It’s important to know

what you're getting into when it comes to managing your first-ever block.

Alternatively, you can say to yourself “oooh, that's a lovely spot” and just move to your dream property. That's what I did.

One of my first problems was what to do with the fast-growing spring pasture on my hilly paradise.

I did get some helpful advice from blockowning friends. “Seriously, you haven't got sheep yet?” That began my journey into land management and sheep. A few weeks later, three enthusiastic lambs arrived and promptly disappeared into the long grass. The stunned expression on their woolly little faces matched my own.

My first thought was to make hay. The sun was shining.

Machine mowing the steep gradient of my block makes that too dangerous.

A small budget meant hiring a contractor wasn't a viable option either.

Hay has been cut, dried and baled by hand since medieval times. How hard could the old-fashioned way of doing things be? Project DIY Hay Baler began. Google provided a range of articles. I quickly clicked past the one entitled “don't buy a lifestyle block until you've done your homework” and moved on to the traditional haymaking results.

The basic method to making hay is cut, rake, turn, dry, bale.

The North Carolina Forestry Service's leaflet on how to build a simple box baler got me enthused about what they called:

“A low-cost, simple-to-operate-and-build solution that is ideal for small-scale/start-up operations.”

I ignored the drawbacks column with its pessimistic talk: • cumbersome • labour-intensive • limited production And the most pertinent to someone in my profession: • inefficient