“ I’m from farming stock so being on the land is a natural thing for me. I’ve spent most of my adult life in the bush or on the land. I came over from NZ on my 20th birthday, spent a year exploring up and down the coast. It was summer, we were 600kms inland from Sydney, so hot and isolated in a little town called Rankin Springs. That was many moons ago.
I came to the Northern rivers off and on through the 80’s but moved here at the end of the 80’s so I’ve been around Lismore for ever. I had my initiation to the floods back then in the 1989 flood. House minding at Tuntable was my first some so I had I had my introduction to community life. It was a hot summer with little kids and lots of leeches I’ve lived a pretty alternate life and always sought different options.
I studied natural therapies in Chinese medicine which was fantastic. I ended up living in town for years. I’ve been able to come and go for work and it’s given me opportunities to get different skills and experiences outside of here. Lismore is a regional city and we have limitations which is unfortunate but not insurmountable either. I’ve always been a little bit of a gypsy.
I’ve had this place here in Numulgi for 11 years so I feel settled. I have found my oasis. I did my Visual Arts and then a Grad Dip Ed degree at the end of the 90’s at SCU. I left this district as a trained art teacher looking for work and set off out west between Dubbo and Cobar with my son Rueben who was 8 at the time. I was teaching in the small town schools but it wasn’t giving me what I wanted. I had my own art room but was having to teach a whole lot of other things I wasn’t fully trained in. I was teaching computers, tech, German and Art / Graphic design. All levels and that was my first year out. It was full on.
I hightailed it out of there. Both Rueben and I are susceptible to sinus infections and we were getting really sick out there. I had developed an allergy to chemicals and it’s linked to the farm chemicals from when I was a kid. We moved to the Western suburbs of Melbourne into the thick of the industrial smog. I thought that’s a great idea (laughs) but it opened up my world to study in the area I loved which was Experiential Learning and Development. I did a Masters in that area while I also worked in a high school and a community service for kids in out of home care. I was the Educational Support worker. There was really small team of us who had a huge area of Melbourne to cover. We had caseloads but we had the golden basket so the kids really liked to see us and they behaved for us. We’re talking about really tricky kids and just getting them through the school gate was a success. Being witness to the most dysfunctional families and trying to operate on some level was pretty tough. It was full on but a very good job. The door opened for resilience building and looking at strength based work which you can’t really do in the classroom.
It also helps with all the manual skills that I have from being a tinkerer and a sculptor all my life, a ceramicist, a builder, a gardener and all that stuff. Sometimes that produces a low level of chaos but generally like a true Sagittarian I have my eye on the goal. I don’t live by Astrology but I find it a very curious thing because there are a lot of things I do agree with. It is said the Sagittarius has the ability to consider everything while they have their focus on the end destination.
I’ve been wanting to set up a rural destination here that can give people a sense of our wilderness, a refuge and a place of healing and replenishing. A retreat where you can have a sense of being away from it all and to be able to disconnect. I have this quest for knowledge, sharing and generosity to want to share what I have here with others. We need to encourage ourselves to maintain our manual skills, maintain our skills for problem solving and working out how to conceptualise a form, whether it’s a sculpture that’s made to just look at or whether it’s a tool, a jig or a hook that you can actually apply. I’ve moved into this area where I can choose what I’m doing and I want to focus on the arts which is more holistic too.
My property is called The Stoney Lee Art Farm. It’s a 19 acre block and it’s basically a hobby farm. It’s a mixture of bushland, farmland, creeks, dams, really friendly cows. We have koalas that come up here really close. The wallabies come right up, all credit to Billy my rescue dog. She is friends with everything and everyone. We have happy chooks, everybody is happy, loads of birdlife, lots of reptiles though we don’t see many snakes. I have a resident carpet snake who I can hear slithering above my bedroom at the moment. I’ve put in a number of different orchards because self sufficiency is important.
In the ideal setting I have a big vision for this place. A day spa operating like Mullumbimby’s Kiva day spa. I think Lismore deserves good things and I know there’s still a lot of people who haven’t recovered or are still depressed about last years devastating flood. We have a high percentage of people still doing it very hard. I figure for those of us who have the good fortune of doing it well, it’s a good thing to put into something that can help peoples well being. We need more interesting things out of the city centre to get people here. It would be lovely to have a little cafe with fresh produce from the farm, have some art workshops running and perhaps the day spa. Instead of having to drive to Mullum you could come out here. I have a big vision but to do that I took the risk of asking Council and they’ve already given me good indication that the compliances would be substantial so we’ll see. In the meantime It’s enough getting the workshops happening. At this stage I’m looking at the building blocks that I can achieve.
Rejigging the art collective has been fantastic and that’s something we do once a week here. Years ago it was primarily ceramic so we have kilns and fire pits of all sizes including a new little on called Miss Piggy. We are also doing metal work as well now.
I named the property in honour of my family tradition. My fathers family is from Ireland and this is the last farm. I’ve named the different paddocks after the family farm in Ireland. My son and I were doing some work up on Arran Hill last year and I took a photo of him wearing his grandfathers hat then I noticed that he was wearing his grandfathers flannelette shirt who had died the year before and realised he was the 6th generation in the family to have farmed on Arran Hill. We call this section here Portland Park after a place at the Shannon in Tipperary which was a house that the family set up as a refuge for the Protestant single mothers. It got burnt down and there was all this scandal at the time. Looking after the underdog and sharing what you have’s been part of the family thing for a long time so I’m just carrying on tradition in many ways.
I produce small crops which are manageable to sustain me and my friends and extended family around me. I trade my chilli’s and tumeric for curries at the Thai restaurant. I have my own fresh meat, eggs, my own sourdough bread, my sprouts, next year I will whip my 2 milking cows into shape and make cheese. I spoil them and we buy milk at this stage. We have Macadamias which we don’t process as it’s too tricky. I make a lot of preserves including an annual supply of brandied cumquats, Cointreau cumquats and prunes in Shiraz which are divine. I make pickles and with all the citrus at the moment I make a supply of orange and almond cakes, lemon tarts and Limoncello. I dehydrate a lot as well. I make my own KimChi. I’m hardly ever at the shops or markets because I have it all here.”
I came to the Northern rivers off and on through the 80’s but moved here at the end of the 80’s so I’ve been around Lismore for ever. I had my initiation to the floods back then in the 1989 flood. House minding at Tuntable was my first some so I had I had my introduction to community life. It was a hot summer with little kids and lots of leeches I’ve lived a pretty alternate life and always sought different options.
I studied natural therapies in Chinese medicine which was fantastic. I ended up living in town for years. I’ve been able to come and go for work and it’s given me opportunities to get different skills and experiences outside of here. Lismore is a regional city and we have limitations which is unfortunate but not insurmountable either. I’ve always been a little bit of a gypsy.
I’ve had this place here in Numulgi for 11 years so I feel settled. I have found my oasis. I did my Visual Arts and then a Grad Dip Ed degree at the end of the 90’s at SCU. I left this district as a trained art teacher looking for work and set off out west between Dubbo and Cobar with my son Rueben who was 8 at the time. I was teaching in the small town schools but it wasn’t giving me what I wanted. I had my own art room but was having to teach a whole lot of other things I wasn’t fully trained in. I was teaching computers, tech, German and Art / Graphic design. All levels and that was my first year out. It was full on.
I hightailed it out of there. Both Rueben and I are susceptible to sinus infections and we were getting really sick out there. I had developed an allergy to chemicals and it’s linked to the farm chemicals from when I was a kid. We moved to the Western suburbs of Melbourne into the thick of the industrial smog. I thought that’s a great idea (laughs) but it opened up my world to study in the area I loved which was Experiential Learning and Development. I did a Masters in that area while I also worked in a high school and a community service for kids in out of home care. I was the Educational Support worker. There was really small team of us who had a huge area of Melbourne to cover. We had caseloads but we had the golden basket so the kids really liked to see us and they behaved for us. We’re talking about really tricky kids and just getting them through the school gate was a success. Being witness to the most dysfunctional families and trying to operate on some level was pretty tough. It was full on but a very good job. The door opened for resilience building and looking at strength based work which you can’t really do in the classroom.
It also helps with all the manual skills that I have from being a tinkerer and a sculptor all my life, a ceramicist, a builder, a gardener and all that stuff. Sometimes that produces a low level of chaos but generally like a true Sagittarian I have my eye on the goal. I don’t live by Astrology but I find it a very curious thing because there are a lot of things I do agree with. It is said the Sagittarius has the ability to consider everything while they have their focus on the end destination.
I’ve been wanting to set up a rural destination here that can give people a sense of our wilderness, a refuge and a place of healing and replenishing. A retreat where you can have a sense of being away from it all and to be able to disconnect. I have this quest for knowledge, sharing and generosity to want to share what I have here with others. We need to encourage ourselves to maintain our manual skills, maintain our skills for problem solving and working out how to conceptualise a form, whether it’s a sculpture that’s made to just look at or whether it’s a tool, a jig or a hook that you can actually apply. I’ve moved into this area where I can choose what I’m doing and I want to focus on the arts which is more holistic too.
My property is called The Stoney Lee Art Farm. It’s a 19 acre block and it’s basically a hobby farm. It’s a mixture of bushland, farmland, creeks, dams, really friendly cows. We have koalas that come up here really close. The wallabies come right up, all credit to Billy my rescue dog. She is friends with everything and everyone. We have happy chooks, everybody is happy, loads of birdlife, lots of reptiles though we don’t see many snakes. I have a resident carpet snake who I can hear slithering above my bedroom at the moment. I’ve put in a number of different orchards because self sufficiency is important.
In the ideal setting I have a big vision for this place. A day spa operating like Mullumbimby’s Kiva day spa. I think Lismore deserves good things and I know there’s still a lot of people who haven’t recovered or are still depressed about last years devastating flood. We have a high percentage of people still doing it very hard. I figure for those of us who have the good fortune of doing it well, it’s a good thing to put into something that can help peoples well being. We need more interesting things out of the city centre to get people here. It would be lovely to have a little cafe with fresh produce from the farm, have some art workshops running and perhaps the day spa. Instead of having to drive to Mullum you could come out here. I have a big vision but to do that I took the risk of asking Council and they’ve already given me good indication that the compliances would be substantial so we’ll see. In the meantime It’s enough getting the workshops happening. At this stage I’m looking at the building blocks that I can achieve.
Rejigging the art collective has been fantastic and that’s something we do once a week here. Years ago it was primarily ceramic so we have kilns and fire pits of all sizes including a new little on called Miss Piggy. We are also doing metal work as well now.
I named the property in honour of my family tradition. My fathers family is from Ireland and this is the last farm. I’ve named the different paddocks after the family farm in Ireland. My son and I were doing some work up on Arran Hill last year and I took a photo of him wearing his grandfathers hat then I noticed that he was wearing his grandfathers flannelette shirt who had died the year before and realised he was the 6th generation in the family to have farmed on Arran Hill. We call this section here Portland Park after a place at the Shannon in Tipperary which was a house that the family set up as a refuge for the Protestant single mothers. It got burnt down and there was all this scandal at the time. Looking after the underdog and sharing what you have’s been part of the family thing for a long time so I’m just carrying on tradition in many ways.
I produce small crops which are manageable to sustain me and my friends and extended family around me. I trade my chilli’s and tumeric for curries at the Thai restaurant. I have my own fresh meat, eggs, my own sourdough bread, my sprouts, next year I will whip my 2 milking cows into shape and make cheese. I spoil them and we buy milk at this stage. We have Macadamias which we don’t process as it’s too tricky. I make a lot of preserves including an annual supply of brandied cumquats, Cointreau cumquats and prunes in Shiraz which are divine. I make pickles and with all the citrus at the moment I make a supply of orange and almond cakes, lemon tarts and Limoncello. I dehydrate a lot as well. I make my own KimChi. I’m hardly ever at the shops or markets because I have it all here.”