Reminders of what is important to us - backyard

Earlier in the week we shared what we love about our homes and the work we do there. I thank you all for sharing your incredible stories; I thought many of them were inspirational and I'm sure other readers did too. Now let's carry on highlighting what we love about our simple lives. Today we're going out to the backyard to examine what we love out there. You may be growing fruit and vegetables, you might have chickens, pigs, goats, a house cow or bees. Or are you harvesting water, generating electricity or recycling? We want to know what you're doing in your backyard, why you're doing it and why it's important. It's much easier to sit and read a book so why do you want to work outside instead? I hope some of the men join in today. I know you're out there. :- )

I'll lead off. You've seen photos of our backyard and will have probably have noticed the line of trees along the back boundary, behind the chicken run. That is a creek that defines the back boundary of our property, and along that creek runs a thick line of remnant rainforest. That rainforest and the fences on each side seem to embrace us and anyone in the backyard. It gives a feeling of seclusion and privacy and I count myself very lucky to be able to produce food in that space. I love the feeling of being self-contained here, that we can grow food, keep chickens, harvest water, make things out of scraps, use what we produce to keep our grocery bill lower than average and take advantage of the land we live on. Making our land productive gives us better value for the money we spent buying this place.

But I think the main thing is the feeling I get when I walk out there. There is a feeling of connection, that we're improving this land, increasing its fertility, encouraging microbes to grow in the soil along with the vegetables and knowing that partnership benefits the plants, the soil and us. I love that such a productive area is also very beautiful and that I can sit out there, work, pick things, invite people around, enjoy my family there or just sit alone and think under the elder tree and no one can come along and tell me to leave. When I produce good food in my backyard it makes me feel capable and reliable and that what we're doing here has more significance than just mucking about in the backyard. There is purpose here.

I like the idea of being self-reliant too. We harvest water from the roof and it is enough water to tend the garden, keep the chickens alive and clean everything out there. We are able to harvest and store 15,000 litres and therefore do not taking any water from the local dam for our outdoor activities and tasks.  We make our own hot water in the solar water system on the roof and using the solar panels beside it, we shape our lives to cut down on electricity and get by with that small system. In the two years since we had it installed we've paid only one small bill. We don't want to make money with our solar panels, we just want to live how we live without paying electricity bills. We try to recycle and compost as much as we can so the burden of disposing of our waste is not entirely on the local council. I know we pay good money for them to do that but I believe it's up to us to do as much as we can ourselves.

The icing on the cake is walking inside with a basket brimming with fresh eggs and organic vegetables and eating those vegetables minutes after they've been picked. Yesterday I picked three organic oranges from the tree and filled a glass with the juice. In less than five minutes, that drink was gone. I felt healthy just drinking it and I know that even if I had a million dollars, I could not have bought a better drink than that. And it all comes from our backyard.

I'm eager to read about your backyard too, or your food growing.  This is not about cooking the food, that will come soon, it's about your backyard, what you do out there and the feeling you get by doing it.

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