Calming Swim with My Pet Ducks
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Get out the back!
00:03Get out the back!
00:05Get out the back!
00:08Get out the... get out the back!
00:13Get up the back though!
00:19Get out the back!
00:27This is the best thing I've ever seen!
00:29Are you alright?
00:59I'm fine.
01:03You're not scared?
01:05No.
01:07I'm not scared.
01:11You're not scared?
01:13No.
01:15I can give you a shot.
01:17Yes.
01:19Come here.
01:27Come here.
01:39You're such a good boy.
01:49It feels like just yesterday that these ducklings were tiny babies, and we're introducing them to the creek for the first time ever.
02:01At first they were scared, but quickly they learned to love this place.
02:06And now they are almost fully grown, and their favourite thing to do is to splash and swim and explore.
02:19Look at that.
02:23Look at that.
02:41You're so cute.
02:43Such a good boy.
02:45He's going to go under.
02:51Look at that.
03:09We are sisters, Julia and Anastasia, and a few years ago now we chose this life in the Australian rainforest.
03:16With the help of our animal friends we work to restore nature's balance, garden, grow our own food and live with the land.
03:28And if there's one thing that this life has taught us, it is to find joy and creativity in every moment.
03:33From cooking to caring for the land, creating with our hands, sewing, painting and gardening, we've learnt to do it all with love.
03:42We wrote a book that tells our story of returning to a life lived in harmony with nature, and in it we share all the secrets of how to live a creative life.
03:51You can buy it by following the link in our description, or from bookstores around the world.
03:59So I got this blanket from the second hand shop, and the woman there actually gave it to me for free and laughed at me, wondering why I would want such a broken old blanket.
04:09But I have many plans for it. There is so much joy and purpose that I get from seeing something broken that can be fixed to become a loved piece, and this blanket particularly excites me.
04:20It's beautifully handmade, probably a long time ago, and there's all these layers of hand stitching, showing how much love and care has been put into it.
04:29So I definitely want to honour the original maker, and for that reason I think that a 70s long cardigan is the perfect thing to make from it.
04:59If not two is quite tight, I think that wouldn't be very nice.
05:03I don't want to actually cut any crochet, because then it will unravel, and it's already made so beautifully.
05:09It's just the connecting stitch that hasn't held up with time.
05:13So my plan is to disconnect these four squares. The bigger two will join to create the base of the cardigan, and the smaller two will be sleeves.
05:23At first, unpicking the connecting stitch was long and tedious, but I found a technique of pulling the thread out and it's become so much easier.
05:31But there is still a lot of disconnected squares that I'll need to fix up later.
05:38At this point, I'm starting to see the difference. It's beginning to transform from a ratty old blanket to a cute cardigan.
05:45It's funny, sometimes I have a vision for something in my head, and then I begin to do it and I realise that it's not going to be like what I imagined.
05:52Or it's impossible, or ugly, but at this point it looks exactly like what I imagined, and I'm excited.
06:03That's the kind of sleeve drama I want!
06:07That... would be half of it.
06:15As the sower of the family, I inherited both grandma's sewing supplies, and to be honest, I own so many tools that I do not know what they are even supposed to be used for.
06:25But as my life unfolds and I become a little more adventurous with craft each day, I feel like I'm slowly unlocking these tools and not just discovering their use, but actually connecting to them and using them every day.
06:38This is a yarn needle, and it belonged to our grandma on mum's side of the family.
06:42As I sew a thousand stitches with it, I keep wondering what project she completed with it.
06:47I have a tape measure that belonged to our grandma on dad's side of the family, and I use it almost every day.
06:53These tools feel like they hold the knowledge of all of those who used them before me.
06:58Something about crochet that I definitely like more than sewing is that you can take it everywhere.
07:03In the garden, watching the sunset, or my personal favourite, by the creek as the ducklings swim.
07:10As you can probably tell, these ducklings have become a bit spoilt, and they like to bathe in the fresh stream daily.
07:18I love it though, and I often join in on the fun.
07:39I'm so excited and proud about this cardigan, it's honestly such a big moment for me.
07:50I've always wanted to learn to crochet, and while I did not crochet this, I can't take the credit for that.
07:55It was a pretty old and ugly and broken blanket, and now it's probably the cutest cardigan that I've ever owned in my whole life.
08:06I love it so much, it's so colourful and bright, and it's going to be really cosy in the winter.
08:12It's not cold yet, it's probably a few more months until I'm going to really need a cardigan this warm.
08:19We picked these bunya nuts a few weeks ago, and today I'm finally processing them.
08:24Bunya cones are kind of like a massive pine cone, so by this way of thinking, bunya nuts are kind of like a massive pine nut.
08:32So, I'm going to make pesto from them, since we have so much basil in the garden at the moment.
08:38Bunya nuts are not easy to process, so there's just a lot of chopping and hoping that you get to the nut inside.
09:02Help me.
09:32We live on the land of the Arakwal and Minjibul people of the Bundjalung Nation.
09:50We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the country we live on, and recognise their continuing connection to the land and waters.
09:57We thank them for protecting this rainforest and its ecosystems since time immemorial.
10:02Come on.
10:25This paddock was once so full of weeds, and they were so thick you couldn't even see the view.
10:30We've been working hard to regenerate the bush, eliminating the weeds and planting native species.
10:36We actually planted some bunya pines here, so that one day, us or those who will come next will be able to harvest and cook from them.
10:48The goats help a lot with the weed removal, spreading the seeds in native grasses, eating weeds, fertilising the soil and combating erosion.
10:57They're our best helpers when it comes to regenerating the rainforest.
11:04It's such a beautiful feeling, letting the goats into a new paddock.
11:07You can see they're so excited to eat all this grass.
11:10They're just going crazy for it.
11:29When Nim was just a tiny little baby, she discovered this seesaw, and it was probably the cutest moment ever.
11:36Look at her. She's such a big girl.
11:40She's not even interested in cuddles. She just wants to go off and eat like a big grown-up goat.
11:51And when Moombi was a little baby, she also discovered the seesaw.
11:55I feel like it's a bit of a rite of passage for all the baby goats.
11:59It's kind of cute to see them interact with it as big grown-ups.
12:29You are our guest.
12:31Toes of the grass, gripping with us.
12:35Looking around, there it does.
12:40All those familiar sounds.
12:44Those familiar textures and colours.
12:49Now your heart is truly bound.
12:53Within the vines are all the poets and the poems.
12:58Into the woods, lay on your chest, feeling the pulse of all the insects.
13:23Scent of the moss, so damp and so fresh.
13:27Fixated eyes on the birds in their nests.
13:32All those familiar sounds.
13:37Those familiar textures and colours.
13:41Now your heart is truly bound.
13:45Within the vines are all the poets and lovers.
13:50All those familiar sounds.
13:54Those familiar textures and colours.
13:58Now your heart is truly bound.
14:03Within the vines are all the poets and lovers.
14:20There's still so many weeds around, even though the weather's starting to cool down.
14:32But I'm just trying to get under control so that I can have a good cold season growing period.
14:38I'm so excited for my bananas to ripen.
14:40These will be the first bananas that I've ever grown, from sucker all the way to the fruit.
14:46And I can't wait to eat that banana and taste its flavours when I know exactly where it came from and who grew it.
14:58I'm pretty proud of this little section of the garden.
15:00We've got the banana plants that go really tall.
15:03And then down below we've got, this is taro.
15:06And then sweet potatoes as ground cover.
15:09And lots of mulch so that the weeds don't come.
15:12But you can see behind me is what I shouldn't be doing, which is just growing lots of weeds.
15:17And that's when it gets hard.
15:19And that's why commercial banana growing, there's so many pesticides used.
15:23Because the weeds are so intense where bananas do grow in this kind of subtropical climate.
15:29But there's ways around it, like sweet potatoes.
15:34This season I'm really focusing on growing foods that are really well suited to this climate.
15:39So obviously bananas.
15:41But also I've planted cassava, which we've been using lots of tapioca flour in our cooking at the moment.
15:46And that's where it comes from.
15:48So I'm excited to see that process from start to finish.
15:54I've never grown cassava before, but I don't know.
15:57This one, it seems a bit sad sometimes.
16:00So I don't know if I'm over-watering it or under-watering it.
16:02But today it looks really happy.
16:04But then a few days ago it was looking all wilted.
16:07Maybe it's not getting enough sun, or maybe it's getting too much sun?
16:10I don't know, it's a mystery.
16:15So the cassava that you eat is actually, I think, the root of the plant.
16:19And it's used for lots of things, like tapioca pearls and, I don't know, cassava and different things and flowers.
16:25You can use it for heaps, so I'm excited if this does grow.
16:28I have another banana that's growing a huge bunch.
16:32But it's too tall, I can't reach it to put a bag on it.
16:35So it's over a barbed wire fence as well.
16:37So I don't know, I'm just leaving it.
16:39Hopefully the birds won't find it.
16:41Maybe it's good bait so that if the birds do find it, they'll find that one and not my other one.
16:46I don't know.
16:48So these are suckers, or pups, that I have transplanted from the original banana plant and moved them here.
16:54But I made a few mistakes.
16:56I planted them way too close together.
16:58I think it's supposed to be like 2.5 metres apart, and this is less than 1 metre.
17:03And this one was probably a bit too old that it hasn't really grown.
17:08It looks like it's dying.
17:10But it might come back to life, we'll see.
17:16This one is a sucker that is going well.
17:18It died a little bit to start off, but now it's reshooting.
17:32So a lesson that I've learnt in my small journey of banana farming is that these are dwarf cabbage bananas.
17:55And they grow a lot easier because you can actually reach the fruit.
17:59Whereas these ones are ladyfingers.
18:01And while they're a smaller fruit, they're only like this big when they're fully grown,
18:06the actual plant is massive and tall and so hard to reach the fruit.
18:13So I don't know what I prefer because these ones are much easier.
18:17But ladyfingers are actually native to Australia and have really good biodiversity.
18:21And are way better to be resistant to disease.
18:26Whereas these ones are easier.
18:29With ducklings, you never know if they're girls or boys until they either quack or they don't.
18:52Boys have a wispy voice, while girls have a deep quack.
18:57You can only have a few boys, depending on how many girls you have, because otherwise they'll fight.
19:01So I've been hoping that these two are girls.
19:04And that this week, not just one, but both Happy and Snug have been quacking.
19:09So they're both girls.
19:11Happy does these tiny dramatic quacks, while Snug prefers to say whoop.
19:16They're both such funny characters.
19:19The music in this video is by Aaron Gold from Parking on the Wildside.
19:26They create beautiful videos appreciating nature as they travel in their self-converted campervan.
19:31You can find their links below.
19:36Thank you so much to our patrons for supporting our regeneration and tree planting.
19:48Thank you for watching!