I couldn’t get Yilla out of the house this morning… She was too busy lying in bed with her gumboots on reading an organic gardener magazine. Go figure.
She wouldn’t budge until she came across a picture of a watermelon. “Yilla, shall we go and get some watermelon from the farmers market?” Up she springs and runs out the door, me scrabbling to collect our shopping bags behind her. Time to go gather provisions!
I want to begin our blog journey by showing you all where we come from and where we get our food at home. I think we may live in the biggest food oasis in Australia. There’s farmers markets 4 days a week, an organic store in every town in the shire and in most neighbouring shires too! We’re also blessed with a 5 acre thriving community garden where you can grow food, harvest from the shared plot or take one of the many fantastic courses on things like permaculture and beekeeping. It’s one of our favorite places to be, just soaking up the abundance. Everywhere you look there’s food! Makes you wonder why the whole world isn’t one big community garden! From the community gardens also runs the bulk-food co-op which is the gem of this food oasis. All the staff are volunteers which means the cost of the food is significantly reduced as no wages are paid and no one is trying to make a profit. The co-op consists of basically a garden shed filled with shelves of dried goods and the volunteers are usually friends who love to hang out with Yilla while I get busy re-filling our jars with the weekly supplies. Everytime the cashier tells me the final price I do a little internal happy dance. I will miss the co-op dearly while we’re gone, but it may be even bigger and better once we get back as they have been fundraising tirelessly for a solar powered, refrigerated shipping container so they can expand their range. Unfortunately it’s closed for the festive season so I don’t have any photos to show you, but when we return I’ll do a piece on it. Promise! We’re pretty blessed to call this place home and it definately sets the bar pretty high with it’s glorious beaches and stunning waterholes but it’s exactly this reason that attracts so many thousands of visitors here at this time of the year and there is just sooooo many people everywhere. It’s a great time of year to go somewhere a little quieter and Yilla and I are just bouncing around in anticipation for our departure on thursday! Yipee! Can’t wait to get on the road…
Food Oasis 