And I have been asked to be the first guest blogger whilst Celi is away.
I live in Australia but I was not born here. I grew up in the British countryside then spent many years in various cities (London, New York, Sydney) before settling here on the beautiful far North coast of NSW, back to being a country girl again. Here is the street I live on, that is my dog Rueben.
and
Here is my house,
I farm trees and pigs. There are a thousand Black Butt trees down in that forest very quietly going about their business, growing for nearly twenty years with probably another ten or so years to go before they amount to anything.
I also farm pigs in a small way. I started out with two male pigs that I grew to eat because I don’t agree with the way pigs are raised commercially in this country. I wanted to eat pigs that have lived a good life, digging and running around outside so I decided to raise my own.
My dad raised pigs so I thought I knew all about it, but I didn’t. I didn’t know for instance that uncastrated male pig meat tastes and smells bad if the pigs are left to mature so my two boys were quickly hustled off to the butcher before that could happen. The result was way too much meat for me so I started a business, Red Box Pigs, selling pork, ham and bacon to other likeminded folk.
Recently I tried my hand at breeding my own piglets, the 1st home grown litter resulted in eight piglets who are now 10 weeks old.
I am on thirty acres, the view is lovely from up here but the land is steep and hard to tame. I have to try and strike a balance between what is attainable with going to work and having a social life and sometimes I yearn for five flat acres!
This area of NSW is classified as sub tropical. This means that we can grow stuff that, despite being here for nearly 20 years, I still think of as exotic like bananas and avocados. I grow lots of citrus, lemons, limes, mandarins and ruby grapefruit.
Winter here is not that cold, this high up we are frost free so we are able to grow lots of stuff all year around. The down side of that is that there is never really a period of intense cold to kill off disease in the ground and it is way too warm for apples so I am deeply envious of all you bloggers who make cider. Summer is too hot for many veggies and I can actually grow more in the winter, stuff like beans and spinach and broccoli grow better in the cooler months. Normally this area get lots of storms and rain but this winter has been dry and spring has been unusually dry and hot. My water is collected in tanks and dams so I have to be careful what I use now as it has only rained twice since June.
Tonight it looked as though we were going to have a big storm but it turned out to be all effing and blinding and no actual tears. But then we got a double rainbow.
I feel obligated to leave you with some Australian fauna as we are known for our outsize creepy crawlies and scary reptiles like this Python which we call a carpet snake.
It has taken up residence in the pig pen just in time for me to blog this photo, for three days now he has been right on the table where I sort out the feed.
Finally here is a bit of Aussie cuteness to give Boo and the Marmalade Kitten a run for their money.
This is Inez and her bub. My neighbour Joy, who also reads Celi’s blog (she is Two Engaging Goldens) is a koala carer. Inez came into Joy’s care as a “soft release” koala, this means she was orphaned as a wee baby, raised by an organisation called Friends of the Koala, then taken to Joy’s half way koala house before being released back into the wild.
The bub is evidence that her integration into the wild koala population has been hugely successful.
Well this was fun, see you in the comments lounge?
Sally
PS in the spirit of Celi’s blog all of these photos were taken in the last day or two, the exception is the photo above of Inez and her bub which was taken a few weeks ago but just too cute to leave out.
The Kitchen's Garden 
131 responses to “Hello I’m Sally, AKA Red Box Gal –”
Hello Sally ~ How much fun that the first of Celi’s guest blogs comes from NSW Down Under. because I too am writing from there. And I too came from Northern climes, in my case Estonia . . . and after Sydney, had many years in Ocean Shores on the coast near you. A lovely post to show the countryside which differs quite a bit from Celi’s but your piglets look just as happy as hers 🙂 ! Remember getting a bight fright when I first saw a carpet snake . . . one does get used to them . . .the hordes of field mice bothered me more!!
That is so cool! Thanks so much for writing.
It’s hot where I live too, the southeast US. I have better luck with spinach, lettuce, broccoli, kale, carrots, etc, in the cool months too.
How cool is it to live amoung koalas!
So, what are you going to do about that python? Anything? I mean, are you still sorting your feed on the table next to it? Will he eat your critters?
What kind of dog is Reuben – other than a cute one 🙂
Last time I looked the carpet snake was snuggled up between two pallets that separate the bays of the compost heap. A nice warm spot for him if a little smelly as its full of pig poo.
Rube is a bitser, half Irish wolfhound, half old english sheepdog.
Thanks for commenting, this is a little bit exciting!
Rube must be huge!!! Nice mix!!! He looks like a gentle soul! 🙂
Wonderful post and photos. Thanks Sally for stepping in and giving us a glimpse into your life. It’s a big world out there and we are lucky to have this medium to cross paths and share so much. And great little tip there on the male pigs. We have been thinking about getting a couple weaner pigs to raise in the next couple years but still have research to do. We get lovely meat from a nearby farm on our island at the moment, so we are fortunate to have healthy, local pork, lamb, beef and chicken. But I’d still like to someday grown my own.
cheers… wendy
Oh do get some piggies they are fun, but you do need very good fencing, better than mine, oh heres the other thing, train them to come home for food, then it doesn’t matter so much about the fencing! How lovely that you can get all of that locally grown meat right there on your island. I would like to raise my own free range meat birds here but there is no where to take the birds to be processed and I dont really have it in me to do it at home.
Your island looks really lovely, you are right this blogging business does allow us to share our little corner of the world with each other.
Someone told me the first thing to figure out before you raise anything for meat is who is going to “harvest” it. I’m with you. I’ve done my own chickens before. And I’d rather not again. I’d sort of like to send it all off with a lovely blessing and have it come back wrapped up neatly. It is so far, where I have drawn my self sustainability line.
Hello Sally ~ great that Celi chose someone from NSW, Down Under to write the first guest post as I am wtiting from there also. I too came to Oz from Northern climes: in my case Estonia, and lived in Sydney, and then on the Coast near you at Ocean Shores! Small world!! Lovely photos of the undulating semi-tropical area and so different from the farmy! But you have grown your piglets in the same spirit as Celi and they look just as happy. Remember the first grass snake around my ankles . . . actually methinks the little green ones which drop on you from the trees and are poisonous more of a pest!!!
Must have had a long day: I did mean a carpet snake . . . the little ones were called grass ones I think 🙂 !
Hello Eha, I hope things have calmed down a bit for you down there on the edge of sydney. That must have been scary.
Ocean Shores eh, well what a nice spot, I miss being close to the beach.
Sorry Sally: had some computer problems last night, so the ‘anonymous’ obviously is also mine! . . . Yes, it was scary, very scary and since the fire is still burning 100 F days such as we are continuously having make one watch the wind all the time!!!!
Good Morning Sally. I am one of Cecilia fans from Alabama.She is my first read in the dawn of day and goes great with coffee. I love learning about new places in the world, Thank you for being a fine hostess.Koalas are cute little critters,Have a lovely day.
Inez and her bub are very cute, we are so lucky to have koala’s here. I have lived in lots of places in the Australian countryside but this is the 1st place I have really seen koalas in the wild. Still you have to really look out for them as they perch very high in the tallest of trees, sometimes they look quite precarious swaying up there in the breeze
We saw the double rainbow too – but I dont know where it ended – definitely no pot of gold here. 🙂 Joy
How funny is this, our street on Celi’s blog! The rainbow started at Zuela’s place and finished at the store. I have seen a double once before but never seen a complete curve with a start and finish. Shame it didn’t come with a bit of rain.
Hi Sally – what a wonderful introduction to the world of NSW! You have some beautiful views, and I just love your dog (but what big feet he has, has he stopped growing yet?)
You can obviously take great pictures like Celi does, really brings the place alive. And the double rainbow was caught just right, it really stands out from the screen.
In the spirit of the south of America, “have a good day y’all”
Lyn
Reuben has just been clipped but he is ticklish about his feet so they get left, makes him look like a shire horse! The photos were a real lottery, taken with a mobile phone and not much skill. I dont know why some are so much smaller than the others but I do know that Celi did her best to fix them up.
Morning Sally! I understand what you are saying about your hilly terrain but those pigs don’t half look happy and content out there on the hill, and I bet the bacon tastes blumin good too! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a double rainbow, in fact I don’t think I knew they existed…..
Have a happy day!
Hi Claire, they are very happy piglets and they taste very good. My dad kept his pigs on an allotment, we lived in the country and he had a plot that was on the side of the allotments and quite big, a couple of acres I think. It was back in the day when you could feed pigs swill and as kids we used to run around and collect scraps from all the other allotment holders then dad would boil it all up and feed it to the noisy squealing pigs. I am not sure how popular we actually were with the other allotment people trying to enjoy sunday arvo on their plot!
Brilliant! I would be happy to have some piggies living nearby to give my scraps to! There are fewer and fewer allotments where you are able to keep animals now, I think it’s sad, the councils get worried – even to get a bee hive onto an allotment can be a fuss and faff!
Good Morning Sally! (well Morning here in Texas!!!) Lovely post!
Howdy, I love texas, especially the Big Bend country and Austin. Long time since I have been there, would love to go back.
Hi Sally, I used to live on the mid-north coast of NSW, first in Dorrigo for 3 years and then a year in Coffs Harbour. Like you, I’m an ex-Brit who’s lived in major cities but yearned for a return to the country, in this case, the Australian country! Now I live in Mackay, north Queensland, and have a banana, mango, avocado and lychee in the back yard. Bit of a change from the south of England… I’m looking forward to hearing a bit more about your 30 acres; very jealous of all that space. Kate
Hi Kate, Dorrigo is lovely, but wet, at least it has been when ever I have been there. The road between there and Bellingen is crazy when its wet. Where are you from in the south of England? I grew up in the New Forest but all my people live in Dorset now so that is my stomping ground when I go back.
Newbury, near the Berkshire/Hampshire border, but my family’s scattered all over Europe now, just a brother left in Sussex. And yes, Dorrigo was wet! The mountain road used to close regularly when there was a lot of rain. Whereabouts in northern NSW are you?
Near Lismore
I’ll wave to you as we pass on our way down to Coffs later this month. Enjoy your stint on the farmy 🙂
Great stuff Sally..I did so enjoy reading about you life in NSW. Your Reuben has the most enormous feet , what type of breed is he??
Living a life with a snake !!! You are so brave. I have heard about the dodgy creepies in Uassieland..but to live with one…never!
Thank you so much for doing such a grand job. Celi will be well pleased.
Rueben is a cross between a dog and a small pony! Na, he is a wolf hound cross, totally unsuitable for this climate as his coat is very long and shaggy and hard to search for ticks. But he is very cute and a nice dog to boot so here he is.
The snake is big but harmless, not poisonous and no threat to my animals. He hangs out in the pig shed ‘cos pig feed equals mice and he keeps the rodents down. Right now I would like it if he came into the house as I have a plague of the tiniest mice you have ever seen. I need a cat.
Oh, Thank You! Snakes have such a bad reputation and they are sometimes very helpful. I hope your snake’s partner moves into your house/mouse pantry.
Lovely! Just lovely. What a terrific community and terrific people.
That is so true, I think Celi draws good people to her.
I meant Aussieland
Hi Sally! eeek! Where have you been sorting the feed while you’ve had your friend there? Not sure where you are, but my Aunty used to have a place near Taree that was as lovely and hilly as your gorgeous place 🙂 {do you have a blog too? I cant find it}
No blog, I think Celi has asked “un bloggers” to guest. Like Celi, I have an old clapped out car in my shed. Originaly I thought to get rid of it but the bonnet serves very well as a 2nd table in a snake situation.
Greetings Sally from the Mid-Atlantic, USA. What a fine hostess you are.
This hostess is up way past her bedtime but is having too much fun to sleep!