That Panicky Feeling

I'm in a bit of a pickle. Well, it's certainly a first world dilemma for sure.

This harvest season has, as usual, produced a glut of peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, cucumbers and tomatoes. I've made more batches of sauce, jams and preserves than I care to count during the heat of summer on a gas ring positioned on top of my old wood stove. The heat and smells escape up the chimney.  The price of gas adds to my costs though, so I had a brilliant idea of preparing the fruit (wash and cut) and bagging in 2 kg lots to store in one of the freezers.
The freezers are running anyway, full of beef, lamb, chickens, dog food, baked goods, cream, bread, cakes and pre-cooked meals, so there was to be no extra power cost to store the fruit in this way.
As soon as the cooler weather arrives I planned to gradually cook it up on the wood stove, saving on power costs. Our firewood costs us nothing.

 

 The pigs have been growing along nicely and I expected to have them butchered at the end of this month (March). During which time we would have eaten down enough of the freezer contents to fit two large pigs. I also would have cooked up much of the frozen fruit on the much anticipated  cooler autumn days.

Last weekend however, the pigs started chewing on the electric fence wires that prevent them from digging out of their enclosure yard and paddock. Brian checked all the fittings and wire strands to find where it might be shorting out. Nothing seemed to be amiss. We searched for where there may be a fault and then it dawned on us that our solar electric pig fence unit had died.
We were able to borrow a similar solar unit for twenty four hours, and first thing on Monday morning I booked the pigs into the nearest abattoir. Fortunately their "pig day" was on the following day (Tuesday) and they had a vacancy for ours to be processed.   So, on Monday after Brian returned from work, we loaded them onto the trailer for their little ride to the abattoir.
This wasn't our plan. We had planned to butcher them here so there would be no stress for them. It was awful dropping them off in the yards, in a strange place, for someone else to take the responsibility for killing our food. It felt like we betrayed them. It felt like a cop out.

 They were killed on Tuesday and on Wednesday (yesterday) I drove to the abattoir to collect the carcasses. We always hang them for a week in our own cool room before cutting them into the portions and cuts that we prefer. (We also know that (a) we're getting our own animals and (b) getting ALL of the meat.)

I guess I had underestimated their size while they were still running around on all four trotters.
They weighed a whopping 112 kilograms each! With slightly more of a fat layer than I'd have preferred, but looking good nonetheless.

So here's the thing.

On Monday we will cut them up and pack them for the freezer... but how will they all fit in?

 I asked the Universe for a couple of cool days, and she graciously complied.
The wood stove pumped on for a full two days and I threw everything at her.

Two big batches of tomato sauce cleared all of the the bags of frozen tomatoes.
A big pot of dog's stew got rid of one big bag of kangaroo meat.
Three big batches of apricot jam put a small dent in the bags of apricots.
One batch of peach and rhubarb jam cleared two bags of peaches and one bag of chopped rhubarb.

  In the oven, throughout the two days, went various dishes of peaches and apricots poached in honey, then spooned into hot jars, lids screwed on tight, and sealed for keeping in the cellar.

 Three batches of butter cleared out three tubs of cream.

But then, from the butter, there was buttermilk, so two batches of buttermilk muffins asked to be baked. These have chopped apple and mixed dried fruit. 

Some for Brian's morning smoko's and a few for a sick friend.

The weather is returning to high 20's and 30's for the remaining week. Too hot for the wood stove, so frozen bags of fruit will continue to be preserved on the gas ring every day until the big pig processing day on Monday. 

I'll do it. I know I will. There WILL be space to fit ALL of this delicious pork.

I'm still feeling a tad panicky though.

Cheers,

Sally XX

Morning Routines

Good morning to my lovely flower girls, Lavender and Honeysuckle.

I wanted to roughly document my morning routine here during the height of summer when the days are long, dry and hot. There are no lazy Sunday mornings and every day is basically the same.
When we decided to begin farming we knew there would be a solid commitment to the animals and plants which rely on us to be there regularly to care for all of their needs.

On week days Brian leaves for work before the sun is up and I usually get up then too.  Still too dark to let the poultry out of their fox proof sheds I wake up with a cup of Earl Grey at the kitchen table with a view out to see the sun appearing over the horizon.
I use this time to check on messages or inquiries about workshops or orders through the Farmgate stall.  These ten minutes can be quite a productive time and often create a change in my day's schedule.

But first my farm work must be completed because our animals are relying on me to keep to the routine they are used to.  During these hot days I need to get all of my outside jobs done early, so fortified with tea, and dressed in my old farming clothes, I head outside.

Beginning with Matron's rounds of releasing the six pens of chooks and bantams from their night sheds. I'll come back later to clean out water containers and feed them. They all free range into different yards, paddocks, orchard, vegetable garden and house gardens.

Back to the house to collect a bucket of hot water before heading across to the cows and milking shed.

Honeysuckle is always happy to see me and when I open her gate she is eager to run into the dairy for her morning feed mix of chaff, crushed grain, molasses and minerals. Jerseys are renowned for their pretty faces and Honey is no exception. It's those eyes, in a constant look of surprise.

Only one cow to milk at present, and only in the mornings.

Our other house cow Lavender, was dried off at the beginning of last month (February) to allow her body to rest and prepare for the birth of her calf in early April.

Honeysuckle has been lactating for fourteen months (from her previous owners) so her production has decreased enough (8 litres) and I can milk her just once a day. I plan to dry her off (stop milking) at the end of March. 

Her AI in January appears to have been successful and we are confident she has conceived. Due to calve in mid October, I want to allow her a few months to rest her body and gain some weight. 

I'm not used to skinny dairy cows, bag of bones, and would prefer her to carry a bit more weight.

Always accompanied by my helpers Alan and young Kelpie pup Jack, waiting in the feed shed until they are permitted to come out.

Morning 'hay up' time for the dry cows.

The two older milking cows are in a paddock separate from the other three youngsters, heifers Poppy and Bertie, and Stretch the steer. 

At this time of year when the paddocks are almost bare each group of cows eat a full rack of hay during the morning and again at night. 

I'm so thankful we have enough hay to feed them well.

Milking and cleaning up is finished, the hay has been forked out, so I head back to the house and put the bucket of milk into the fridge until the other animals have been fed and outside work is done. I can decide what I want to do with the milk later.

The pigs that we raise are for our own consumption, so we feed them solely on garden and kitchen scraps, bread, milk and wind-fall fruit from our own and other local orchards. They do very well on this food and we prefer to eat meat that has not been pumped with grain and manufactured foods. 

This is the way our grandparents raised pigs, and when I began raising our pigs I was told by the commercial piggery man that it couldn't be done. Apparently the pigs wouldn't survive. 

Ha! I believe they are so indoctrinated by science, and have never tried free range meat. 

Thankfully it's more common now to find free range breeders like our friends Peggy and John who's piglets we always buy.

I feed our pigs twice daily, but always check on them during the day and throw in a biscuit of hay to eat if their feed trough is empty.  Yes I always like my animals to have some food available to eat if they desire it.

Drinking water containers are securely cemented into the ground so they cannot tip them over and be left without water. I clean them out every morning and refill with fresh water.

Pigs don't have sweat glands so they have no way of cooling themselves in the heat. During hot days above 28C degrees we hose them a couple of times during the day and on days above 35C degrees we hose them every couple of hours. We ensure their mud puddles are always topped up so they can cool off at any time.. Caring for the pigs is my work, but Brian will step in to help if I need him to fix the electric fence, which they regularly break.

I return to the poultry yards to feed out scraps, fruit, grain and yogurt. Water containers are all cleaned out and refilled.

Into the feed shed and prepare the pig food for their evening meal, bread and yogurt mash with chopped up wind-fall apples or carrots. 

The poultry grain is soaked in readiness for the following day and fresh milk is added to the yoghurt bucket in the sun to make another batch of yogurt for tomorrow.  

There were peaches to be picked this morning, but yesterday it was apples. Young Jack thinks apples are for grabbing from the box and make a wonderful ball. 

It's getting quite hot by now and I estimate it would be approx 8am. The forecast is 40C degrees and it's getting up there rapidly. 

I know I should carry my phone with me when alone at home, but I usually don't. I prefer the freedom of being out of contact, however,  I carried it yesterday and tried to snap photos of my morning.

The Farmgate stall needs to be opened and fresh eggs placed into the esky for the regular egg customers who usually turn up early. A few vegetables and rhubarb to be picked, washed and bundled up or bagged ready for those early buyers.  The shelves need restocking with tubs of honey and jars of jams, pickles and sauces.

Meanwhile the fruit trees need to be watered on my slow hose drip rotation. Hmm.. which ones got watered yesterday? Whose turn is it today?

All the pots need watering with a hose. I'm a slave to my pots and threaten to do away with most of them before next summer, but they look so nice, make me feel happy, so they stay.

A rotation of house gardens and first summer plantings need watering by hose on alternate days, and although I prefer to do it in the evenings, often my energy is depleted by then so I hose a bit of water on some plants to keep them going. The vegetable gardens are on timer drippers and sprinklers and are always watered in the evenings.

 There's time for a  walk in the paddocks with the dogs, checking the cage fox traps, electric fences and generally burning off a bit of puppy energy. Meg usually goes to work with Brian so she is not pictured here.

Boots and socks are off and back inside again just as the heat of the day is rolling in. 

Today there's a pot of nectarine jam (cut up and prepared last night)  that I started simmering on the gas ring while drinking my morning cuppa.  I turned off the gas before going outside though. 

Boiled over jam is not a pleasant start to any day, but it has happened to me more than once.

There's washing to be put into the machine for soaking, dogs breakfast to feed out, verandahs to sweep, a bit of tidying up outside and thankfully, I can stay inside for most of the day, until outside evening work needs to be done.

Today, before the water from the cold tap gets warm, I whip up a batch of butter from cream that is three days old and past its freshness.  Butter at this time of year is pale in colour due to the lack of green fodder. In winter and spring the butter is much more yellow.
It's 10am, time for a coffee and think about what to take out of the freezer for tonight's dinner.

There will be plenty of work to do inside; produce from the garden to pickle or preserve, honey to be poured into tubs and labeled, the never ending house work routines and meal preparation that keeps us healthy and our home running smoothly.

It may be the one day of the week that I need to go out to the shops, run errands, and visit an elderly lady friend. Or there may be a planned visit from friends calling in for morning coffee and chat.
At this time of year my weekly volunteer sessions at the public library are put on hold. There's much to be done at home but I enjoy doing this meaningful work and am thankful for the fruits of our labor in the months to follow.

In another month this morning routine will be different and there will be more time to spend outside in the garden and a short holiday.

How does your morning flow? And does it change according to seasons?

When We Know It's Time

Spotted this picker as I drove into Town early one morning, and he was still there when I returned later in the day. In fact he's been there for weeks now. 

Look, I'm not usually one for giving up without at least a bit of a tussle, but this business of Google widgets and buttons that appears in a pink window every time I open my blog page, has got me in a bit of a fix.
A chest tightening, anxiety fix.
So dear reader, this is one of the reasons why you haven't heard a peep from me for such a long time. Not that I would assume to be missed or anything so presumptuous. You're probably thinking "Who was she? Oh her!"
This type of tech obstacle has me running away, in fact I'd sooner do any other tedious task than sort this out. Suddenly the thought of wiping ten years of dust from the ceiling fans became most appealing to me, and whilst I'm pleased to report the (now) cleanliness of our fans, I'm still sent into paroxysms of fear and end up in a foetal position on my bed, escaping into the pages of a book every time I look at my blog screen.
Don't worry about me though... I'm just over here whimpering and whinging in self pity.
There is a cunning plan though, and the tech savvy son is popping over this week, lured by my berry cheesecake, after which I'll mention my small problem. Ha.. facing my demons feels so good.
I've got this!

 It has been a disappointing season for bee keepers in South Australia due to extreme heat and dry weather, but the numbers of people who are eager to learn about bee keeping continues to increase.

Three Beekeeping workshops here in three months has educated thirty two new bee keepers.
This picture taken at our January Bee course, shows one of the gentlemen with hood off due to the hot day. 
I was thinking how great it was, that for the first time ever, in all ten of our Beekeeping workshops over the past three years, every attendee here today was fitted out with their professional bee suits or bee smocks. No worries, I thought, no fear of stings today.
An hour later this gentleman was in anaphylactic shock and was transported to our local hospital where he spent the night. Fortunately he was attending with his adult son, and also fortunately,  one of the participants that day was a GP.
Of all the classes we have run, no one was stung by a bee until this day.

We're taking a break from doing workshops for awhile now, after recently feeling a little overwhelmed with the effort and time consuming aspect of running these events.
The behind the scenes tasks of setting up for these days should be enjoyable, that's why we have done so many, but I admit to feeling a little burnt out when preparing for the most recent event this week.
A group of ten people for lunch, a farm walk, and learning about sustainable living and farming. A wonderful group of interesting and interested people, it was a pleasure being in their company.
This is what buoys us on, but it's time now for me to learn to manage my time more effectively and to slow things down a little. I'm not sure if that's possible while living this kind of lifestyle but I will attempt to look at things carefully and try to minimise the need for such busy days.
I have a few plans and strategies to work with. It will be difficult to let some things go, but it needs to be done.

 

(Photo by @sean_the_chef)   

In the milking shed talking cows to a captive audience, minus the cow. 

I think we all need to stop and do a personal assessment from time to time. To think about what makes us happy, what is slowing us down and what is causing anxiety or a feeling of dread.

For each of us, many of those things that we've been doing for what seems like forever, may not bring us the joy that it used to, or maybe it's starting to feel like a chore.  It's no good whingeing about it, and if we keep on doing it, we have only ourselves to blame for a life lived less than we hoped for. 

They will be small steps for me, but I can feel the weight lifting already.

 But first...

This workshop is coming up and we are so looking forward to seeing many old and new faces here.

If you want to attend you will need to register with BAA in Bellengin, NSW, through the phone number or website shown. But be quick, we are almost at our numbers limit already.

Morning tea is provided (by me), but you will need to BYO lunch.

OK I'm off to the kitchen to make a meal and cake for a friend who's baby boy was born a week ago today. Even though it was thirty three years since I was in the same situation, I will always remember with much fondness the friends who dropped food in, but didn't hang around. This is the time for the family unit to bond, and for the new mother to rest and get to know herself and baby in this new world they have entered into.

Cheers and thanks for dropping in.

Sally XX

Summer in the Garden

Good old Agapanthus. You either love them or loathe them, but if you live with very dry summers they will quickly become your friend.

With their green strappy leaves they always cast a soothing cool impression in the driest of gardens, driveways and gate entrances. The tall stems of blue or white flowers are the added bonus at this time of year when there is not much flowering.

 The honey room and meat processing shed, fits comfortably in the landscape with Aggies softening the edges.

It's dry. Very dry, but the earwigs are still just as active and destructive, so we have brought in this new line of bug control defense.

In total there are six new Pekin bantams. With their short feathery legs they can scratch all day among the plants without doing much damage besides moving the mulch.

With access to all areas of the large house yard gardens, the smallest bantams are able to squeeze through the spaces in this wire that surrounds the kitchen garden...

... and so far they have not damaged this section of young basil and coriander plants, preferring to scratch around the rhubarb plants where multitudes of earwigs live; but I know I need to put some wire cages around the seedlings ASAP.

Bird netting and temporary shade over the pumpkin plants. I've left little gaps so the Pekin bantams can get underneath to keep cool and to scratch out earwigs.

(Photo by Emma)                                                                        

 In the large vegetable garden however, another family of bantams work hard all day to keep the earwigs and harlequin beetles under control. These are Jap bantams and are even smaller than the Pekins.
We cover the small seedlings under wire cages until they have grown large enough to withstand a little bit of scratching around the base of the plants.  The little Japs don't inflict any damage to the grown plants as shown here among the zucchinis, with small capsicum plants still under the wire cover.

As if earwigs, Harlequin beetles and scorching heat aren't enough to challenge any gardener, we have plaques of sparrows too.  These little pests love to peck the tiny new beans and all tender young shoots, so some Christmas tinsel is this week's scare away tactic. We need to change the scare every week because they become used to each method we try.

Every gardener has their challenges and we need to find ways of dealing with them without using chemicals or brutal means.
In the north of our country gardeners and poultry keepers are dealing with huge lizards and various feral animals. I'm not sure I'd like to come face to face with a wild pig or a carpet snake.. ergh!!!
Ooh, our little Jap bantams would be easy pickings for a huge snake.

How do you deal with your gardening challenges?

Cheers and thanks for dropping in.

Sally XX

(Photo of Jap bantams by Emma A Simple Living Journey)

Honeysuckle

My friends following along on Facebook and Instagram will be familiar with this cow by now, but I've been so slow in keeping this blog up to date due to an increase in workload and no energy remaining in the tank at the end of each day.  I'm not complaining, I bring it all on myself and have no one to blame.

In November we went to  our local livestock market to buy a ram, but as there were none suitable for us, we wandered across to the cattle yards to have a look before returning home with an empty trailer.

In the yards of beef cattle this Jersey stood out from the crowd, looking very frightened and nervous. 

I could see nothing wrong with her and suspected she was being culled from a large dairy due to her small size udder and teats. I also noticed she had not been dried off, there was milk in her perfectly formed, but small udder.

Just the day before this I was wondering how I would stretch Lavender's nine litres per day among the calf, pigs, poultry and have enough left over to make some cheese.

Here was what appeared to be a miracle right in front of my eyes.
Of course my heart was beating fast and I went off to the office to inquire who was selling her. Maybe I could find him/her to ask the history and some details before making a rash purchase. But although I was told the name of the dairy farmers, they were not present at the sale.
Back to the pen I went, examined her carefully, and after a short discussion with Brian, decided to bid for her. We'd take our chances.
When the hammer fell on our bid of $300 I was just a big silly grin in tears. The lady sitting next to me asked if I was OK. I nodded and croaked out something like "We just bought a Jersey"

Onto our trailer she walked and it was when she looked at me with those big Jersey eyes that I knew she was our Honeysuckle cow.

 I had a good feeling about this cow,  was confident we had the experience of years of training cows, and was determined to make it work.
Her udder was increasing in size by the evening so we made a makeshift laneway, using a couple of long gates, and ushered her into the milking parlour.
She was shivering with fear, fought her head against the bales that restrained her head over the feed drum, and hardly let down any milk.
I wish there were photos of us wrangling a fully grown cow into our dairy, but it was all hands on deck. A few touchy moments of dangerous risk taking on our part, and more than a few moments of thinking that we must be crazy.

By the third day we took away one of the gates and coaxing her into the milking parlour became less stressful for all concerned.  She began letting down all of her milk and needed milking twice daily.

During those first few days I spent lots of time with her to gain her confidence in me.  I knew she came from a large dairy, so would have had minimal human handling or gentle human interaction.
I phoned the dairy, previous owners, who were not very forthcoming about discussing her history with me.
Fair enough, a strange type of cow woman ringing them out of the blue, they probably don't have the time for chit chat. Well, actually, if it were me selling a cow I'd be overjoyed if a nice lady phoned me to tell me that my cow went to a good home instead of the butcher. Oh well, move on Sal.
To their credit, they emailed me a photo of her herd card that told me she was born in 2015, had one calf in Dec 2017, and had not conceived again when given access to the bull in February 2018.

After a week of training, she soon became eager to trot up to the milking parlour as soon as we open the paddock gate. She happily munches on her special feed mixture in the bales and her milk production has increased slightly.
Lavender seems such a huge "humpalumpa" now against petite Honeysuckle, and the girls are getting along happily together.
Milking times are a little more involved, with both cows waiting to be milked in the mornings, and Honeysuckle is milked again in the evening. I'll eventually drop her back to once a day milking when her production decreases, but for now there are so many mouths (and beaks) to feed with all of the milk.
The new challenge for now is closely observing the timing of her estrous cycles so we can have the *AI man here at the correct time.

We called in the AI man three weeks ago when Poppy came into estrous (on heat) and we waited with fingers crossed for the twenty one days, hoping she had conceived. However, last evening she showed all the signs of estrous, jumping onto the other two dairy cows and generally being a real pest in the yards. I called the AI man who agreed to call again this morning. But wait a minute!
Honeysuckle was due to come into estrous last Tuesday and we thought we had missed her conception time, thinking all the action had been going on the night before. We added that into my detailed notes about what signs she displays at which time during her most fertile period. So when Poppy was jumping on Honeysuckle last evening, we saw that Honey was also a bit fidgety and showed all the signs that it was actually her that was on heat. 
This morning rolled around and it was clear that both of them were on heat. What are the odds? I phoned the AI man to ask him to bring two semen straws instead of just one.
Two cows, one visit. ;-)
The above photo shows them waiting in the yards next to the dairy this morning. When the AI man turns up I like to have cows at the ready so he can get on with his task immediately. Within ten minutes both cows were brought into the bales, one at a time, where they munched happily from the feed bin while they were inseminated.
The AI man was paid in cash, a bottle of wine and a tub of honey, before he went on his way again.
Being ready when he arrives, and paying him immediately is showing professionalism and respect for the people we need to call in to help us with the tasks that we aren't skilled at, and consequently, they never hesitate when we call on them.

 And just to be a show-off, here is one of the cheeses I've been making with Honeysuckle's delicious raw Jersey milk. A runny camembert style with a Roquefort bloomy rind.
The calendar is marked twenty one days ahead, and we will be watching for any signs of estrous activity around those few days and nights. Fingers crossed that it will pass without event.
It's times like this when we wish we still had our own bull but the management stress of a large bull on a small property is an even bigger problem, especially when dairy cows need to be brought in for milking every day.
Why do we do it? Ha!
Thanks for dropping in and my wish for you is a year of happiness, good health and and abundance of all the good things in 2019.
Be kind.
Cheers,
Sally XX


*Artificial Insemination