Peanuts Funny Farm, Goulburn

I'd never heard of a funny farm before. When I told my mum that was where I was spending the next 6 days, she laughed. Peanuts Funny Farm is an animal rescue sanctuary, and a charity pioneered by Tracey Keenan. Tracey is vegan and began this farm with an aim to help reduce animal cruelty and human to human abuse. This is a snapshot of their mission statement:

"We provide for many neglected and abused stock/domesticated animals. PFF has a no put-down policy; therefore the animals live out their lives on the farm. The animals come from an animal organization that rescues then but does not have the resources to home them. When we have an opening for a new animal, we will contact them and they will let us know what animals they have that need a home. The animals share the farm with children that are often from dysfunctional/abusive families themselves.

Over 70% of aggressive, incarcerated criminals are reported to be from dysfunctional backgrounds that tortured and/or murdered animals as children. This behaviour stems from learned behavior from seeing adults vent their anger and frustrations on helpless animals. Some children, neglected and abused themselves have had no other choices modeled for them; therefore they grow up not knowing any better and pass on this learned behavior to the next generation.

Teaching children animal-assisted activities with kindness/empathy and thoughtfulness both enhances the quality of animal welfare as well as the quality of the children’s life. Children develop more awareness and understanding. Children spend quality time with the different types of animals at Peanuts and together both find a comfort, respect, trust and love each other and learn that they DO MATTER. We believe this will help break the cycle and mind set of abuse and help grate a better future for both animals and children of today and of future generations."

Tracey also fosters children in her home, and other children regularly come to visit the farm and benefit from it. Most of the animals have been rescued from various locations, or saved from slaughter. I was staying there as part of the WWOOF programme (willing workers on organic farms) from 19.2.15 - 26.2.15 and stayed in the lovely guest house on site, which comes with an equipped kitchenette, bathroom and 2 dorm rooms. It was very nice to have this to myself and relax in the evenings with a book or a podcast.

The family were very kind and generous and interesting to talk to. I enjoyed being part of the family for that time, going for a swim in the nearby creek (with rapids!), going to the local town and watching an Aussie movie in their own theatre in the garage.

The kids were so polite and friendly to me. Each afternoon, after school, they would load up the quad and wheelbarrows and head up to the fields to feed the animals. One evening I joined in and fed the goats, pigs, and bulls. Those goats were fiesty!

 

There are: 2 young bulls (Panda and Nugget), 3 pigs (Millie, Kipton and Pig Pig), 1 duck, 2 Goats (mother and daughter: Nellie and Kaiola), 3 Ponies, 4 horses, as well as dogs and cats. And loads of native birds who visit. I took various jobs. Weeding the veggie garden took ages! I also helped clear the pigs' area for some new fencing and construction of a new pigsty. A palace of a pigsty, called Pigtopia sponsored by the NSW Vegan Society! I cleared out the horses shed and used the manure on the veggie garden, swept up all the fallen leaves and branches into piles for winter firewood, weeded and cleared around the birds' hut which had become overgrown, and also helped cooked and EAT some delicious vegan delights.

I would definitely recommend anyone to visit PFF for the day, or to volunteer there or to donate to this excellent charity which is aiming to help not just the animals but children.

Peanuts Funny Farm website

http://www.peanutsfunnyfarm.org.au/our-story/

First Wwoofing Experience - Australia

Hiking boots, breathable long sleeve top, long trousers, suncream, hat, sunglasses... all packed and ready for my first wwoof experience in Dunolly, in the Goldfields region, a couple of hours north of Melbourne. What the heck is wwoof you ask?

'Willing workers on organic farms'
Hopefully I look like one of those?

It's a cultural exchange programme which enables farmers in rural Australia to have help on the farm, to share skills, to learn how farming and life is done in other countries and for the 'wwoofer' or woofa, in Aussie, to learn new skills about organic farming and building work as well as experiencing the true rural Australian lifestyle and also for some to improve their English. Of course it's relatively cheap labour for the farmer if they get a skilled woofer and the woofer receives free accommodation and food during their stay.

In my case, the hosts were a lovely couple who were very keen to help me learn new skills which I can take back someday to set up an Irish small holding with probably a strawbale home, a chicken coop and veggie garden. Their farm is an organic herb and garlic farm called Bromley Organics. We picked calendula flowers to be dried and sent off to a cosmetic company, we sorted harvested nettle and lemonbalm for weeds, weeded and mulched, did some building work and took an old wardrobe apart! I learnt about organic growing, permaculture systems which promote recycling of resources, environmentally friendly and sustainable systems. I learnt about caring for chickens ('chooks'), growing vegetables, fruit and herbs and about water saving and collecting. The latter might not be required in Ireland.

Generally you work 4-6 hours a day which was on average what I worked. Some days when the weather is close to 40C it's best to start work at 6:30am. At other times my hosts were kind enough to drive me around their friends houses which had been built from cob, mudbrick and strawbale and I was able to ask them questions about how they built and designed these. Evenings were very peaceful in my own caravan with a million stars shining in the pitch black above, any fear of the dark now banished! Often we would swim in the dam after a day of work, or even during work, to cool down! Canoeing in the dam was also fun!


I particularly enjoyed the community small town life and joined in at the weekly community garden one evening, went to watch an SES (State Emergency Service) training session, and saw a small field just after a small bushfire. Oh! And lots of kangaroos. Thankfully I saw no snakes though I did see a large lizard and echidna. On a day off I went to the local museum which had lots of gold mining artefacts and a replica of the Welcome Stranger golden nugget found nearby at Moliagul. This was the heaviest ever recorded golden nugget in the world bug of course was melted down not long after being mined.

At the weekend I went camping with my host and her 3 granddaughters in the Kooyoora State Park. We went for some short walks, spotted kangaroos, cooked some stew and roasted marshmallows and bananas with chocolate over the fire!

My next stop was Bendigo, another Goldrush boom town of the mid 1880s. Bendigo had a very interesting history  and I enjoyed the art galler there and a visit to Australia's deepest gold mine which closed was used mostly in the 1940s-70s. I didn't go to the deepest point but 60m was deep enough for me! I donned the hard hat and head torch and enjoyed hearing stories of what it was like working down there during those times. Thankfully there was an industrial lift so we didn't have to climb all the steps!