Neo-Peasantry: A Way Of Life

As a culture we have chosen climate change. We have created it through unbridled desires, our modes of travel, consuming passions and our gluttonous economic form. As a family, on a household income that would be considered below the poverty line, we have chosen another path.

Living With The Seasons

In many ways how we live is a form of neo-peasantry, observing and interacting with the six distinct Jaara seasons (early spring, true spring, early summer, late summer, autumn, winter), drawing on the surviving spirit of the moneyless ecological agrarianism that has existed on Dja Dja Wurrung country, where we live, for millennia.

We spend the autumn preserving food, filling the cellar, collecting fallen wood on foot, and planting alliums, broad beans and brassicas. The winter is a time for collecting mushrooms, dispatching roosters, preparing composts, and drinking plum pip mead and beer made from our hops, honey, dandelion and burdock roots.