Jembella Farm: September 2018

Tuesday 4 September 2018

Spring

Lots has been happening around here lately, and this morning I'm sitting at the kitchen table with my cuppa as the sun peeps over the horizon, laptop at the ready, determined to catch up with you.
Maintaining a large garden, caring for animals, baking, bee-keeping, and the never ending house domestics, there is always plenty to do around here, but I admit I do like to be busy, so there it is.
With the arrival of spring and days that are no longer chilly, the grass (loosely referred to as lawn) around the house is growing at an alarming rate and needs mowing every ten days or so. I wish the same could be said for the hay paddock which seems to have stopped growing altogether. At this rate there will be no hay making, but we continue to hope it will keep pushing upwards as we have all of this month to wait for some last minute growth. Perhaps some sunshine on it will push it along, provided we get a few showers of rain too.
With the warmer days we're drinking more kombucha instead of an afternoon cuppa. I've given away a couple of SCOBY's to beginner kombucha makers lately and have referred them to my old blog post for instructions on how to make it.
I hadn't looked at that post for some time, and I found it needed updating, so if you're just getting into making your own kombucha you might find it helpful.

Our freezers are re-stocked with lamb after a processing morning just over a week ago.

A friend brought one of his lambs to learn from Brian the skill of butchering. There is nothing like the satisfaction of raising our meat from birth to plate on our own piece of land. With this new skill, our friend Craig has achieved one step closer to his own food security and self sustainable farming to feed his family.

It was warm enough to open a couple of our bee hives to clean up the frames for the flowering season that is upon us now.

The bees in one of the hives had made a frame of honey under the lid which had to be removed, before adding a super (box) to allow them more space to breed and store honey. Very carefully we sliced off the honeycomb into strips and made up some jars of honey with honeycomb. A rare opportunity to let our buyers sample this product as we are often asked if we sell honeycomb; our answer is always no. We choose not to destroy their wax foundation frames when we are extracting honey from the hives. It takes a lot of energy, pollen and nectar, to build replacement wax foundations, and we would rather they use that energy to make honey.

These few jars of Honey with Honeycomb disappeared very quickly from the Farmgate stall.
This week the weather has turned to winter again, with some welcome rain and cooler temperatures so there was no bee work, but we have many more hives to open and perform maintenance checks as soon as we get some warmer days.

The beekeeping workshops will begin again next month on Sunday October 28th, and this one is already booked out.
If you're keen to attend any of our workshops for this coming bee season let us know so we can book you in.
The next workshop will be on Sunday November 25th. The cost of $100 includes morning tea, lunch and beverages and is a full day course from 9:00am - 5:00pm. Numbers of participants are limited to 10 people to allow hands on participation and interaction.
Gosh, this season has come around so fast, and I'm caught slightly on the hop so we shall be working some nights to catch up. Orders are already coming in for equipment purchases and soon there will be swarms to collect as well as extracting honey from all of the hives.
Our Pure Raw Honey sales continue strongly as more controversy rages over imported honey coming into the country and containing fake honey substitutes. I'm glad it has come to the notice of the general public now, as it's something we've suspected for a long time but could not say anything about it until there was firm evidence.
Buy local, support your local farmers and apiarists. Nothing tastes as good as locally produced anyway.
There's mandarine marmalade to make, sourdough loaves to mix, a patch of grass to mow, and Kelpies to walk/run..... before lunch!
And now I'm behind again!!
Thanks for dropping by.
Cheers,
Sally XX

About Us

Whether you're living in an apartment, in a house in the suburbs or on acres, you can live frugally and sustainably. There are many things you can do to save money, eat ethically and healthily, reduce waste and live an enriched life.
We are Sally and Brian and we live in the Barossa Valley (South Australia) in a 100 year old house on sixteen acres with 2 dogs, 7 cows, 2 alpacas, 5 geese, 35 chickens, 78 sheep and a few bee hives.
Our way of life takes team work and dedication, but over the years we've learned to be more productive without seeming to put in quite so much effort. We've learned through making mistakes and taking a different approach to what the conventional ways would be. Still learning every day and constantly researching old and new methods, we believe that our lives are greatly enriched, we are healthier and we couldn't imagine any other way of life.
Considered to be living The Good Life, people love to visit us on our small farm to learn about our simple living philosophy.

Why do we do it?
Our love of good food, concern for our health and respect for all animals. The further we got into living on the land the more aware we became that most of the standard practices of growing food were not satisfactory. We couldn't eat with a clear conscience.
Milk from sad cows, pasteurized and homogenized into white liquid. Meat from distressed, hormone and antibiotic pumped livestock. Vegetables and fruits grown and sprayed with chemicals. What to do? Grow our own!
Slowly we grew our knowledge and took one step at a time, becoming proficient in one skill before moving on to the next. The learning curves were steep. We fell over and got back up again. There has been some derision and criticism of our approach from a few, but that's life when you swim against the tide.
If we are not the "norm" then so be it. There is nothing "normal" about growth hormones fed to beef, anti-biotics and chemicals fed routinely to chickens, cruelty and disrespect for farmed animals, meals in a box, GM foods, strawberries and tomatoes in winter.
Thankfully the World is waking up to cleaner and more ethical food. We didn't know back then that Organics and Bio-dynamics would become the "new black". The tide is turning and our swimming is becoming easier.