16 September 2026
Forty acres felt like far too much
Three years ago this month, the four of us moved onto forty acres.
We’d come from two and a half. Before that, a backyard in the Redlands. Two and a half acres had felt like plenty — we knew every corner of it, we’d planted it out, and we’d called it our forever home. It lasted twelve months.
So we expected forty acres to feel like relief. More room. More of everything we’d been running out of.
It didn’t. It felt enormous.
Two of those acres were clear. The rest was forest and lantana, and lantana isn’t something you walk through. We’d stand at the edge of the cleared bit looking at a wall of it, with no real idea what was behind there. We owned it and we hadn’t seen most of it.
For a long while we farmed the corner we understood and left the rest alone. It’s a strange way to live somewhere. You know it’s yours. You just can’t get to it.
What changed it wasn’t a plan. We put animals onto a bit more of it. We had a forestry mulcher in, twice. We fenced a piece, moved the sheep through, watched what came up, then did the next piece. Every time something started working, the place got a little smaller and we got a little bigger.
That’s the part we didn’t expect: you don’t get your head around a place by looking at it. You get it by using it.
Three years on, it’s still mostly ahead of us. Most of the back half is lantana we’ve barely touched, and the fencing that would let us use it properly is the job that never ends. But it doesn’t feel too big any more.
It just feels like the amount of work we’ve got.