Star pickets supporting a mesh wall.  In time I want to have a separate compost yard - and do it all on a much bigger scale for the garden and the farm.  But that's in the future.

To the right of the compost heap are some garden plants - transplanted while the building extension is completed.  And also son Neil's little garden.  I hope his girlfriend Lily will be impressed when she returns from Guangzhou in a few weeks.

First post

I'm learning.  And this blog is going to be part of a learning process.  

In a couple of years I want to be making a living from my small farm (57 acres) just outside of Melbourne, Australia.  At the moment I'm still employed as a professional accountant - and living in an apartment in Jakarta.  It is really more correct to say 'we' because I'm here with Kristina - my wife of 35 years - the mother of my four children - and my best mate!

Not too far in the future, we want to make at least part of a living producing food for people in the Gisborne / Sunbury area of Melbourne.  At that time we think we will be using a website to communicate with our customers.  It seems to make sense to start into the process of communicating online.

So this blog will mainly be about Moora - our farm in Couangalt Rd, South Gisborne, Australia.  It is presently in the care of our son and a farm manager.  

Inevitably, it will also be a bit about our life in Jakarta, about our kids, extended family and friends.   I guess it will also touch on the wonderful country (Indonesia) that has become our third home after Australia and the land of our birth (New Zealand).  And I don't think I will be able to blog without talking about the extraordinary times.