Hello There Stranger

It feels a bit strange, and I feel a little guilty.
I'm sitting at my laptop in the middle of the afternoon!
A couple of hours off in the middle of the day is what I thought might be normal for my newly retired status, but life just keeps getting in the way.
No complaints from this quarter though, I'm just so grateful for every day and what comes up to keep me happily occupied.
Today I'm having a catch up of some of the blogs I love to read, and I see a pattern there. Everyone is busy, life is full.
To my blogger friends, and you are all friends, not just on-line acquaintances, I apologize for my lack of comments to you of late.
The rain that was promised for today, has arrived and it's tipping down outside. I don't feel quite so bad about being in here now. :)
A few bits of rain over the past week, so I'd say our opening rains for the season have arrived. The paddocks were greening up well after the rain a month ago, but with no rain in the interim, the grass was about to die off again.
The big farmers are out there morning and night, plowing and seeding their paddocks, hoping for good follow up rains.
Here at our patch there's no plowing, no burning off stubble, no spraying of toxic pre-emergent weed poisons, or spreading of chemical fertilizers or super phosphates.
Instead, Brian has put out Bio-Dynamics Prep 500 and direct seeded with some mixed pasture seeds using the no-till method.
The biology of our soils has been improving ever since we moved to Bio-dynamic and organic methods and therefore, the weeds don't have a chance to get a hold because the ground is never allowed to become bare through over grazing.
Where there is bare ground, there will be weeds.
So what's been happening around the farm of late?

Animals- sheep

We took the remainder of our last year's lambs to market last month.

They were still classed as lambs, almost one year old, not quite hogget.
We were pretty happy just to see that they had been placed in the first row of pens where the high priced lambs are always penned.
However, the best was yet to come, to hear the auctioneer running the price up..and up...and up?
Neither of us had ever expected to top the sales. Ever! We must be doing something right.

Cows

 At present, Mulga Bill (bull) is "working" at Mt Crawford on a Hereford cattle property, and is due to return home in June.
Lavender's calf, Freddie, had to be weaned three weeks ago, when he was just over four months old. I had planned to leave him with her for another month, to allow us the freedom to milk Lavender whenever we wanted to. However, he was getting big and boisterous, making a mess of her teats with his teeth.
 I call it "gentle weaning". We separated them, with a fence between them so they could talk to each other and hang out together when they wanted to.
This year we have cut down on our stock numbers here on our home block, in order to allow the paddocks to recover from a long stretch of grazing, so the decision was made to sell Freddie now rather than wait until he grows out further. More growth, better sale price, but we didn't want to compromise our plan of de-stocking.
We took him to market last week, and once again walked away with huge grins. The price we achieved by selling him at five months old was higher than our one year old steers sold in the recent past!  Such is the present market for sheep and cattle.
Lavender is here alone now, but she has company over the fence on two neighbor's boundaries, and seems to be quite happy. Her next calf is due in December and now that we don't have her calf to share the milk, I'm milking twice a day, morning and evenings, and bringing in fourteen litres of creamy milk every day.

Poultry

 We had too many meat bird hens (Cornish Game) and not enough layer hens, so we had to part with some of them and bring in a new Australorp rooster.
We were out of balance.. an over abundance of meat, but not enough eggs, so the next generation of hens will be egg layers, to bring us back into balance.
Here are some of the girls eating their morning yoghurt.

Excess skimmed milk is poured into the outside yoghurt bucket daily. The yoghurt solids are scooped out and fed as a supplement for the poultry. We never feed fresh milk to poultry, but if left to sour or clabber, it can be digested easily and is a high protein food, perfect for laying hens.

Alan washes the dipper for me each day.

An abundance of milk again.

Cream so thick it looks like ice-cream.

Feta curds

Not from an op-shop! A brand new eleven litre stockpot for cheese making, purchased from K-mart.

More Quark, more cheesecakes.

Cultured Butter and Buttermilk

My friend Meg recently attended a David Asher cheese making workshop in Daylesford, Victoria and has been raving about his methods. Serendipitously, my friend Marieka, loaned me her new copy of his recently published book!

It's revolutionary and wonderful, and I've ordered a copy for myself.

Although I'm pleased to have learned what I know about cheese making, the basics, and then started  experimenting and using my creativity, I'm over the moon ecstatic to now have this book.

He uses Kefir for his starter cultures, and has simplified the processes of many varieties of cheese.

The book is easy to read...I read it in one night, couldn't put it down, but I'm a self confessed cheese nerd.

The steps are easy to follow with lots of beautiful photos to illustrate the tutorials.

Anyone can make great cheeses by following the instructions and information within the 298 pages.

In a nutshell, David Asher has thrown out the daunting mysticism of cheese making and has made it simple and do-able.

I've always been a fan of making do with what we have in our homes, re-purposing and adapting items to make molds, presses, baskets etc, so I was thrilled to see his adaptations of kitchen wares in similar ways to my own.

Garden

Last year's abundant crop of garlic was beginning to sprout, so upon the advice of our friend Merv, the garlic grower, I peeled them all from their outer shells, leaving the skin on, put them into zip lock bags and into the freezer.

NOT in the fridge, that will only make them sprout faster, they must go into the freezer.

We had such a huge crop of beautiful large garlic cloves, but I was going to lose half a year's worth, so I was pleased to heed Merv's good advice. Now I know I'll have garlic for the next six months until we pick our next crop.

Brian planted out three hundred of the largest sprouted cloves last weekend, as well as  cauliflowers, cabbages, broccoli, bokchoi, (spell correct tells me it's Chiorboy), tatsoi, Asian winter greens and beetroot.

I planted coriander and lettuce among my self seeding patch of kale, mustard greens and parsley.

In my Kitchen

Anzac Biscuits for Anzac day, sold like hot cakes in the Jembella Farm-gate shop at our front gate, and seem to be a favorite all year round.

Feta and spinach triangles baked in the wood oven that's burning around the clock now.

 The Mother's Day gift that keeps on giving. My step boys know the perfect way to win my heart.

 

 My chrysanthemums are dismal this year so Mum got purple sage on her grave. She loved purple, and loved any kind of flower, she even saw the beauty in weeds.

My other Mother's Day gifts will arrive by plane on Monday morning. A week of mothering and grand-mothering will be mine.

I hope YOU have a rich and rewarding week ahead too. 

Cheers!