In early 2018 I decided to make a bold move, a change in life direction. My dream was to live a more natural holistic self-sustainable lifestyle.
The shift was not easy it meant giving up being close to my friends and family, I now work from dawn till dusk and to go shopping is a 2hr car trip.
All I can say about that is “worth it”. I now live on a small 50-acre farm nestled in a beautiful valley next to the Scamander river on the east coast of Tasmania.
On the farm I have 3.5-acre cherry orchard with approximately 1500 cherry trees 5 different varieties, my favorite being Sunburst, big soft juicy burgundy coloured cherries. Fruit picking goes from the middle of December until the end of January. There are 2 hives for pollinating the orchard and producing honey from the ironbark forest behind the farm. I also have 3 lawn mowers in the form of Dorper sheep (They malt their wool so no need to sheer). Sometimes the neighbour’s cows come and stay for a month or two to give the sheep a hand in keeping the grass down in the paddocks.
After experiencing a bad season of drought where the dam was empty for the last part of the fruiting season, autumn rain has replenished the water supply and the yellow of Summer has given way to a beautiful lush green. This has allowed me to start work on the ¼ acre organic veggie garden. With the gravity fed irrigation in place and full to the brim, the area plowed, the green manure seed is in to grow over winter and will be turned in for the spring planting Tomatoes, cucumber, eggplant and all the great delights to eat in summer.
I feel blessed to have had some of my Summit friends visit the farm Simon, Belinda and Andrew and look forward to further visits from any of my Summit family.
Apart from the farm lifestyle there is also Summit Innovations. I now work remotely busy with assisting in the design of new products and helping in maintain the existing ones, I also assist our new contractor team doing installs and field service calls when needed. Summit Innovations now has 2 contractors 1 positioned at each end of the State. Brad from Verdouw electrical is based in Hobart and has already assisted with several installs, including the upgrade of 4 Hungry jack sites to the latest tech and the new Zambreros store in Rosny Park. In Launceston we have Brenton from Tones electrical who was also a part of the northern region roll out for Hungry Jacks as well as various service requests dealing with headset and timer systems. Between the 3 of us we have Tasmania covered.
