Al Ma'Awa is an organic farm, craniosacral therapy practice and family home situated on the edge of the village of Eitental, near the Danube in Lower Austria. I stayed there for a couple of months with Leila, Hartwig and their family, working on the farm and helping to build a new greenhouse and vegetable/herb garden.

Mornings began some time after six, making sure the goats, chickens, ducks and geese were fed and had water, and scything a wheelbarrow of grass for the rabbits while Hartwig fed the pigs.

Goats are interesting and frustrating. They're intelligent, very social and you have to earn their respect. Until I had a determined stand-off with the most challenging ones it was a struggle to even get the kids to behave.

I felt a bit sorry for Orpheo, who should have been the leader of the flock. It was obvious that control of the group really lay with a couple of does instead, and he would come over and push his head through the fence for a sympathetic rub. It felt like he knew what he was, what I was, and that I was probably having the easier time.

The rest of the morning I would carry on building the foundations for the greenhouse or spend some time in the kitchen with Leila, making bread or cheese from goat's milk. We got to talk about the pros and cons of the local exchange circle, about living within your own means, and about the political side of organic farming.

The mornings in the kitchen were some of the most nurturing and valuable of my times at Al Ma'Awa, and I felt much more useful and ready to start making my own choices later because of them.

Every so often we would all head into Melk for an evening walk and a kebab (kebap!). About half an hour's drive from Eitental, the town is characterised by Stift Melk, the huge Benedictine abbey that stands overlooking the Danube.

Apart from the greenhouse, the other major plan we undertook was to redesign the front garden, marking out a pathway from the road with four raised beds and herb spirals. With some help I put together a plan (which you can see by clicking on the image below), and we began to build the first spiral.

I had help & approval from my favourite chicken and her group of little chicks. They would come and scratch around wherever I had been digging.

The farmhouse at Al Ma'Awa is relatively new, built in the 1980s by the last owners. Next to it is the old farmhouse, now in need of some renovation. Used recently to house chickens, it's become a strange barn with furniture in the rooms and print patterns on the walls.