Five Years On, What My Tree Change Taught Me
Cree Monaghan and Tim Hall thought long and hard before uprooting their children from Perth, where the couple had professional careers, to the country to open a sustainable high-welfare farm and a paddock-to-plate cooking school.
“We must have spent five years talking through all the aspects,” Cree says. “If we were going to do it, we wanted to do it properly.” A qualified vet, she undertook both a Veterinary College membership in Animal Welfare and studied at Cordon Bleu in Paris to ensure her culinary skills were up to scratch. They investigated several different areas before finally settling on south-western WA where they established One Table Farm.
Five years on – and with millions of YouTube views – the move has clearly been a success. Nonetheless, Cree says that the process has not only been challenging – it’s been a journey into the unexpected. “When you start something from scratch, it’s a big challenge. We’re starting to see outcomes, but we’re still evolving. I certainly don’t regret it, but it’s been a steep learning curve.”
If you are thinking of making a big life change, Cree shares four important things she has learnt along the way.
You have to remain flexible
“When you start something from scratch, you can’t be too rigid. You need to be clear, to have some idea of how it will work, but if you are inflexible, you will break. We started with 40 hectares. To get to the point of running our paddock-to-plate classes, we first had to do a whole lot of planting and building and we had no idea how long it would take to get all the permissions. We had to find a way to make some money while all that was happening, but we could never have predicted that our first moneymaking venture would be sourdough classes. The classes really took off. It wasn’t something we had planned – Tim was making a lot of sourdough and had been for many years. But that one little thing working gave us reassurance when we really needed it.”
It’s easier when you are in it together
“When you take such a big shift in direction, it’s a huge outlay in energy and you just have to keep going, no matter what. The difference between the dream you have in your head and where you are actually at can be frustrating. There are plenty of times you think, ‘This is too slow, this is too expensive.’ I’m grateful there are the two of us. When one of us hits a low point, the other one can say, ‘We’ll get there.’ It helps you get over the hump.”
“I’m grateful there are the two of us. When one of us hits a low point, the other one can say, ‘We’ll get there.’ It helps you get over the hump.”
Appreciate the unexpected upsides
“After we bought the farm, I worked in Perth for a while, but that got too difficult to manage. We couldn’t get by without a regular income, however, so I had to get a part-time job in town. It was good for me to have a bit of structure in my week and get to put on my city clothes, clothes that weren’t covered in dust and mud and potting mix. But there was a bigger advantage. I got to meet so many people I would not otherwise have met and built really strong connections into the community. Local businesses support each other down here and becoming part of that was important for us.”
You never know where something will lead
“The YouTube thing came as a complete surprise. When they sent us an email, I didn’t even open it – I thought it was spam. They eventually messaged us via Instagram and said, ‘We’re serious about this’. They had read an interview where we talked about how we learnt things from YouTube and invited us to be a part of their learning series. They thought it would be interesting for their audience to see real people who made big changes. We never imagined we would get 3.3 million views around the world. Obviously with border closures, that hasn’t yet translated into visits but it has created huge interest and it’s also given us a marker, a way to look back and see what we have achieved.”
Interview with Cree Monaghan by Ute Junker
Photo_ Russell Ord Photography