On the day of our fourth anniversary at Mount Gnomon

On the anniversary of four years at Mount Gnomon: a selection of photos from our farm.

It feels significantly longer than four years - and the grey hairs and wrinkles support that!

But as the song says, all you need is love, and without love we wouldn't be here riding the roller coaster of farming.

Journalist packs in job to go pig farming

“Your dad would be proud you’ve become a farmer’s wife,” the man said in the post office.

The day had been going well: the weight of full-time work had been knocked from my shoulders, and I was enjoying pottering around town ticking off jobs.

But now my cheeks were hot.

I rocked forward on my toes and looked at him.

“We’re not married,” I said.

Generally, the reaction to me leaving the ABC to go farming has been encouraging.

Mum, obviously, was upset she wouldn’t be able to listen to me in the mornings anymore. I told her she could ring me from time to time, just to hear my voice.

Guy’s upset I can no longer be quietened with the volume control, or silenced with the snooze button.

I’ve noticed some discomfort in people when they ask about my plans for the future.

“So you’re going to be a farmer?” they’ll say.

“Just farming?”

And then I feel I have to justify it by telling them about the part time job I’ve picked up at the uni.

“Oh that’ll be interesting.” They look relieved.

No wonder farmers are becoming a rare breed, especially young ones.

It was a big decision for us when Guy decided to stop full-time work, but his heart and head was always with the pigs.

It was an even bigger move for me. I’d been a rural reporter with the ABC for six-and-a-half years. The pay and conditions were good, and the job itself was fantastic. I felt like I sort-of knew what I was doing each day.

I started there where I was 21, and until the last year or so I always thought of myself as ‘Eliza Wood from the ABC’, not just, ‘Eliza Wood’. My identity was completely wrapped around my job.

But you can only survive on adrenalin and mid-morning powernaps for so long. I was tired, and the personal compromises I made in order to work for the ABC had become too much, and I felt my real passion being quashed.

I can now put ‘pig farmer’ [pronounced pug FAAR-mer] on my business card – and proudly.

I have not stepped down the ladder to become a farmer’s partner*.

Dad would be proud of me – not because I’ve paired up with a good-looking bloke who loves animals as much as he did - but because I’m having a go at being Eliza Wood: pig farmer, writer, composter, supreme carrot grower– whoever I want to be.  

*(Guy, I really don’t like that term, can we fix that?)