I believe who you were informs who you are... to this day, I'm an unapologetic animal lover! Those who know me well know that I've always preferred to commune with non-human beings (LOL).
Chooks, cats, dogs, horses, cows, snakes, lizards, possums, the list goes on. And my love of farming was handed down to me from my forebears.
As I write this post from our farm in the Nambucca Valley hinterland, I sit only around 60 kilometers as the crow flies from parent's dairy farm in the Kempsey hinterland (Dondingalong to by precise) where in 1980 - pictured below - I was feeding our chooks. The farm I was born onto.
This was my parents' second farming venture after selling up a large land holding in Ellenborough (Hastings Valley hinterland) in the early 1970's - prior to my arrival - due to not being able to make a living from breeding Angus cattle. The market only wanted Herefords back then. They were trailblazers ahead of their time!
My dad was a builder by family trade, a horseman (pictured with my mum's horse Lustre) and a homesteader. My mum trained as a clinical nutritionist and food microbiologist, thereafter left Sydney where she grew up and went on to study Biodynamic farming practices and live the organic, self-sufficient dream with my brother and I soon completing our parents' vision.
My father's maternal family - the Buchanan's - drove their cattle down from Armidale to Deep Creek, Valla, NSW, with all their possessions on a bullock dray in 1869. They selected 180 acres which came to be known as Pickett Hill, the rest is history and I'm still here to be proudly part of a farming legacy of a different kind.
The paternal side of my father's family - the Lahey's - share a similar story in the neighboring Macleay Valley. His ancestor arrived in Port Macquarie as a convict and after serving his sentence, selected land in the Hastings Valley hinterland somewhere near Yarrowitch, and went on to become a citrus farmer. Sending oranges to the Sydney markets back in the late 1800's.
My great-grandfather moved up the road to Kempsey set up a cabinetry and joinery shop that would go on - via my grandfather and his brother - to become Lahey Constructions, and my extended family are still there farming Angus cattle today.
It's nice to be able to reflect on my own evolution and be the apple that eventually landed underneath the tree after my own career meanderings, and comings and goings from the Valley beyond and back again.
Doing what you love in an environment you deeply respect is profoundly rewarding.
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Vanessa Lahey Copyright 2024