Thursday 5 December 2019

A New Calf and Other Happenings


Baby Asher made her way into the world without a hitch on the night that a bush-fire had caused havoc, just over the hill from us, earlier in the day.
It was a tense day. Brian had gone with his fire unit to assist in dousing the flames while I actioned our fire preparation plan at home.
We were exhausted after the day, running on fear and adrenaline, and needed sleep more than anything.  It was during our evening rounds, locking up the poultry into their night sheds, when we noticed Poppy was in her early stages of labour, five days early.
A new form of anxiety then set in, I'm always fearful of birthing difficulties in new heifers, so sleep was the last thing on my mind.
What a hot night it was. The daytime temperature was 43C degrees and fiercely windy, hence the fires sparking up in all over our district. The evening was still hovering around 39C degrees and although the wind had dropped, it had blown in billions of flying insects that clung to the torch beam and found their way into my shorts, rubber boots, t-shirt and bra every time I walked down to check on Poppy's progress through labour.
At 11pm, just 40 minutes after my previous inspection, I found Poppy licking a perfect little silver heifer calf. It was a perfect delivery and, feeling extreme relief and highly emotional, I took myself off to shower and fell into bed.

Three days after calving Poppy was eager to trot into the milking parlour, while leaving her calf to sleep in the grass. I had begun training her to be a milking cow when at just five days old we brought her home from a friend's dairy to raise here on our farm. Over the ensuing two years her and I have developed a firm trust in each other, and this trust and love was evident when I put the milking cups onto her teats for the first time.
Her udder is tiny compared to Lavender's which is ample and pendulous, having fed three calves and supplied hundreds of litres of milk to us over her six years.

Today I have a batch of feta cheese on the go from the combined milk of both cows from this morning.

In other news, I completed sewing the shade panels for the outdoor kitchen/deck.
I planned on buying some light canvas from Spotlight to make up panels that can be removed and stored after summer is over. We enjoy the warmth from the sun during winter.
How lucky I was that Aldi just happened to have painting drop sheets out on special the week before my planned trip to Spotlight. I bought four at the knock down price of $10 each, and all I had to do was trim and hem one side of each drop sheet and sew a pocket at each end for the curtain rod to slide through.
However, the trip to Spotlight could not be averted as there were rods and brackets to purchase but, as usual, I had a list of things to purchase whilst in the 'Burbs', a forty minute drive from here.

 The outdoor kitchen is useful when it's too warm to light up the wood stove in the house.

One of the highlights of the past months has been meeting my blog friend Tania and her husband Phil. If you don't already know Tania you can read her blog  Outback  here.
It was an early morning catch up over a cuppa when they came to buy some bees from us.
I experienced Tania's true country generosity when they arrived loaded with jars of Phil's pickled olives, two of Tania's home made Quondong pies, (otherwise known as Native peach) and lots of Quondong seeds for us to plant in our gardens. 
The olives are the best I've ever tasted Phil,  better than those I pickle myself, so I'll be looking on Tania's blog for the recipe next olive season.

We have chickens and more chickens. Chickens hatched in the incubator. Chickens hatched under hens. And surprise chickens that suddenly appeared from under a hedge with their proud mother hen.

 Summer is here and thankfully we have had a slow start to long stretches of really hot weather. They will come though and my garden will dry out and go into limp mode, just surviving, until the rain arrives next autumn. I always snap a few pictures to remind me of the good times when 'the dry' starts to get a bit much for everyone's mental health.
Earwigs are destroying almost every new vegetable seedling I plant in my small patch near the house, and I'm reminded that, in the past few years, they have been at their worst  and most destructive early in the season. So, I'll plant again in another few weeks and hope for better success then.
I just can't imagine a summer without a glut of cucumbers, zucchinis and capsicums.
Brian's rows of tomato plants are doing well down in the big vege garden where the Jap bantams roam and keep the earwig population under control. The Pekin bantams up here in the house yard are a bit too well fed and don't seem to be working at earwig control as they should be. They redeem themselves  however, with their cheeky personalities and good looks.
So here we are, December already. I hope to catch up with a bit more blogging this month so I won't share Christmas greetings just yet.
Thanks for dropping in.
Cheers for now,

Sally XX 





13 comments:

  1. Congratulations to new mum Poppy. Well done! Sally, everything is tinder dry here so I have let all the vegetables go and am just trying to keep my roses, hollyhocks and a few other plants alive. The many broms we have are being burnt by the sun so I expect we will lose a few of them too. Water restrictions are in place here in town and some of our country towns are running out of water. Qld and NSW are in a bad way with the fires so I hope you stay safe down in SA.

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    1. Chel we are constantly on water restrictions here at our place but none are in place publicly, which surprises me. Probably because SA govt have just started up the desalination plant that cost squillions to build and millions to keep it ticking along, not actually doing anything. There go our water rates and useage costs shooting sky high even more. We have lots of tanks, but not enough rain to fill them these past two years.

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  2. Sally your Poppy has done a great job producing such a sweet little girl. Love her name. You scored big time with your drop sheets. What a saving that was. Hot, humid and very dry here. Water restrictions are in place. Our dam is down to 40% Mind you we are a lot better off than Clifton 200km west of Brisbane. Their dam is dry and so are all the bores. Water has to be trucked in everyday and people are on 80L/person/day. The rain has to get here soon.

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    1. Getting closer to rain every day Jane. But oh dear, it really is dire just a few kilometres east of us.

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  3. Hi Sally,
    I always love dropping in at Jembella Farm blog for a catch up and always leave with loads of inspiration.
    How clever are Poppy and her sweet Asher! Gosh it doesn't seem long ago that you were introducing us to Poppy when she was a tiny calf.
    I just read a permaculture trick for eliminating earwigs and I will send you a link via a DM on instagram, it will just be easier for me being not so tech savvy.
    Love your new blinds, what a brilliant solution. I keep showing Michael your outdoor oven thinking how can we fit one somewhere outside since our cottage isn't big enough for one inside, a wood heater plus a wood oven going and we would have all the windows open to cool the place down, our cottage is just too small for both.
    Sending love from afar, Jude x

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    1. Hi Jude, any thoughts on earwig control are greatly appreciated. I feel like we've tried everything. The various control methods we currently use would definitely reduce numbers, but gosh they just keep on breeding and destroying.

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  4. Ah lovely to have a read and a good catch up about what's happening on the farm Sally. Those blinds look fantastic! I'll be keeping my eye out for that olive recipe!

    Asher is beautiful and I'm so pleased Poppy's milking is going well for you.

    xx

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  5. How gorgeous Asher is, Sally! Poppy must be mighty pleased with her new calf:) Hope things don't dry out too quickly down where you are; things are very dry up here in Qld though we did get storms go through the other night. I think rain is on everyone's Xmas list. Meg:)

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    1. Hi Meg, Poppy is such a good mum and Asher really is so beautiful. A collective rain wish for us all, and our Christmas would be complete.

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  6. Hi there Sally,

    I cant believe I missed this post. I am off the internet a lot of the time at this busy time of year. So glad you liked Phil's olives, he is quite proud of his concoction!

    The bees made it through the heat. We erected more shade and placed water near the hives. Also put damp towels over the hives to help them keep cool. This worked a treat. We had 53C on one of the days last week, so to get them through such a terrible heatwave was small victory. I was sure we were going to lose them. My veggie patch has only one casualty but the plants have been set back a lot. Hope we dont see anymore of those kind of temperatures.

    Your new addition is just gorgeous! Hope she is doing well.

    The finished blinds look great! You have done a splendid job making them.

    Wishing you and Brian a wonderful Christmas and New Year xxx

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  7. Great to hear you met Tania and her husband. A fine meeting that would have been to aleviate the concerns of the fires. I hope you're still doing well, and just taking some much needed time off, after the Christmas period. Like I did. By the way, Poppy's calf has the most amazing colour. I'm sure it must be a grey, but it looks almost purple.

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