Hunter Gatherer with Rohan Anderson - Our Move to the Country

This week we welcome Rohan Anderson to the MAN WEEK edition of the Guest Blog! Rohan is a fantastic photographer based in Ballarat and has a delightful blog 'Whole Larder Love'. This week Rohan will be sharing tales of moving to the country, growing and gathering food with his family and the photographs of their adventures along the way. A BIG thank you to Rohan, Lucy and I are so excited about this weeks Guest Blog! -Jenny x

Moving to the country - in the back of our minds we knew it was the right thing to do. We'd had so many years trying our best to survive the city but somehow we just didn’t fit in, a square peg in an isosceles orifice.

I’d grown up on a small farm in Gippsland, and I’d had a taste of the good life, it was my responsibility to convince Kim how good it could be. My marketing skills did their best, and we packed up and headed west.

At first it was frightfully intimidating, no jobs, no friends and bugger all local knowledge. The historic town of Ballarat was our choice, if only because there was a course on offer at the local university that I was interested in.  A glutton for punishment,  I decided to go back to uni - but it was the first step of many on our journey to joy. Corny huh!?

We’d heard it was cold up there, and yes it was cold for the first winter, but then we got used to it. Some people think some old country towns are the backwater, but in fact, they're a blank canvas. You’re liberated from so many city restrictions.

We felt so liberated we made babies, two of them. Two girls, with blonde hair and blue eyes, both little heart breakers. My background is Spanish, so I’ve often pondered their true lineage. Between you and me I have an inkling the country postmen might be a little bit too friendly, but that’s a discussion for another day.

A few years ago we bought a very run down old cottage in the middle of town, a ‘do-er-upperer’ that we subsequently did up. We planted a big vegetable patch in our backyard and totally fell in love with the lifestyle of growing our fresh food, foraging the local forests and paddocks and hunting and fishing for our meat. Our version of the good life.

Since moving to the country we've been flooded with wonderful friends, and even some family.  After a few years most of them were convinced we were living the good life, and some even wanted a piece of it too!  It’s been totally worth it, and everyday that passes makes us feel more and more like this is where we belong.

This week I'll spin a few thrilling yarns about cooking, hunting, fishing, harvesting from my patch and of course daily life with my little family living in our historic country town.  If you not impressed with the calibre of the thrilling yarns, or frustrated with my spelling mistakes…. then just look at the pictures!

- Rohan