By Geoff Ellis
“ONE thing we have plenty of is cold. It blows up from Antarctica straight into Pound Creek.”
As Daryl Hook guides visitors through the paddocks, he jigs around, still a ruckman anticipating a mark. “Showing them what we’ve done is better than saying you must do this ...” You can feel the difference the trees make.
Daryl Hook’s parents “pointed out all the good things in a harsh world”. He milked on their farm before school. In the paddocks he watched the birds scatter amidst the cows. Motorbikes and tractors were his toys. He played football for Leongatha.
“ONE thing we have plenty of is cold. It blows up from Antarctica straight into Pound Creek.”
As Daryl Hook guides visitors through the paddocks, he jigs around, still a ruckman anticipating a mark. “Showing them what we’ve done is better than saying you must do this ...” You can feel the difference the trees make.
Daryl Hook’s parents “pointed out all the good things in a harsh world”. He milked on their farm before school. In the paddocks he watched the birds scatter amidst the cows. Motorbikes and tractors were his toys. He played football for Leongatha.
He met Margaret in high school, became a teacher and last taught at Inverloch Primary. They bought the Pound Creek property 23 years ago. This is the third farm they have owned, each one bigger than the last. The plan was always to retire to a place like this, to take his superannuation and pay off the mortgage. A brave act, all the eggs in one basket. If this country isn’t sustainable, the dream is broken.
Sustainability is key to Daryl’s philosophy. Environmental and financial sustainability. “If the place isn’t paying for itself, all the environmental stuff isn’t viable, it’s wasted effort. Gone. Someone else will wreck it.”
Would he advise retirees to follow his path? Cost of purchase and the debt burden is something to consider. “The price of land is so high, no one can afford a hundred acres just to get a warm fuzzy feeling watching kangaroos.” He reckons you have to be physically and mentally sustainable too. Resilient enough to overcome poor weather, dead cattle, injury and illness.
There were bugger all trees on this farm when Daryl and Margaret turned up. An aerial photograph shows the initial sparseness of the place: just a collection of big, empty paddocks. The most recent one shows rows of trees, a hundred thousand of them, defining many smaller paddocks. He’s pencilled in extensions to the plantations. Map makers can’t keep pace with 5000 trees a year. That’s the speed of life here.
Last month, the Bass Coast Landcare Network gave Daryl their award for sustainable agriculture in recognition of the way he inspires so many people to undertake sustainable works. It’s not his first award but he’s too busy for glory. “There’s a piece of metal hanging in the shed,” he says as we cross a paddock. Award events are something to grab the attention of the mainstream media. Good “green” news doesn’t spread fast in a world of disaster and crisis. He recently learned he’s been nominated for a Victorian State Landcare Award. He’ll catch the V/Line to Melbourne for that.
Daryl won’t tell people how to run their farms. He takes them out into his paddocks where they can shelter from the wind and feel the warmth. Trees are better for the cows and better for the grass. He prefers melaleuca; it’s what was here originally. It aids extension of the regrowth area, because the shoots spread from the older plants and all you have to do is move the fence as the suckers advance. Six volts in a couple of wires keeps the cows at bay but they are happy to risk the spark for a few tasty shoots. He plants other varieties to aid bio-diversity.
It might surprise some, but he’s happy to feed tree trimmings to cattle. They thrive on them as they would eat shrubs in the wild. American consumers love the result. Over there cattle are raised on corn. Grass-fed beef, such as these, sells at a premium. When Daryl’s cattle reach two years of age they go to an abattoir in Brooklyn. They are humanely slaughtered. The value adding happens here; more of the profit stays here.
A lap of this farm could be completed in half an hour; flat paddocks, easily opened gates and good tracks. Daryl could spend all day out here, pointing out this and showing you that. There’s a pile of rubble that didn’t cost much. He sorts through it and uses the flat pieces to build tracks. Covers the rough bits with clay and the cows compress it. Cheaper than truckloads of gravel and not going to turn to slush in July. That’s just one example of common-sense efficiency.
Sustainability requires effort, be it physical or fiscal. Here’s another example: Daryl conserves hay by putting pallets under the rolls. The bottom roll stays dry when the ground gets wet. Other farmers might scoff at the extra effort but in the long run it saves money. He saves more money by using a bull rather than paying for artificial insemination.
Under some trees there’s a bathtub lined with cow manure and filled with vegie scraps. Worms love it, you can scoop up great handfuls of purple wrigglers. A solid wooden plank makes a lid to keep the birds away. A bucket under the outlet collects the liquid. Free fertilizer.
A row of yellow marker pegs runs across one paddock. Research into the effects of home-brewed fertiliser. There’s a nasty looking rotary hoe bolted to a tractor. It’s used to dig little holes across the paddocks. Takes time but it aerates the soil. Another tick for environmental sustainability.
Daryl and Margaret’s house is on the edge of a small wetlands carved into an empty paddock. It’s now a haven for water birds and frogs. The secret is to have shallow parts. Obviously a big, deep dam is essential but the water is cold and lifeless; flat shallows allow life to start.
Long neck turtles thrive here. Daryl can tell you that they dig their right rear heel in and turn in circles. They lay eggs in the resultant holes. He talks like a coach in the final break. He makes you want to get out there and do what’s right. You can imagine his oratory skills, back in the day, when he was organising strikes for equal pay as a Teacher’s Union delegate.
After sunset Daryl braves the evening chill to ensure that I don’t drive over critters. If visitors weren’t so frequent he would make them walk in. They come from across the state and overseas to see how it’s done here. The hundreds of trees that line a once bare driveway show the Hooks are serious about sustainable Landcare. He doesn’t resile from acting like a “green bigot”.
Sustainability is key to Daryl’s philosophy. Environmental and financial sustainability. “If the place isn’t paying for itself, all the environmental stuff isn’t viable, it’s wasted effort. Gone. Someone else will wreck it.”
Would he advise retirees to follow his path? Cost of purchase and the debt burden is something to consider. “The price of land is so high, no one can afford a hundred acres just to get a warm fuzzy feeling watching kangaroos.” He reckons you have to be physically and mentally sustainable too. Resilient enough to overcome poor weather, dead cattle, injury and illness.
There were bugger all trees on this farm when Daryl and Margaret turned up. An aerial photograph shows the initial sparseness of the place: just a collection of big, empty paddocks. The most recent one shows rows of trees, a hundred thousand of them, defining many smaller paddocks. He’s pencilled in extensions to the plantations. Map makers can’t keep pace with 5000 trees a year. That’s the speed of life here.
Last month, the Bass Coast Landcare Network gave Daryl their award for sustainable agriculture in recognition of the way he inspires so many people to undertake sustainable works. It’s not his first award but he’s too busy for glory. “There’s a piece of metal hanging in the shed,” he says as we cross a paddock. Award events are something to grab the attention of the mainstream media. Good “green” news doesn’t spread fast in a world of disaster and crisis. He recently learned he’s been nominated for a Victorian State Landcare Award. He’ll catch the V/Line to Melbourne for that.
Daryl won’t tell people how to run their farms. He takes them out into his paddocks where they can shelter from the wind and feel the warmth. Trees are better for the cows and better for the grass. He prefers melaleuca; it’s what was here originally. It aids extension of the regrowth area, because the shoots spread from the older plants and all you have to do is move the fence as the suckers advance. Six volts in a couple of wires keeps the cows at bay but they are happy to risk the spark for a few tasty shoots. He plants other varieties to aid bio-diversity.
It might surprise some, but he’s happy to feed tree trimmings to cattle. They thrive on them as they would eat shrubs in the wild. American consumers love the result. Over there cattle are raised on corn. Grass-fed beef, such as these, sells at a premium. When Daryl’s cattle reach two years of age they go to an abattoir in Brooklyn. They are humanely slaughtered. The value adding happens here; more of the profit stays here.
A lap of this farm could be completed in half an hour; flat paddocks, easily opened gates and good tracks. Daryl could spend all day out here, pointing out this and showing you that. There’s a pile of rubble that didn’t cost much. He sorts through it and uses the flat pieces to build tracks. Covers the rough bits with clay and the cows compress it. Cheaper than truckloads of gravel and not going to turn to slush in July. That’s just one example of common-sense efficiency.
Sustainability requires effort, be it physical or fiscal. Here’s another example: Daryl conserves hay by putting pallets under the rolls. The bottom roll stays dry when the ground gets wet. Other farmers might scoff at the extra effort but in the long run it saves money. He saves more money by using a bull rather than paying for artificial insemination.
Under some trees there’s a bathtub lined with cow manure and filled with vegie scraps. Worms love it, you can scoop up great handfuls of purple wrigglers. A solid wooden plank makes a lid to keep the birds away. A bucket under the outlet collects the liquid. Free fertilizer.
A row of yellow marker pegs runs across one paddock. Research into the effects of home-brewed fertiliser. There’s a nasty looking rotary hoe bolted to a tractor. It’s used to dig little holes across the paddocks. Takes time but it aerates the soil. Another tick for environmental sustainability.
Daryl and Margaret’s house is on the edge of a small wetlands carved into an empty paddock. It’s now a haven for water birds and frogs. The secret is to have shallow parts. Obviously a big, deep dam is essential but the water is cold and lifeless; flat shallows allow life to start.
Long neck turtles thrive here. Daryl can tell you that they dig their right rear heel in and turn in circles. They lay eggs in the resultant holes. He talks like a coach in the final break. He makes you want to get out there and do what’s right. You can imagine his oratory skills, back in the day, when he was organising strikes for equal pay as a Teacher’s Union delegate.
After sunset Daryl braves the evening chill to ensure that I don’t drive over critters. If visitors weren’t so frequent he would make them walk in. They come from across the state and overseas to see how it’s done here. The hundreds of trees that line a once bare driveway show the Hooks are serious about sustainable Landcare. He doesn’t resile from acting like a “green bigot”.