We 3 moved into Prickle Farm 11 years ago. The name seemed obvious at the time with broken fenced steep hillsides dotted with feral olives and broom and mysterious valleys enclosing impenetrable 3 metre high blackberries and reeds. The photos above give a little idea of what we bought! Paddock by paddock since we have re-fenced, picked up rocks, found stone walls, waterfalls, cliff-faces, bottles, horseshoes, old metal pipes and tracks, huge red-gums and manna gums. We have cut, slashed, sprayed, pulled and burned the weeds, bull-dozed, chain-sawed and mulched olives, added drinking troughs, yards, water tanks, an orchard then a net, a chicken run, flower garden and vegetable patch as well as innumerable trees of every possible species. We have gone from Abby, the black and white matriarch cow who died at 24years old to 40 cattle and calves, from 1 cat Snuggles to 2 cats- Sakura the bicolour British Blue and Kaiser the Burmilla, from 1 dog Honey to our breeding border collies- Roxy and Merlin- and Houston-the pup who refused to leave, Missy and Marshmallow-the 2 golden border collie pups from the very last litter and 12 chickens. We have gained fencing gear, a 6 wheel polaris, a bulldozer-Marvin, a tractor-John, excavator-Scoop and now a Bobcat too. And between both working and sometimes not, we have many days when the tasks yet undone are overwhelming. But on the old barn/stable floor we found a little pendant booklet dated 1902 and in German it was engraved ‘unforgettable days’. We have finally rebuilt the stone hut by the waterfall true to how it would have been and it is a magical place surrounded by stone cliffs and old plum and apple trees. Indeed the days when we find orchids, koalas, echidnas, kangaroos, wild goats or deer and old remnants of walls or tracks and can give our own special names to places not seen for maybe a 100 years by anyone- these days keep us going….. and onward to the next challenge which we will try to post as blogs.