Amazing Tips to Start Your Homestead with Trevor Andrei

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We're going to take a turn in Season 2  and dive deeper into sustainable living! Today I'm talking with Trevor Andrei, Australia's preeminent survivalist.  Trevor has lived most of his adult life, traveling through Western Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia before settling in the state of Victoria in Australia. He's done many years as an Outback tour guide and in mining. He's a single pureblood father. He's sponsored by a gun shop and he loves sharing his skills.

Get ready for a masterclass on essential topics like permaculture, survival techniques, starting a homestead, and the intricacies of Section 32/Vendor's Statements in property buying. Trevor shares insightful tips on recognizing and dealing with land overlays, vegetation offsets, soil preparation, and how to identify and use bush tucker plants. The episode also delves into ethical hunting for controlling feral species and ensuring your property's and its native wildlife's health and safety. Tune in for practical advice on building your homestead sustainably and responsibly.

00:00 Welcome to Season Two
02:07 Introducing Our First Guest: Trevor Andre
03:28 Understanding Property Overlays and Legalities
13:25 Dealing with Toxins and Soil Health
17:25 Permaculture Practices and Soil Management
34:39 Hugelkultur Beds and Raised Garden Challenges
35:45 Permaculture Principles: Embracing Weeds
37:22 Bush Tucker: An Introduction
39:58 The Benefits of Edible Weeds
45:44 Hunting for Homesteading: Getting Started
54:32 Ethical Hunting and Wildlife Management
01:08:54 Concluding Thoughts on Health and Sustainability

Trevor offers a wide range of homestead and prepper supplies at his website: https://www.survivalshopprepperswarehouse.com/

Learn more on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/@TrevsBushcraft

DoTERRA Wellness Advocate
At Wholistic Natural Health Australia, we often recommend the use of high quality essential oils.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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Online: https://wholisticnaturalhealth.com.au
A Subito Media production

Episode Transcript

Magic Barclay (00:42):
welcome back to a magical life.
I'm your host, Magic Barclay,and welcome to season two.
Some exciting things coming upthis season.
We'll have a few gueststhroughout the season, but we'll
be talking about things thatmatter to you.
Now, this could be traditionalhealth.
This could be homeopathichealth.

(01:03):
It could be any form of health,hopefully some more natural
medicine coming in and we'rereally going to kick this season
off with a bang.
We're going to have our firstguest of the season and we're
going to talk to abouteverything permaculture,
survival techniques, and how doyou get started on a homestead.

(01:27):
So without further ado, welcometo season two.
As always, like this podcast,subscribe, share the podcast.
And if you really love whatwe're telling you, leave us a
review.
Bye.
Before we get started, I willremind you to pop over to the
Facebook page for A MagicalLife, Health, Wealth and Weight

(01:49):
Loss and send us your questionsbecause season two is about you.
We're here to answer yourquestions, any burning questions
at all, and we will give you ashout out on the podcast.
Now let's get to our fantasticguest guest.
I'm talking today to Australia'spreeminent survivalist, Trevor

(02:13):
Andre.
Now, let me tell you a littlebit about Trevor.
He's a good mate of mine.
We've been Facebook friends forquite a while.
And we finally caught up inperson to bring you this
podcast.
Trevor has lived most of hisadult life, traveling through
Western Australia, NorthernTerritory and South Australia
before settling in the state ofVictoria in Australia.

(02:36):
He's done many years as anOutback tour guide and in
mining.
He's a single pureblood father.
He's sponsored by a gun shop andhe loves sharing his skills.
Gills and no ladies, this is nota singles event that I'm telling
you about, although he is on themarket.
So some lucky lady will snap himup one day.
Welcome Trevor.

Trevor Andrei (02:57):
Thanks, Magic.
Thanks for having me.

Magic Barclay (02:59):
My absolute pleasure.
Now, in our chats, we've talkedabout how do you start a
homestead?
It's kind of the, the go tolifestyle for people.
I live on a fledgling homesteadmyself, and I guess many people
think it's out of their reach.
I started my homestead on asuburban block and I had every

(03:21):
inch of it.
producing food for my family.
So people might be looking at,well, how do I buy a block?
So my first question for you iswhat are we looking for in a
section 32?
Now in Australia, it's a section32 in the US, I believe it's a
vendor's statement.

(03:42):
We're looking for things like,you know, what is on the
property?
What do we need to be cautiousof?
Go for it, Trev.

Trevor Andrei (03:48):
So what we're really looking at is overlays.
Like these things can be sixfigure killers.
These, these are the things thatcan take years out of your life
and add years to your dreambuild.
what we're looking for isbushfire overlays, Aboriginal
heritage overlays, which arecommon along watercourses.
We're looking for conservationoverlays, which means you can't,

(04:10):
you know, You can't even cut asingle tree.
You can't do anything.
we're looking for all sorts ofoverways, whether there's going
to be anything that's going tobe coming along in the future,
road works, power lines, um,mining, anything like that.
Just basically it's, it's a realbig heads up and we have to be
wary of section 32s because alot of times when there's a run

(04:32):
on, on land, like land bankingand things that we saw in the
last four years and, treechanges.
The, that you get unscrupulousagents.
that will literally tell youeverything that you want to
hear, lie through their teeth,and tell you we're looking for a
cash unconditional offer by 5pmtoday, and that means you're
waiving your section 32 rights.

(04:54):
Now one of the big troubles thatwe've got is with councils when
these, uh, big runs on landoccur, as we've seen in the last
four or five years.
Councils, get inundated insteadof putting on more staff.
Um, they're just happy to boosttheir numbers.
It looks great.
Oh, I'm doing a wonderful job.
We're building more, we'regetting, you know, 50 percent

(05:16):
more people, but those peopleare all buying blocks of lands
with major issues that are beingsold by unscrupulous people
trying to absolutely cash in onyour, lack of understanding of
what's going on in that area.
so sometimes I've, I had it whenI was buying my farm, council
would get back to me a monthafter a farm sold.
Oh, hello, Mr.
Andre.
Um, so what questions do youwant to ask?

(05:38):
You want, I've looked at 13blocks since that one, that
one's been sold for a month now.
You need to put on some stufflike this is going to all be a
massive catastrophe in the next10 years when people want to
actually do something with thatthing they've just invested
hundreds of thousands in.
other things that we need to be,uh, very mindful of are
vegetation, offsets and thingslike that.

(05:58):
So, uh, there's sort of tworules that I've found, where I
am, and that is that there's arule for locals and then there's
a rule for outsiders.
Uh, everybody seems tocircumvent, you know, all the
rules on vegetation.
that's an insider.
And if you're an outsider,suddenly there's a mystery phone
call and you're paying thousandsof dollars and you've got

(06:20):
offsets.
Um, even if it was just forsomething like the, where
there's meant to be an exemptionof four meters to do the
boundary fences, which as we'veseen with the bush flies going
on in the Grampians, which isjust ground, that ground zero is
like 10 Ks from my farm.
so we need to be wary of thosethings.
Those things can absolutely.
literally destroy your wealthand your mental health.

(06:43):
Never sign off unconditional.
I did it.
I did enough research I thoughtat the time that would mean that
I, I, I knew what I was gettinginto.
I didn't realize that literallythere's a rule for locals and a
rule for newcomers.
and I don't even mean literally,I mean, I'm, I'm probably going
to prove that in court thisyear.

(07:04):
so don't sign, off onunconditional.
Absolutely don't do that.
And if you can get a bit oflocal knowledge, this is going
to be really good.
So other things you might bemindful to understand is, are
there any, has somebody beencoveting your block for 50, 60,
70 years, for example, my blockwas sold and the lady who bought

(07:26):
it off her aunt, her aunt toldher the family name by name.
You must promise me that youwill never sell to these people.
They've wanted that block off usforever.
You can never sell to thatfamily group.
Now, I only found that two yearslater when I was thinking, why
am I having all these troubleswith planning issues?
And then under FOI, guess whosefamily was all upset that I'd

(07:49):
bought a block 24 kilometersfrom where their main homestead
is and they've wanted it and,They've obviously realized it's
in a good location to do abusiness model like I'm trying
to do, and this is somethingelse you need to be wary of.
You know, when you're putting inyour proposal, lots of people in
the community get to see yourproposal.

(08:10):
You know, are you going to have,uh, a healing place?
Are you going to have a wildlifesanctuary?
Is there some sort of tourismthing?
Is there something that likethey've not realized because
they've not traveled as well asyou or lived your life and
worked?
But now they're like, Oh mygoodness, that's perfect.
That would be a cash cow.
And suddenly nobody wants you todo it because they all want to

(08:32):
do it.
You have to be so careful.
Other things we want to bemindful of is we want to see if
we can talk to neighbors andsay, Oh, was there ever any old
sheds or anything on thatproperty?
Chances are in the bush they'lleither build a corrugated iron.
Wonderful, not a problem orasbestos.
The problem is literally everytime in the bush, like on a

(08:54):
block, when somebody used tohave a building built out of
asbestos, when the termites eatit, they find a little hollow in
the, in the property, stick itin the hollow, put a little skim
of dirt over it and they knowit's there, but they're never
going to tell you.
And you don't know because it'sonce it's 20 centimetres under
the dirt, you're not going toknow until the day comes that
you go to build something there.
You start scraping the dirtback, and the next thing you

(09:16):
know, you have got an EPAnightmare on your hands.

Magic Barclay (09:20):
That's some great information now for the non
Aussie listeners today.
the FOI is the Freedom ofInformation Act here in
Australia.
So, what we can do is just sendin some paperwork, and ask the
question, and under Freedom ofInformation, we get it.
Get to find out a whole heap ofstuff.
So I'm not sure if you've gotthe same thing over there in the

(09:42):
US or over in the UK, but yeah,we have that here, which is a
great thing, which has beenquite recent actually.

Trevor Andrei (09:50):
one good old note that you might want to put on
that is particularly if you'vehad, have planning issues with
council and you start suspectingthat things are going awry and
you start making your ownconnections.
where you realize that familymembers are related to people
and etc, etc.
And it's starting to look very,very, um, dodgy.
Right.
Just be mindful that councils inAustralia make their own bylaws.

(10:15):
So they can actually just decideto just block you on something
because they rezone your block.
They won't do it to anybodyelse's.
They'll just put some specialconditions on you, just to make
you feel extra special andwelcomed as an outsider.
So when you do your FOI, whatyou also need to be mindful of
is if there's anythingincriminating, on council or its

(10:36):
people, right?
They can remove that.
And it even says it in their ownpaperwork.
If there's somethingincriminating us as a criminal
offense, we don't have to giveit to you.
Crazy, but true.
the way that we are fightingback against that is we still
request an FOI off them, right?
But then we'll go to the federalMP.

(10:56):
And we'll explain to the federalMP, as I have and as many other
people are doing, right?
These are the issues that aresounding very suspicious to me.
Uh, if the federal MP's office,sees what's going on, they're
going to refer you to theminister for councils, right?
So, the minister for councilshas the power to say, because

(11:19):
for example, when I've gotFROIs.
which took me forever.
And I had to keep badgering andbadgering and badgering saying,
Hey, you're meant to respond in30 days.
Where is my FOI?
Right?
Then they redacted sections likethey redacted paragraphs, seven
centimeters long.
That's three inches, right?
They're not meant to be able toredact that out, right?

(11:41):
They're meant to redact privateinformation that may identify
the person.
But believe me, when you knowthat you got three neighbors,
right?
You, you, it's really easy towork out if a neighbor said it,
or if it was somebody from downthe road.
Other things are in thecouncil's, information in their
own acts, right?
If there is false, misleading,defamatory information that
somebody has put in theircomplaint against your proposal

(12:05):
for your business, the home youwant to build, whatever, right?
So If there's false informationthat they've put in their
complaint that's on your file,that is then forming the
conditions, which may literallymake you bankrupt to continue,
right?
And you can show that thesethings are complete untruths.

(12:27):
Council, unlike mine, is meantto remove that from your file.
Me and the MP having a wonderfullittle talk about these things
as we speak.
I hope this is of great help toyou.

Magic Barclay (12:40):
Thank you.
You know, there's wildfires, andI say that with a grain of salt.
They're not wildfires, they'refires.
Uh, more about that maybe inanother episode, but there's
wildfires all around the worldnow.
We're seeing it everywhere.
There's fire retardants beingsprayed heavily.

(13:04):
There's.
Crop spraying as well.
There's all sorts of stuffcoming from plains onto our
land.
Some of that we know, some ofthat we don't.
There's insecticides coming fromother farms.
We know all this stuff, butthere are other poisons that we
need to be aware of, such as 1080 here in Australia.

(13:25):
So, Trevor, how do we find outwhat is being used to around our
area.
And also if you can tell us abit more about 1080, what it
does.
Um, as I said, it is a big thinghere in Australia.
I'm not sure if it's usedoverseas.
I'm pretty sure it is, but yeah,what are we looking for in a way
of toxins that we have to beaware of on our land?

Trevor Andrei (13:48):
So here's another good point.
So I actually applied to findout, you know, what was on the
chemical register.
And then I got told, oh, thereis no chemical register.
And I was like, Oh my goodness.
You guys are saying.
like 1800.
Um, I, I paid double the recordprice per acre for my farm
because I know it's only beenfarmed once one year in its

(14:11):
entirety.
my block was a bush block, soI've got years of work to just
to get the soil to be, good togrow in.
You can do soil tests.
you can find out what sort ofcrops have been grown.
So for example, uh, where we arehere on, uh, Magix.
beautiful, magic spot.
It's beautiful.
You want to see the views outthe window.

(14:32):
It's gobsmacking.
and there's Rosella sittingthere eating your figs that I
was eating this morning.
I wouldn't blame him becausethat fig was delicious that you
gave me.
so this was a potato farmingarea.
So in potato farming still tothis day, they use a chemical
called Paraquad and it's bad.
It should be banned.
It is just bad.
Like they've, we've just got toget better at farming practices.

(14:54):
so yeah, so do a soil test.
Things like 1080 are a concern.
So for example, 1080 is a baitthat is used to control feral,
species.
you will never ever hear me evercondone baiting animals with
poisons.
I'm sponsored by a gun shop.
I was the, admin on Facebook forFox Hunting Australia, which has

(15:16):
30, 000 members, which if youwant some crazy numbers, it's
about the same as one of ourmilitaries.
there is more than enough peoplethat are trained, that have got
licenses, that have done all thethings to go through.
and shoot feral species.
One of the biggest problems thatwe find with 1080 is it goes
into the bones of rabbits.
Um, and then what that means isthe rabbit might stumble onto

(15:38):
your property, right?
Die, get a little bit mummified.
And what does Fido do?
Fido goes, oh yum, I loverabbit.
Give me a bit of mummifiedbloody rabbit jerky.
Choo, choo, choo.
Next thing you know.
Your dog's in, in, in, in aworld of pain, sick with 1080
poison.
These, these things are bad.

(15:59):
Things that we can do when we'relooking at spraying, so for
example, I won't say I gotviolent with people spraying the
side of the road, that, that isthen a, a way that gets water
into my dam.
I will say that I, got quiteheated and Explained to them

(16:20):
don't you see that that's whatgoes to my dam?
It's about to rain It's forecastfor a 40 mil rain this afternoon
Why would anybody with a brainbe spraying when it's going to
rain this afternoon?
Oh, well, we just got a contractfor fuel.
We don't get paid.
So what I did is then I got ontoVic roads And i've now made that

(16:43):
whole road side on my place inthe Grampians, a no spray zone.
Absolutely no one from anydepartment can now spray on that
zone.
So there are things you can do.
Like I say, one of the bigthings that you can do is just
look around, find out what thehistory is of the place, what
sort of crops they were growing.

(17:04):
Um, so like there's like thedirty dozen in, in the crops.
So things like potatoes,strawberries, stuff like that.
We know that those things arevery heavily poisoned.
So you want to be mindful ofthat.
If you're thinking of growing,do your soil tests, you know,
obviously if you're going toplant yourself, you can try
something like Magic and I aredoing.

(17:25):
So we're using pollinators onour farms, right?
And that's just very, a verysimple way.
of planting lots of nativesthrough there and allowing your
place, and I know this is goingto sound totally paradoxical, I
don't hunt on my farm.
My farm is a haven for wildlife.
Anything can live there in peaceand it can eat my 527 fruit

(17:48):
trees.
I've got neighbors that say, whyhave you got possum trees when
you're growing Fruit.
You're a primary producer.
And I'm like, you don't get it.
You just, there's a part of thisthat you just don't get.
I've got an organic farm.
I don't have to spray anything.
I don't have to do anything.
Nature is doing that heavylifting for me.
And then we can just walk up anyday of the year and just pick

(18:09):
something off the tree and eatit.
It's clean.

Magic Barclay (18:12):
And sorry to stop you there.
Trevor and I just went for awander on my farm and we picked
a fig from the tree and he ateit.
And you know, as he said, theRosellas are there now wreaking
havoc on the tree, but all underthe tree, I've got the
pollinators.
I've got some poppies.
I've got corn flowers.
I've got native mustard.
I've got dandelions.
I've got all sorts of thingsflowering at different times

(18:34):
under the tree.
So at all times, I've got thosepollinators coming in.
That fig has, while I've beenhere, never been touched with a
chemical because it doesn't needto be.
In fact, I don't even have towater it very often because
those pollinators down at thebase of the tree are actually
holding the moisture into theroots of the tree.

(18:55):
So there is a better way, andthis is part of the permaculture
lifestyle, of using what naturecan provide.
To make your produce tastier andfresher and more abundant.

Trevor Andrei (19:08):
Exactly.
And the thing is, I hadneighbours within, within six
months.
I had, I had, and I mean oldtime set in their way farmers.
The, I had a, um, the advocatenewspaper did a story on my farm
and they showed how I'd turnedthis block around in six months.
It was already starting to showlike life.

(19:29):
way beyond what the neighborjust on the other side of one
fence, you could see a definiteline.
Their grass is short, short, andmine's already grown like, you
know, 12 centimeters long.
And they got me to pull out aroot and show how deep my roots
were.
And farmers started asking,Trevor, so, um, how do you do

(19:49):
it?
Because obviously that's good tothem.
They're like, you're making freefeed.
How do I make free feed?
And, um, and I explained to themwhat my causal fungus.
And so the thing is you've gotthe roots of your plants and
then for a couple of metersbelow that There's like
invisible spiderweb likefilaments that you can send a

(20:10):
microscope.
That's mycosia.
And so what happens is whenyou've got good If you
understand this is gut health,right when you've got that that
good flora under the groundRight.
They exchange carbohydrates forsugars with the top plants so
they can access nutrients frommeters deep and bring it up.

(20:33):
Right.
And so it's a really, really,really good thing to do.
But the trouble is, Farmers, fordecades, have been, been caught
out by Big Farmer with a F.
And so Big Farmer with a F isnot anybody's friend on a
homestead.
They want to get you in a neverending loop of superphosphate,

(20:55):
which sounds really good, super,and it's going to make a crop
yield, but superphosphate killsmycorrhizal fungi.
So all you're doing is gettinglike a crazy enhanced little
reaction on the top for a littlewhile until that burns out and
everything else underneath isdead.
You've killed off what, what youcan understand as your gut

(21:15):
flora.
and then all the soil opens upand then all the weeds come in.
So then we've got this otherwonderful product called
glyphosate that we're going tohave to sell you.
And every year it goes up about13 percent and the farmers are
sick of it.
And they're starting to finally,some of it's 70 years of age.
Realizing there must be a betterway.

(21:35):
And that's why we do things likecompost teas.
So for example, we'll get like athousand liter IBC tank or
something like that.
Um, and then all we'll do isfill it with water.
Put a four or five dollar bag ofcompost in there.
So, you know, when you go to thehardware store and you see your
potting mix, it says, Oh yeah,wear gloves, wear a mark.
Oh, this stuff's got live bitsand pieces in it.

(21:57):
Right.
That is all biota.
That is exactly what your soilneeds in the millions and
billions and trillions.
So what we do is we get a fourdollar bag of compost and we're
going to make a thousand litersof free fertilizer.
And so all we do is we get thecompost bag, we rip it open, we
dunk it in a thousand liters ofwater, we stick the weed on, we

(22:20):
leave it for about three weeksand guess what comes out the
other end?
A thousand liters of fertilizer.
It's all biota, it's all goingto, this stuff is going to start
making depleted soils live andthrive and survive.
Like when we're buying,homesteads particularly,
particularly in the last four orfive years, there's been, an

(22:40):
absolute tree change.
you know, of biblicalproportions.
The amount of people that havemoved to the country, never
wanting to see lockdowns again,has been epic.
and a lot of us got soil blocksthat were sort of problematic.
You know, they're the ones withthe bad soil and the bad slopes
and the this and the that andthis and the that.
And to people that are used tojust, all right, well, how many

(23:03):
times MPK is going to fix this?
That might've been a problem.
To people like us, That thinkoutside the box, that listen to
our friends, that will read thebooks, that are like, that will
go do the YouTube videos and,and plug in and find out, all
right, now how can I fix thispermanently on a budget?
You know, we, we are the peoplethat will I go through

(23:26):
Melbourne, every time I gothrough Melbourne, I go home
with a ute load of stuff.
Everything on the side of theroad, that Melbourne people
think is rubbish, I'm like, ohmy goodness! Six ute, six
trailer tyres for my friend'sbloody farm trail, I've got to
bring six tyres home thisafternoon.
You know, we can find things onthe side of the road, old, old

(23:47):
containers and stuff like that,that we can repurpose.
What we're really looking atwhen we're looking at stuff like
this is, so soil structure, howwe can fix the soil and things
like that.
So Magic's probably going to askme a couple of bits about that.
And then we'll, we'll, really gointo depth with the actual hands

(24:07):
on and, and, and feed on theland thing.
Okay, we've looked at thelegals, we've found out what
we've got to find out as much aswe can, and don't worry,
there'll probably still be somelittle surprise you didn't find
out, but at least you've, you'vecontrolled whatever you could
control.
You've got as many ticks off thelegals as possible.
Now we're going to look at,okay, this block of land, how

(24:29):
are we going to make thisarable?
How are we going to turn thisinto like me, I'm, I'm turning
my block, which was the block.
I owned the block that startedthe Arak gold rush in 1853.
I owned Pinky Point.
And I suspect that anybody thatdidn't know what to do with it
from a tourism point of view,saw my building, my proposal and
went, he can't do that.
We should have done that.

(24:49):
He's not even a local, but I'vebeen turning that block into a
fruit forest for three yearsnow.
In five or six years time,you'll go to drive to the
Grampians and everything willjust be this dirty, great, big
monoculture of sheep grass.
And then you'll go around thecorner and you'll get to Pinky
Point.

(25:10):
And you'll go, Oh my goodness,what is going on here?
This is like a, this is likeparadise.
And this is what we're alltrying to create on our
homesteads.
We're trying to make it thesebeautiful permaculture loops,
self sustaining platforms thatin 60 years time, I'm growing
trees now that I know I willnever see.

(25:31):
get to their full life, likeoaks and stuff like that, that
then obviously are inoculated.
They're going to grow truffles.
My great grandkids will probablybe selling truffles and things.
So how do we do it?
What do you reckon, Magic?

Magic Barclay (25:44):
Yeah, look, there's a lot we can go into.
It starts with the soil, Trev,and you mentioned that just
before.
Now, where I am, ex potato farmland, not particularly on this
property, but around the area,it's very, very acidic soil.
So, you know, the, the layersin, in this land are amazing.

(26:06):
I cut out a whole area to put aveggie garden in.
The topsoil, absolutelybeautiful, rich, fully abundant.
I've never seen so manyearthworms in my life.
And then we go down a little bitfurther and it's very loamy.
And then we go down a little bitfurther and we hit clay.

(26:26):
So, you know, three metres down,this is pretty solid clay land.
How do we look after the soiland, and particularly tell us
about pH, you know, how can weadjust it?
You mentioned all the peoplethat, you know, rock up on some
land and go a bit of NPK is allwe need.
And, you know, the, Use this, nouse that.

(26:50):
Tell us what we can do.

Trevor Andrei (26:51):
Yes, so pH, that's such a good question,
Magic.
So pH is viral.
So if you understand pH, we allknow PH is like, you know,
what's in a swimming pool, youknow, too much and your eyes are
red and too little and, youknow, you, you, you got, your
eyes get, need the drops inthem, right?
But PH in soil is different.

(27:12):
So, pH in soil, you need tounderstand as the lock that
needs to be opened, right?
So quite often in the cities,for example, you know, people
get a new block of land, they'llput in all their plants, and
lovely three years later, it'sall dead.
I had it once when I was alandscaper, I did 10 years self
employed as a landscaper aswell.
I was doing a landscape, uh, at,uh, a landscape at Henwey Beach

(27:35):
in South Australia.
Neighbour Crossroads says, Oh,tell me young fella, I said, I
see what you're doing overthere.
You seem to know what you'redoing.
I'm having a look at my frontyard.
There's something's going onhere.
I don't understand.
And I said, what's wrong?
And I had a look and it was allMoraya, Paniculata and stuff.
And I said, doesn't look good,does it?
And I said, what'd you spend onyour front yard?
He says, Oh, the landscapingcost me 25, 000.

(27:58):
And I said, it's just aboutthere, isn't it?
And he says, yep.
I said, how old is about threeyears?
He says, how do you know?
I said, it's your pH.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,it's not the pH.
He says, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And I said, mate, I'm going topull out a 15 test kit and I'm
going to prove to you why yourplace is dead.
I said, you're still fertilizingit?

(28:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can'tunderstand.
I give it water.
I give it fertilizer, it's notresponding.
They said it's your pH.
Went back over my ute, pulledout a 15 pH test kit that you
can buy from any hardware storein Australia.
Went over, did the test, andit's as simple as making a
coffee doing a pH test.
Alright, you get about aspoonful of dirt from, you know,
about a few inches down.

(28:39):
Make, mix it up a little bit.
So you got, you, you, you powderit up and then all you do is put
three drops of the precursor onthere, shake a bit of the
powder.
There's got a little chart andit'll show you what color it is.
If it's purple, it's alkaline.
If it's orange, it's acidic.
And this was really purple,right?
Which is really alkaline.
And I said, now, do you seethis?
I said, your soil is out byabout 150, 200 times.

(29:04):
I said, that's why.
It doesn't matter.
It cannot, until that pH isright, it can't eat the
fertilizer.
So it has been starving to deathfor three years and is all about
to die.
And he's like, oh my goodness.
He says, I don't believe that.
I said, well, that's, that's howit is.
So for you, Magic, you've gotacidic soil, same as me.
My block was, um, 4.
5.

(29:24):
So that's out maybe 250 times,it's to the magnitude of 10,
which is like terrible, right?
Clay's very good.
Very, lots of nutrition in clay.
the trouble is really wet inwinter, really dry in summer,
you know?
So you're getting wet feet onyour roots and killing them in,
in winter and they're baking inthe ground, literally baking in

(29:46):
a natural terracotta pot.
under the earth in summer.
How do we fix that?
It is a piece of cake and no onedoes it.
I remember doing a landscapingjob on one of those two million
dollar, hospital lottery placesin Glenelg Beach.
They couldn't work out how tobuild something.
They paid me to come in andbuild the thing that they
couldn't work out how to build.
I'm going around, I'm sittingthere doing like, I'm talking a

(30:08):
couple hundred thousand dollarlandscape.
And I said, are you guysadjusting the soil?
Like a 200, 000 landscape.
No, no, we don't do that.
And I was like, it's all goingto die.
Look, it's look, I'll get metest kit.
I'll proof to you.
It's going to be eight or nine.
It's all going to, you don'teven adjust it.

(30:29):
200, 000 landscape jobs don'teven adjust the pH.
And here's how bloody simple itis.
You do the test, if it's acid,like acidic, then what we need
to do is we need to adjust thatup with lime, so even builder's
lime, right?
And you just basically shake itin the ground, or in, uh, rural

(30:49):
areas, you can get crushedlimestone, and so they'll bring
that out to you or whatever, andbasically if you add that at the
rate of about one kilo persquare metre.
It's going to adjust up.
Just do, just do sort of threequarters of what you think
you're going to need.
Water it in.
So particularly winter is a goodtime to put it, particularly
when you know, it's going to,you're going to get, you know,

(31:10):
good 20, 30, 40 mil downpour,right?
It's going to take about sixweeks to get into the ground and
adjust the pH.
And the next thing, you know,you might need to do it like two
times.
And next thing you know, yoursoil is going to be where you
want it.
You know, anywhere between sortof six and seven.
you know, be happy with.
And that figure sort offluctuate if there's organic

(31:31):
matter or whatever in there.
But anywhere in there is prettygood.
So pH is, is low and acidic,which is orange on the scale.
You use lime.
If it's high, like eight or nineor something like that, it's
going to be really purple onthat little chart that you're
going to use.
Right.
And all you're going to need forthat is sulfur, right?
And that will bring it down.

(31:53):
That's really what you need toknow.
And honestly, this is step one,right?
Particularly if you're getting abush block like me, I picked up,
I don't know how many thousandsof sticks.
Um, if somebody, if, if God toldme one day when I meet God,
Trev, you're not going tobelieve this.
You picked up 23, 468 sticks onthat farm of yours to build

(32:14):
permaculture, hugelkulturpiles.
com I'd go, wow, I knew it was alot.
I didn't know it was 24, 368,but it'd be something like that.
So what I did first is where Iknew I was permaculture piles
all around the block, which isquite big compost piles out of
stick and dirt.
You're basically making alasagna.
to break down over time and givestructure to the soil.

(32:34):
So what I did first was first IpH tested the soil on the
ground, right?
Because that's going to give memy best thing to go off.
Then I adjusted the pH of that.
And then I did the hugelkulturpiles on the top.
And you've got to understand asyou add things like gumweeds and
that, that's going to be moreacidic.
Right.
So then every once in a whilethrough that, you know, you

(32:56):
shake a little bit through, youput a little bit of lime over
that as well, and then you putyour soil.
And basically I'm at sort ofthree years now, maybe another
two years, you know, then that'sall going to be down in the
ground.
But in the meantime, I've beenputting all sorts of seeds in
amongst it all.
So the day that it's all readyto germinate.

(33:17):
I don't have to start fromground zero, all the right sorts
of seeds that I want are alreadyin there, just waiting for the
day that they deem that the, theconditions are perfect and
they'll sprout.
In permaculture, we've got whatwe call succession.
So permaculture is about gettinglike your five zones or six
zones and working out, okay,basically like magic's place,

(33:39):
you've got to come here.
Um, like, Magic's got this placepretty well dialed in already
and she's only been on thisblock for a year.
Like, they've built aphenomenally awesome greenhouse.
They got a really good, rabbitproof, veggie garden and
medicinal garden.
Like it's, it's really well setup and it's really well set up
where it is, which is what yougot to do.
You want to sort of work out howit all makes sense.

(34:01):
Now the thing that we understandif we're going to go the whole
nine yards on permaculture,right, is succession.
So what we're understanding isthat we're, we're building up
the soil, we're getting someplants to grow and they're going
to get overtaken over time byour long term ones that are
going to be the ones that aregoing to be there for, for
generations.

Magic Barclay (34:23):
100 percent and we mentioned we went out to my
veggie garden this morning.
We wandered around the property.
I've got hugelkultur beds insidemy greenhouse.
So I've got two very cheapinternet garden beds set up in
the middle of it.
And that's actually filled withsome of the, I guess, the waste

(34:44):
that people would considerwaste.
It's not waste of food.
sticks and leaves and grassclippings and all sorts of
stuff.
And then it's just got soil onthe top.
So, you know, nothing goes towaste, but in the veggie garden,
I mentioned to Trevor, as wewere walking around that I made
a mistake.
I raised the bed so I wouldn'thave to bend over as much.

(35:07):
And I really don't like gettingdown to ground level.
And so I've raised the beds upwith the soil that's there.
And in some areas, someone wouldlook at it and go, Oh, magic,
your garden bed's full of weeds.
It's actually so moist whereI've got the dandelions and a
wild mustard holding the banksof these raised beds in.

(35:28):
And there were, when there'snone, it's dry and it's solid.
And the pumpkins are looking atme like, dude, water me.
You know, this is part ofpermaculture.
is out of place.
Nothing is not needed.
It's all needed.
Those dandelions and thosemustards, I'm about to make a

(35:49):
whole series of mustards thatI'm going to sell at market from
that wild mustard.
The dandelions I'm harvestingnow, I'm pulling out a couple of
plants, you know, every week andI'm drying them naturally in a
herb dryer, which just isactually hanging outside my
office on the wall.
And.
You know, I'm going to be makingthings.
I've already made batches ofdandelion honey from the

(36:11):
flowers.
So, you know, in permaculture,nothing goes to waste.
And I think we have to get outof this mindset of a weed is a
bad plant.
A weed is just a really goodplant that you've given a nasty
name to, that's all it is.
And listeners, you're probablythinking, this is a health

(36:33):
podcast.
What the heck are they talkingabout this stuff for?
The weeds that we see in thegarden.
We see in those in our, in ourhealth as well, like nothing is
wrong with your body.
It's just not maybe used to thebest way or not in the right
place or not at the right time.

(36:54):
So, you know, your dry skin,what is that telling you?
It's telling you that you've gotnutrient imbalance.
Same as if your plants aredying, when you put them in your
landscape garden, you've got anutrient imbalance or a pH
imbalance.
So, you know, we can link thisstuff up to our health quite
easily.

(37:14):
Now talking about free things inthe garden, Trevor, there's a
term called bush tucker here inAustralia.
I don't know if overseas youguys use this, but It's a term
that's bandied about here a fairbit.
We all hear about it, but manypeople don't know what it means.
So what is bush tucker and howcan we use it for our health and

(37:39):
our survival?

Trevor Andrei (37:40):
That's, well, let's face it, Magic, that's a
part of why we're having thischat today.
Um, I've just spent the last twodays doing a YouTube
collaboration with a guy calledXenonymous.
And, um, we just went throughMelbourne and we've been looking
and, and out in the Grampians.
We filmed the bushfires, wefilmed farms.
We've talked about, lots of bushtucker.

(38:01):
So I hold a research and shareIndigenous culture qualification
from Charles Darwin University.
Uh, I spent many, many, manyyears as an Outback Tour Guide
and like I, I started doingvolunteer work 25 years ago on
an Aboriginal community wherethey were still carrying spears
for real.
There were no tourists.
This was for real.

(38:22):
Um, so Bush Tucker basicallycomes from that.
It was Bush and Tucker's justAussie slang for food, right?
So when the white settlers cameout, out here, you know, it's
not like they were all hated by,um, the Aborigines or whatever.
I suppose what the new modernword is, is, um, First Nations
people.

(38:43):
Um, and in fact, a lot of thembecame good friends and got on
well.
Um, and so you would be taughtbush tucker.
You know, if you were sort oftaken in as a friend of the
tribe, you know, you might havehad a homestead, but they knew
that works good, you know, andwhen we run out of sugar or
something that local, you know,he'll help us out.
So we're going to help him out abit.

(39:03):
So for example, very earlyinstances, a cup of tea might be
an easy thing to get today.
Can you imagine how hard and howexpensive tea was in 1800?
so Coria alba, which is anAustralian native plant, the
Aboriginals taught what set was,you put some of this in when you
boil that water and it tastesgood.
And the white set was like,that's English breakfast.

(39:27):
Right.
And, and this goes on and on andon.
Like we've got medicinalbenefits from things like
kangaroo apple, which I grow onmy, my farm, which is, you know,
the 60, 000 year old version ofDenka rub or Right.
It was you smashed up and madeas a poultice.
So a lot of the things thatpeople call weeds, I mean, if I

(39:48):
can ask you to do two favors forme today, one, subscribe to my
YouTube, I'm going to reallyappreciate it.
Two, the thing that I reallywant you to do is get onto your
council and ask them to startputting in edible weed gardens
and particularly if it's calledbush tucker because then they
can sit there and try and sellit with the whole, oh we're all

(40:12):
going to be wonderful and loveydovey and whatever.
When you've done as many yearsin Aboriginal culture as I have,
you realize that unfortunately alot of these councils and
governments use Aboriginalculture in the same way as
silverware.
It's put out for the fancyguests to show off and then it's
locked up in a cupboard afterthat.
but we can use that to ouradvantage and say to them, well,

(40:33):
why don't you, I was goingaround in Melbourne yesterday,
it was anonymous, showing himthings that you can eat.
And I was like, look, there'seven a signboard next to this.
They should be putting a signsaying you can eat this.
This goes great with potatoesand roast, you know?
So a lot of the things thatpeople think of as words.

(40:53):
Like, Magic just touched on oneof the best right there.
Dandelion, wonderful.
Okay, so here's your hit list.
Dandelion, South Thistle,Mallow, Purslane, Nasturtium,
Amaranth, a little bit ofOxalis.
Not too much, but a little bitof Oxalis.
Love Lee and Lemony.
My daughter loves a little bitof Oxalis when, when we have, my

(41:13):
daughter's half Greek.
So over there, it's prized.
It's called, Water, right?
even when we look at things likestinging nettle.
Oh, stinging nettle?
How horrible! No, how lovely.
You blanch it for a minute,right, chop it all up, put a
little bit of olive oil with it,bit of cracked pepper, bit of
salt, as with all bush tucker.

(41:35):
Right, you either blanch it forlike one minute, or you fry it
up, right, little bit of oliveoil, little bit of pepper,
little bit of salt, oh mygoodness, so amazing, great with
anything like white meat, greatwith fish, great with anything
like red meat, just wonderful.
But what's it got?
It's high in A, B, C, K, I meanthe levels of potassium and

(41:59):
stuff in things like pja.
So pja is like in Maori culture.
This is priced right.
This is A, B, C, K in in, ingreat levels and heaps of
potassium And like, I mean, youknow, don't believe me, get on
Google and have a look like thisstuff is what should be sold in
shops.

(42:19):
But they won't sell it in shopsbecause they know this can grow
in any season.
any soil type anytime a year andit is, this is, these are all
superfoods, absolute powerhousesuperfoods.
So why are we here today talkingabout permaculture and
homesteading on a wellnessthing?

(42:39):
Because a lot of you guys aresitting there wondering, How can
I utilize my backyard better?
Or if I've got a rental?
Like Synonymous said to meyesterday, but Trev, where does
prepping sit with me?
Easy, man.
Petition councils to make theMerry Creek a bush tucker
corridor.
Instead of them having onelittle token, little sign, or
aborigines used to live here andblah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

(43:01):
Show what it was.
Put bush tucker all along.
Don't poison it and say like,okay, this is all ready to eat.
This is in season now, blah,blah, blah.
Use our rates for good.
We are in a, in economicfinancial crisis.
There is a cost of livingcrisis.
Why are councils planting peartrees that don't grow fruit when

(43:23):
they could be grafted?
We've a fruiting variety andsuddenly we're eating for free.
When we look at that in ourbackyards, we go, oh, well, I've
tried growing tomatoes beforeand I know that home grown
tomatoes are nice, but the birdscome and peck at them.
Okay, here's the trouble withgrowing fruits and vegetables.
In season, in ideal conditions,50 to 100 days is going to yield

(43:45):
you your harvest.
Now here's the magic of bushtucker.
It doesn't need to grow a fruit.
Most of it doesn't grow fruits.
Alright, it just grows and youcan snip it off like parsley and
you can add it to every singledish that you cook.
And I guarantee you, it tastesnice.
You give it a cook for oneminute, like they, they can all

(44:08):
be cooked in whatever.
Like I just said, Puha, that'sSouthies, right?
In Maori culture, they got athing called a boil up.
The next time you're in thesupermarket and you see a Maori
person pick up like a big porkbone, like a shoulder or
something with a bit of meat onit, you say to them, Ooh, you
having a boil up.
And they'll say, Oh, the boil uplike me.

(44:29):
I'm a guy.
So they call me bro.
Boil up, bro.
How do you know to boil up?
Oh, I eat the boil up all thetime.
You put the tomato sauce withyou.
Oh, you got to have the tomatosauce.
That makes that extra special.
Right?
So what they do in thesecultures, this is like my mate,
who's Charlie, what my mateCharlie's Maori.
Right.
Puha boil up is Maori peasantfood.
Right.

(44:49):
So how are you going to feedyour, your family huge doses of
vitamins and something that'syummy?
You get a bit of like a bit ofmeat with a bit of bone, you
throw it in the pot.
If you've got some potatoes,some carrots, and then they go
out and they collect bushtucker.
So predominantly south thistle.
And if they can get a bit ofwatercress from a running
stream, Bit of watercress, popit in the pot.

(45:12):
And the, how do you think thesepeople are so big and so strong
on a budget?

Magic Barclay (45:18):
100%.
All right.
So we've bought the land, we'veadjusted the soil.
Now, particularly where I am,and I'm sure a lot of people
have this issue, we're overrunwith rabbits, foxes, and deer.
So it's time to learn hunting.
What's our first port of callwith hunting?
Is it getting the gun license?

(45:39):
And how do we go about that?

Trevor Andrei (45:40):
So it's a good question, Magic.
So, um, a gun license is goodbecause it enables you to get
free food and it enables you toUm, do conservation, um,
hunting.
So where you're actually huntingferal animals, right.

(46:02):
Without using poisons, it's thecleanest way to do it.
So to get a gun license inAustralia is, I wouldn't say
easy.
it's something that you need tobe, there's checks and balances.
It's not like other countries inAustralia.
They vet you pretty heavily.
They're going to check you allout.
It might take up to a year,right?
In terms of getting a license,I'm sponsored by a company

(46:24):
called Global Weapon Systems onSydney Road in Melbourne.
If you go there, they'll giveyou a special.
All you have to do is say, Oh,Trevor, I heard a thing with
Trevor.
Apparently I can get my gunlicense for 50 bucks and they'll
welcome you in like family.
So you've got to do a safetycourse, takes a couple of hours,
right, and then you're on yourway.
You've got your, basicallyyou're going to get your license
after that if you don't have acriminal record, etc.

(46:47):
So the things that we want toknow for homesteading are, you
know, what sort of things arecausing us problems.
so for example, foxes, if you Ifyou don't live on the land, if
you don't have chickens, youwon't realize, but currently
even an Isa Brown's fetching 30.
Uh, it's very easy to lose 600worth of chickens.

(47:08):
And as we've seen with, um, uh,uh, avian flu, um, the amount of
chickens that have beendestroyed around the world, and
in processing facilities,burning downs and things.
is quite large and it's onlyadding to the cost of purchasing
a chicken.
So you're going to want to getrid of foxes in your area.
Um, a lot of times your, therabbits are going to absolutely

(47:31):
decimate anything you're goingto try and grow.
It only takes a couple ofrabbits to actually, deforest
about an of land.
So like two and a bit acres.
So it only takes a few rabbitsto cause quite a big trouble.
It's very easy to get very goodat shooting.
You're going to want like a 22rifle, right?

(47:51):
You can buy something like a JW15 Norinco for about 600 as a
brand new setup.
You could get a cheaper sort ofgun that's secondhand.
Um, for sort of, you know, twoto three hundred dollars and
these things use bullets thatare about seven cents each.
It's going to take you about 500bullets, right, of practice

(48:12):
shooting and, and you will be avery, very confident shooter.
So, you know, we suggest goingto a target range or if you've
got a farm, you know, set sometargets up in your backyard,
shoot downhill, shoot uphill,shoot the wind to the left,
shoot the wind to the right, uh,watch some videos.
I've got some videos.
Um, that show you how to dothese things, right?

(48:33):
And, and learn how to sight inyour rifle, which is called
zeroing in.
And the reason for this is wewant to be really accurate,
right?
I don't know of any hunters thatgo out to like maim something
can cause it suffering, right?
We want to just shoot the thingin the head.
It's instant.
One day it's running around andthe next thing it's gone to

(48:55):
sleep, right?
We don't want to gut shot it oranything like that because it
destroys the meat.
It's totally unusable.
And so people that have gotcats, people that have got dogs,
people that want to learn allthe recipes that our
grandparents lived, survived andthrived on, particularly in the
Great Depression, you know,freak a seared rabbit and all
that sort of stuff, I mean, thisstuff's beautiful and it's

(49:16):
really high yield.
Now you can, you can save somuch money on your budget.
It will absolutely blow yourmind.
You know, if you just shoot afew rabbits a week, suddenly
you're like, Oh wow, there yougo.
We're just going to have slowcook rabbit with some veggies,
bit of celery, bit of garlic,you know, a little dash of red

(49:36):
wine.
Just phenomenal, really goodeating, really clean eating, you
know, and you're eating thingsUnlike all the garbage in the
supermarkets now if we're goingto talk about wellness, let's be
honest, right?
Let's be honest.
There are products now that arestill experimental and not even
that experimental.

(49:57):
I mean, look at Barver in, in,in milk and stuff.
Now we know that this thing'scaustic if it hits your eyes, we
know that if you get the rawproduct on your, on your hands,
it can lead to male sterilityand yet out they come, they're
just constantly pushing thingsand injecting things.
If they told us all the, all thethings that like the animals
have been injected with that areon our supermarket shelves, we'd

(50:17):
be going on like, it's like adonut.
Why is there 40 ingredients in adonut?
Like isn't it just like doughand a bit of cinnamon sugar and
some oil, you know?
So this is the thing like it's areally good question that you've
asked Magic is how do we goabout it and more so For people
new to homesteading, why wouldyou go about and that's the

(50:38):
answer We're not going to haveto use 1080.
So suddenly we've got a thousanddollar vet bill because Fido's
bloody rolling over half deadRight, doing what?
Everybody did for thousands ofyears.
We're just using moderntechniques with a really, really
accurate rifle, with a goodscope.
You know, it's really easy touse.

(50:59):
And there's nothing to be afraidof.
I mean, these things have gotsafety catches on them.
The bullet comes out the front,you know, not to just point it
around in the wind, you do yoursafety, stuff.
And if you want to actually getgood at this or you've bought
land, for example, you know, youcan just meet, meet local people
and say, Oh, well, to be honest,I'm not really from the land,

(51:20):
you know, and particularly whatwe find in the awake community
is there's a lot who hobbiesgone off wherever.
You know, he's moved on tofamily number two, and for some
reason he's forgot that his boysor his girls or both need that
kind of hands on, how do you usetools and drills and hammers and
saws and, and even up the guns,you know?

(51:42):
And there are people like methat absolutely love newbies.
You know, I'm a dad, I've got aneight year old daughter, and
even when it's like, you know,23 year old guys, you know,
whose mum's got me to come ontheir farm to show their kids,
okay, we've got our license,we've got a gun, how do we go
about this, because all we knowis it's a gun and that's it.

(52:04):
You know, it's not a whole beatyour chest and you won't find
blokes like that.
The shooting community is very,very different.
It's quite an embracing andwelcoming community.
There's pages like Fox huntingAustralia.
For example, you go on any otherFacebook page in Australia and
you ask a question.
So I'll give you an example.
You go on the, the cast ironcamp oven cooking page.
You say, Oh, I just bought somecast iron pans and they're

(52:26):
rusty.
how do I season these?
And you're going to get run downyour first day on the page.
30 people going, Oh, blah, blah,blah, blah.
Everybody knows that.
Oh, I can't believe people arestill asking this question.
You go on a page like Foxhunting Australia, which I used
to admin for five years with 30,000 shooters, it's still going
strong.
And you say, Oh, I'm not sure.
Should I get a two, two, three,or a two, four, three.

(52:48):
And in 13 seconds, you're goingto have 30 people that know what
they're talking about.
holding your hand through theprocess saying, well, that's a
good question.
You know, are their neighborsmore than 600 meters away from
you?
Is your place forested?
Is it hilly?
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah.
You know, it's a very differentthing because the shooting
community doesn't have topretend to be keyboard warriors

(53:11):
or tough or bravado or whatever,because.
We've all got guns, right?
We don't, we don't need toimpress anybody that we're tough
or hard or the best or whatever.
It's just, it's like, it's, it'sreally bizarre.
It's the only forum I've everseen on Facebook where that
level of keyboard warrior doesnot exist at all.

(53:35):
All.
You can be a total newbie and noone's ever going to say, Oh,
you're the 12th person to askthat question this week.
It's out comes the 30 or 40people like me that loves
newbies.
So let's talk about, um,shooting a little bit.

Magic Barclay (53:51):
Before we do that.
There's probably some listenersout there that are thinking,
well, I love animals.
Why will I shoot them?
I'm going to tell you frompersonal experience that my farm
here is a wildlife sanctuary.
We have a young mob ofkangaroos.
Um, we have lots of wombats onthe property.

(54:12):
We have echidnas, you know, wehave a lot of bird life as well.
And.
I've had to put down two wombatsin the past two months because
of mange.
Mange is spread by rabbits andfoxes.
so, you know, and I've lostthree joeys.
Literally last week, foxes werefollowing my female kangaroos

(54:33):
around.
And when the joeys first get outof the pouch, they're a bit
wobbly.
They don't really know how touse their legs.
Mum can't be everywhere at once.
And dad wasn't around on thisday.
And the fox is just.
So before I hear listeners go,but shooting animals is wrong,

(54:54):
sometimes it's not.
Wrong becomes right.
It has to because you have toput your native animals first.
You have to put your pets firstYou know, I have a cat and She's
in a cattery, but I have seenthe foxes and I don't know how
many locals have said don'tworry about your cat Foxes won't
go for her I have seen themoutside the cattery trying to

(55:15):
work out how to get to her andthey are three times her size
Yep.
So let's talk a bit aboutshooting.
What do we need to know?

Trevor Andrei (55:24):
A little while ago, actually, um, I had some
friends and they called me upand, um, and they're good
friends, really good friends.
Uh, you'd be, you'd be amazedhow, how much as being on a new
farm can be totally isolating,that when you find your tribe.
Like they'll do anything for youand they're always out to help

(55:47):
you.
Oh, I found some chicken wire onthe side of the road.
Do you want?
Oh yeah, I'd love that.
Oh, Fred's getting rid of somecorrugated iron.
You want to come around and pickit up?
Oh yeah.
Like it's just phenomenal,phenomenal.
The unity in community is strongwhen you find your tribe.
So my friends called me up andthey said, Oh, mum's horse is,
um, it's gone lame.
It's, it can't even stand upproperly anymore.

(56:07):
the vet wants a fortune to putit out down.
Can you come around and, andshoot it for us?
And, um, and can you give us thenumber for that mate of yours
that's got a bobcat so he candig a hole and bury it nicely?
I said, yeah, yeah, no worries.
I, I got on Daryl, said, oh, doyou want to meet us around there
at such and such tonight?
Yep, no worries.
Put a lead around the horse,gave it a pat for about 10
minutes, walked around, and, um,yeah, you know, I shot it in one

(56:32):
shot with the right bullet.
Like that was it, it was on theground, like it's as if you
clicked your fingers and saiddisappearing legs, like you
could not believe.
a millionth of a second, thisthing was already on the ground,
painless, beautiful.
And that's the thing, magic is,sometimes we do have to
euthanize, animals.
you know, sheep might break legsjumping down into a creek bank

(56:52):
or something like that, youknow, and this is the level of
animal husbandry where, and itwas put to me brilliantly
yesterday, another shooter, saidto Xenonimous, who's doing that
YouTube with me, he said toXenonimous, you've got to think
of it like this, imagine thatyou needed to be euthanized,
right?
Something tragic has happened toyou.
You've got to think of it likethis, imagine that you needed to

(57:12):
be euthanized, right?
Something tragic has happened toyou.
How long would you like theprocess to take?
And it was just like a reallysobering moment where you're
like, yeah I literally want tojust like close my eyes and
that's it like as if I just wentto sleep and didn't even know
And so when we talk about umshooting we're talking about the
right the right gun for you Andthe right gun to do the job.

(57:35):
And so it's very simple tounderstand this.
So A 22 is basically a rabbitshooting survival rifle.
It can be used for like a fox,you know, at short range, which
is usually where a fox is goingto come around.
It's going to be getting yourchickens.
It's going to be getting yourcats.
yet again, I saw a forum a goodwhile ago.
Where some idiot in England wassaying, Oh, foxes don't eat

(57:56):
cats.
They don't eat animals.
And I'm not joking.
It was like 134 people got onthat post straight away saying,
do you want to see a picture ofmy cat that was quite chewed up
by a fox?
Cause I'll show you.
Um, and, and that's really thething.
Like people don't realize.
When you've got, even whenyou've got sheep for pets, which
some people do just as grazers,you know, just to keep the grass
low.

(58:18):
If you get, a lamb, foxes willeat the tongue out of the lamb,
just the tongue and it's dead.
Like it just lies in the grounduntil it's dead.

Magic Barclay (58:27):
And around here, the foxes actually hang around
the sheep.
And as the sheep is givingbirth, they're taking the lamb.

Trevor Andrei (58:34):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it'sreally, it's really quite a
problem.
And what, like we said before,by us doing this, we're doing
our bit.
to make sure that we're, thatthe land isn't all poisoned with
crazy baits that stick aroundfor years and years and years
that then have all sorts ofother ramifications.

(58:56):
It's clean, it's ethical, it'sdone.
Like you said, mange, my dogpicked up mange last year, um,
because a fox had come onto ourproperty and within days my poor
dog was in so much pain withmange.
It's, it's not just like a looksbad thing, like you can see the
pain on the dog.

(59:16):
And so, I went to theagriculture supplies place,
bought some Advocate.
And, that ended up doing thejob, but I mean, it took a while
to do it.
so what are we going to shoot?
We were going to shoot with a 22for rabbits.
We're going to shoot a shotguncan shoot anything because you
can use different cartridges,the same size bullet has got
different sorts of ammunition init.

(59:37):
So a 12 gauge shotgun is reallygood.
If you get a really cheap, nastyone, like a cheap one, it's
going to hurt your shoulder whenyou shoot it.
You get something like a 600 to900.
shotgun, even a woman is goingto shoot it and I'm not saying
it because the woman I'm sayingit's because of the musculature
in, in the shoulders.
he's going to shoot that withease and you can shoot anything
from rabbits to a pig.

(59:59):
Like you've got to understandthat some listeners, would be in
parts of the country where pigsare a massive problem and like a
pig can kill your dog.
You know, easily a hundred kiloball will rip your dog to pieces
and then eat it.
you can get, when we're talkingabout, shooting longer ranges,
if you've got a bigger farm.
we're talking about things like,a 223 rifle or a 243 rifle.

(01:00:22):
If there's things like deer, nowyou've got to understand in a
lot of national parks, deer areactually feral in Australia.
And what happens is if we, theshooters, that are licensed to
have the right permits and allthat sort of stuff.
If we don't do this conservationhunting on the ground and
harvest the meat, here's whatdoes happen.

(01:00:44):
Right.
They get people in helicopterswho shoot them and quite often
there's what they're what calledgut shots.
Right.
It drops the animal.
It will eventually die.
Nothing is harvestable.
All it does is it places a hugeamount of dead meat on the
ground to further enhance foxand feral cat populations.

(01:01:05):
Right.
And something has suffered andWe're all picking up the tab in
our taxes, versus if you want toharvest venison, which tastes
amazing, right, you can go intoa national park or a forest, you
can legally hunt one in theright hours, in the right time,

(01:01:26):
and you can harvest all thatmeat.
take it all out, take it home,put it in the freezer, turn it
into sausages, turn it intowhatever you want.
And that's really the beauty inthis, is like we say, and I've
said this before, if everybodyhad to kill their own food,
right, to eat meat, you know, Ireckon something like 90 percent

(01:01:49):
of the population would turnvegetarian overnight.
It's a very sobering experience.
for me, for example, I used toshoot kangaroos for a big farmer
in South Australia that ownedbig flour mills over there.
And I did years and years as anoutback tour guide.
I've got friends that own, uh,refuges as in wildlife refuges.

(01:02:10):
I've had kangaroo kisses.
hundreds of times with joeyshundreds.
All right.
And so for me, I've found thatfor me, I don't like shooting
female kangaroos.
I don't like finding it joey.
if I'm going to control kangaroopopulations in places where
farmers rely on their lucentpaddocks so that they don't have

(01:02:33):
like a 30, 000 or a hundredthousand dollar stock feed bill
that year, because they'retrying to grow their stock feed,
but it's been eaten out of thatpaddock.
That's when they're allowed toshoot when there's increased
numbers of roos.
Instead of me shooting femalesand then maybe finding a joey
here or there, right?
Which I don't particularly like.

(01:02:55):
I just shoot males, right?
I shoot males.
I harvest all the meat.
And for me, that's the way thatI go about it.
Right.
Um, I'll be really honest withyou because I'm with magic and I
can imagine what magics,listeners are like if they're,
if you're always got wonderfuland wavy W's magic is right.

(01:03:15):
How many deers have you evershot?
Trev, do you want the honestanswer?
Zero.
I've never shot at the, I've haddeers in my sights before and
I'm like, ah, you go, right.
that's not to say that I never,will, for me, I do what works
for me.
I'm signed off on thousands andthousands of acres to shoot on.

(01:03:37):
I get that for food.
So predominantly I get rabbits.
Me and, me and my dog, Sweetie,love rabbits.
It's really good, really healthyfood.
if I'm going to shoot, uh, roos,you've got to have a permit.
And like I said, I only shootmales.
And then I harvest all the roos.
All of the meat, right?
Like you'd be amazed that when Ishoot something and, and there

(01:03:59):
again, rams, so farmers, whentheir rams get all old and tough
and, and whatever, and they'relooking like they're going to
drop dead in a few days, right?
Farmers will ring me up and say,Oh, Hey Trev, if you want a ram,
I've got a ram in that paddocksitting there waiting for you,
you shoot it and you can takethe meat.
No worries.
I'll do that.
Like the trick to like makingram tastes like lamb is you get

(01:04:20):
patacks.
Like and subscribe, Patax.
You get Patax Rogan Josh, right?
Any kind of meat that's like,you know, like that sort of male
meat, it's got like kind of a, abitterness to it, right?
A little bit of vinegar in thepot and slow cook it.
And it takes away all of thatgaminess, and it's amaz I've

(01:04:43):
fed, like, I've got Maorishearing contractor mates, and
like, nobody eats ram.
Like, shearers don't eat ram.
They're like, ah, bleh.
I've brought them around bowls.
Of Ram, Rogan, Josh, and theones tried it.
He's Chad, Chad's his name.
I'll tell you the whole story.
And he's like, bro, this isawesome.

(01:05:03):
This isn't Ram.
This is Lam.
I'm like, no, man, I'm tellingyou, this was a stinky old Ram
ready to die.
And then he tells you, he saysto his mates, give this a try.
They're like, no, no bro, nobodyeats Ram.
And he's like, I'm telling you,man, try it.
And he's like, what did you do?
How did you make this work,Trev?
And I said, mate, Billy Clark,this is old guy, Billy Clark,

(01:05:24):
right, Riley.
Billy Clark's mum is the twotime rabbit skinning world
champion from Moyston.
Moisten, if you don't know whereMoisten is, that's right where
it just all burnt down in theGrampians bushfires, and it's
where AFL started.
AFL was actually the aboriginalgame of Marmbroke, that a couple
of white fellas threw in, went,Whoa, that's a good game, we'll
make a game like that.

(01:05:44):
Right, so Billy Clarks, right,the two time, female, two
Skinning Champion's son told me,Hey mate, if you want to make
any game of meat taste better,You just make Rogan Josh out of
it, you put a little bit ofvinegar, and away you go.
And then, it's not going towaste.
If something is going to die, ifsomething needs to be
euthanized, if something canstill be harvested, I'll, I'll

(01:06:08):
do it, and I'll put it to gooduse.
But you would be really amazed,I think, to see I do it with
such compassion and, quite oftenI'll say sorry to the animal,
you know, I remember saying, Ithink it's like the gods must be
crazy.
There was this old movie back inthe eighties where they found a

(01:06:28):
bottle and they were like, Oh mygoodness, look at this thing.
You can do all this stuff withthis thing.
But in that video, there's ascene where I think he shoots,
uh, an antelope with a beard.
This is a traditional ICACKalahari Bushman.
And in his way, the subtitlescomes up and he's saying to the
animal, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I shot you.
My family is hungry.

(01:06:49):
we'll put you to good use.
Your, your wife will not go towaste, you know?
And if you can understand it inthat context, like magic said,
you know, if sheep are burnt ina paddock because of bushfires
come through.
All right, I'm telling you,these are hard things to do, but
never gets to a point wherelike, you're, immune to it all,

(01:07:11):
but it's something that you doeither because you know, you're
putting food on the table andyou do it without being an a
hole and you do it as ethicallyand quick as possible, or you're
doing something because if thatwas you on the ground, you'd be
like, please, I'm going to closemy eyes, put me out of the
misery right now.

Magic Barclay (01:07:27):
Well, we've covered a lot, and I think we
need to wrap this episode upright there.
People, there are so many facetsto health, and it's not just
what supplement we can take,what we can take out of our
diet, or what we can add to ourdiet.
It's all encompassing.
It's how you live.

(01:07:48):
It's how you respect and honourthe land.
It's how you live with theanimals around you.
It's how you live with theplants around you and what these
plants can do.
Remembering that many things wecall weeds, or we're taught to
call weeds, are actuallymedicinal plants.
So thank you, Trevor, for comingon folks.
You can find Trevor at survivalshop, preppers warehouse.

(01:08:12):
com.
Now all his links will be onthere.
We'll put them in the show notesagain.
Welcome to season two of amagical life, health, wealth,
and weight loss.
We look forward to your viewerquestions.
Please do like subscribe, share,and review this podcast.
And we will see you shortly.
Thank you.