The Actual About Us
Thank you so much for visiting our website. We thought when we created this website less than a year ago that our about us section would be the first thing! The sheep hadn’t arrived yet and we had lived here for a few months when we were accepted to become part of the Great Lakes Food Trail. There is nothing like an email that has a questionnaire attached that asks you for a website for one to appear. And we had no photos of the three of us together on the farm with no sheep!
So here we are, and we still haven’t lived on Yeo Farm for 12 months yet (that anniversary is in late July sometime) and a lot has gone on! But as we are developing more online as well as in the paddock, it’s time to tell you about ourselves.
We are husband and wife team, Andrew and Em Yeo. Turned into a trio three years ago with the arrival of Jack. Our move to Bulahdelah in 2015 came about as an overdue overhaul of our lives. We met in Dubbo in 2010, very much by chance and connected over our country upbringing, strong family values and photography. We gave notice to our jobs and went ‘all in’ and moved to Tamworth, where we developed a successful event photography business that lead into creating a videography and live-streaming business.
The strong pull to be back on the land has always been talked about. With long drives around Australia and discussions on how, where, what. Farming was always part of the plan.
Finding this property and developing Yeo Farm has been such an amazing experience. As a young man, Andrew left the family property to work off farm for most of his 20’s. The family property was between Mendooran and Dunedoo, and although he went away to school, most of his childhood was spent on motorbikes in the paddock with Dad. Leaving home he worked doing a large amount of building all around Australia. Whatever he decided he wanted to do, he would research, design and execute. This is something he has taken this one step further with the farm, and not only researched but gone back to study and do courses that align with his vision for the property. The first attraction to Bulahdelah was the lifestyle. Andrew loves mountain bike riding and kayaking. When we first moved, it was a huge part of our lives, we don’t make enough time at the moment, but knowing we can do it anytime is amazing as we have one of the best nature adventure tourism in Australia right on our doorstep.
Em is firstly mum to Jack and then handles all the logistics and admin for the farm. Growing up in the Riverina, she was lucky that her parents always tried to rent properties rather than houses in town. Horses were the passion in the Bradshaw family (still are) and so this lead to a beautiful childhood of community and farm life. Having a mum that was so capable and cooked everything from scratch and was an amazing gardener you would think as the first born child that she would just follow in her footsteps. Ah no…….
Well it took nearly 35 years for that to happen, as a job on a cattle station when she was 17, took her on a different path for many years. It wasn’t until we moved to Bulahdelah, starting gardening (well Andrew mostly) but defiantly starting cooking with local produce that the phone calls to mum for recipes, and gardening advice started. After many years in the Kimberley, brahman cattle, horses and photography where her first loves and probably what she thought she would be doing forever. The introduction to sheep farming for Em has been helped enormously by Andrews dad Mike. When Andrew is away, Mike comes out to the farm and Em is always full of questions that he always graciously answers! Probably more than once!
One of our overriding goals was to provide Jack with the same upbringing we had on a farm, but Yeo Farm has become so much more than that. We are improving this beautiful property with our animals and our vision is to have a lifestyle that provides fresh food to ourselves and our community using regenerative practices. We have struck such gold with the town of Bulahdelah and in particular the neighbours we have here at the farm. Our road leads onto Old Inn Road. And the people in this gorgeous valley have made us feel more than welcome they have made us feel like family.
Thats what living in the country is all about, and thats what we want to provide to anyone that comes onto our farm. Thank you for joining us on this adventure and we hope to see you here soon.
OH! And….being part of the Great Lakes Food Trail (best thing we ever did) meant we had access to a fabulous photographer to take photos of the three of us! Claudia Gabriel Lim from H O M E S T O R I E S Thank you Claudia! Another reason I can get this story up! I have photos of the three of us on the farm.
