hcv's blog

Mike Whitney & the Sydney Weekender crew come to the farmstay

Submitted on Tuesday, August 30, 2011 - 09:48

What a great bunch the crew are from Channel 7's Sydney Weekender show!

Have just come back in from a campfire with them where we toasted doughboys and filled the holes with fresh, raw honey from our hives - yum!

Mike Whitney and the crew are up here for a couple of days filming some of the different things we get up to here at Honeycomb Valley Farm...from all our gorgeous animals at the farmstay to breadmaking courses, beekeeping courses to our farm-made balms and goat's milk soaps....oh yeh, and solar cooking of course! 

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From Port Stephens to Byron Bay, our Farmstay wins the hosted accommodation category in the North Coast Tourism Awards

Submitted on Tuesday, August 30, 2011 - 09:38

So honoured to win Gold on the weekend at the 2011 CountryLink North Coast Tourism Awards for our Farmstay - Yay! Thank you so much to our guests who make it all possible!

We were in the hosted accommodation section, but there were a whole range of categories with all sorts of interesting accommodation, tour and event offerings...so why not try out some of the winners you can read about here.

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Goats go Potty

Submitted on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - 12:49

You can have plants and you can have goats...but you can't have plants AND goats...not for long anyway! Here are some of our farmstay kids taking over the pot plants. And another pic of our lovely German Helpexer Sarah tempting the other goats away from the good stuff!

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Drama at the Beekeeping Course

Submitted on Tuesday, August 23, 2011 - 12:35

Just had the pleasure of hosting award-winning playwright Caleb Lewis on the farm who is researching a stage play based around a beekeeping theme - such a lovely guy and so interesting to hear his ideas for a great theatre production. He joined in on one of our beekeeping courses and even gave the kids a creative writing lesson. Hopefully the curtains will rise on his play in a year or two and we wish him all the best for a lot of buzz when it does.

 

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Where does one begin...?

Submitted on Monday, August 15, 2011 - 10:19

Today we took another small step towards the creation of the Australian Native Bee Sanctuary to be set within an ethnobotanical garden. Our vision is for the garden to be full of plants of importance to humanity (from the edible to the medicinal, to plants with uses ranging from weaving materials to walking sticks!)...and of course lots of plants providing nectar and pollen for bees. But where does one start? How does one begin such a big project on such a blank slate? Well, you use a 6 year old of course!

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Kids having fun at the farmstay...goat kids that is!

Submitted on Monday, August 15, 2011 - 09:40

Our little troop of goats couldn't be cheekier or cuter than they are at the moment. From wearing winter jackets to snuggling up with eachother on a shelf in the feed shed to sneaking under fences - goats are just such special, curious, responsive animals it's an honour to look after and out for them. We get so much in return, not just milk of course for cheese and drinking and to make our goat's milk soap, but they give us lots of laughs too!

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School Excursion to the Farm today

Submitted on Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - 06:13

So fun today to have the first graders from year 1 at Forster Public School come to the farm for their school excursion. They're studying "farms" and have been learning all about different farm animals - and today they got to meet them!

Our horses, alpacas, sheep, goats, cows and chooks loved all the extra attention...especially our cheeky goats. The children even got to see our solar ovens which were used to bake their cookies for morning tea, and took a look at our goat's milk soaps and natural moisturising balms.

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A week on the farm through the eyes of Cobe & Eric from Hong Kong

Submitted on Friday, July 29, 2011 - 02:35

So lucky to have been helped over the last week by Cobe and Eric from Hong Kong who joined us as part of the Helpx program. They took some great photos while they were here, and here are some of them.

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Plans for The Australian Native Bee Sanctuary & an Ethnobotanical Garden on the Farm

Submitted on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - 07:39

Yay! Very excited to receive a letter from the Minister for Resources and Energy and Tourism to let us know we’ve been successful in the Australia-wide TQUAL Grant program, which means the big dreams for our sustainable small farm are going to become reality…though not without a lot of blisters 

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Learn How to Make Blue Cheese like a Masterchef - August 13 & 14 2011 - and have fun doing it!

Submitted on Friday, July 22, 2011 - 03:06

More than a year ago we enjoyed learning how to make camembert, fetta and goat's cheese with Carole Willman of Cheeselinks (yum!)...and she's coming back to Wingham to teach foodies how to make Blue Cheese!  If you'd like a fab weekend away, leave hubby (or wife!) at the farmstay with the kids and the farmers, while you head 25 minutes up the road to Wingham to learn all about the Blues.

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