No Rain, lots of Wind and plenty of blisters

Swainson Pea

One day I’m going to actually have holiday, the last time I took time off was when we moved into the farm. It never slows down, and even this weekend is full, Ben has his Birthday Sleep Over, there is the AGM for Land Care and a trip into Canberra on Sunday.

The last two weeks have been fairly productive, I’ve been able to get a lot of the posts into the ground out the back in the conservation area, the last few have been soul destroying with solid rock down about 18 inches. My arms ache, I’m sunburnt and in desperate need of a shave - I’ll be glad to head back to work, the kids reckon I’m a real red neck now. It hasn’t been all my work, one of the guy’s from the NSF has come out and helped and some others have also offered which is really great – and I will take them up on it.

We had a Grass Lands expert Rainer Rehwinkle come out yesterday to do a survey of some of Grasslands. It was a little windy, but otherwise a very pleasant afternoon. Rainer found over 60 species of native plants including orchids. He was very impressed with the quality and the quantity. I thought this was amazing because he only saw a small portion of the grassland we have. He’s asked if we would donate some of our Swainson-Pea seeds to the millennium seed project. Some of the seeds will end up in the National Botanic Gardens and the rest will be sent to the deep freezer in Norway where they are storing a collection of seed samples from every plant in the world – sort of a huge bio bank. I forgot to take my camera with me so went back today, but the wind was up again and the little flowers are hard to photograph in the wind. Whilst I was out there I stumbled upon two Shingle Back lizards and an Earless Dragon – which was slightly funny as Lauren, the facilitator from K2C was with us the day before and she spent hours looking under rocks for the little blighters.

I’ve also spent a bit of time spraying the Tussock Grass in the paddock next to the highway. It’s a wonderful job; the long Love Grass makes it difficult to walk and hides wombat holes really well. The paddock is a nice shade of pink however. I’m starting to think there is more to be done here then I can manage alone – between the farm and the conservation work there is barely a free or slow moment. I am going to need to get the local contractor in to boom spray some of the larger infestations of Tussock otherwise they’ll just get away and the problem will only get worse.

The Cook was in fine form this morning, I was in the Chicken Coup turning on the water and she was bringing up some scraps to the chickens. I wasn’t watching but she suddenly screamed and I looked up – just in time to see two very large brown snakes slithering across the yard. She had nearly stepped on them (maybe interrupted them is more precise), luckily the dogs weren’t around and the kids had gone to school. I think she’s looking a bit greyer this evening.

The Cook has been preparing the garden for the Bio Dynamic Course. It’s looking really good and a lot of effort has gone into it. It should look really good by November – and many thanks goes out to Mrs Duck for her donation of seedlings, they are doing you proud Mrs Duck and the Cook is very happy with them all.

Thawing out

The snow faded as the day wore on but the chill stayed in the air all day. By the time it came to feed the pigs in the evening everybody was hungry. I bought in some Lucerne for the mother pigs to give them extra roughage as the paddocks have now dried off almost bare.

I think I’ll start feeding them a adjust their feeds and put a higher corn ration in and cut back on the wheat. They seem to be doing alright but are starting to lose their summer condition.

The sun has been out all day today and the ground has started to thaw. Hopefully the weather will be fine for the next few days and everybody will recover from the icy blast.

We also did some gardening over the weekend, dug some new beds and planted garlic. The Pigs where free ranging outside the garden fence so we threw them all the tomatoes and zucchini that had fallen on the ground. They loved it, but I think we’ll have tomatoes shooting up across the front paddock for years to come.

I finally was able to replace the old computer yesterday and things should start to pickup soon. I’ve just got to load the new machine with all my software and we are off. Its nice having something new – but I’d rather a tractor, oh well…. I have nothing to complain about really.

We're Back!!!

Well, we’re back. We all took a break over Easter after a couple of hectic weeks before. So where did we get up too? I attended the AGM of the Bee Association, at which I met the famous Mrs Duck Herder. A lovely lady, we had a chat about her bees, compost and bio dynamics, shared secrets about the location of various apple trees and the best acorn places in Canberra. It was nice to meet a fellow Blogger face to face. On the way home I nearly skittled a dozen small deer on the highway, a learner driver in front of me slowed down – I thought it was so I could over take; but in fact it was to let a herd of deer across the road.

On Good Friday I went into town to collect acorns – I manages to get a trailer load, but because everything was wet I had to feed them to the pigs almost straight away. I had a nightmare time driving into town on the Monaro Highway so I decided not to go in again over Easter. That afternoon I saw a fox dash off away from the chook pen in the half light. A quick check of the chickens revealed some missing, so he was obviously busy

The fox didn’t get the Easter Bunny. Eggs where scattered across the farm Sunday morning and the annual Easter egg hunt was conducted with the full enthusiasm of all involved – and chocolate was eaten in large quantities for breakfast – but not by me. Funny how the Easter Bunny puts eggs at either end of the far and the clues all follow the longest route. That Easter bunny sure is a sadist.

We had good rain over the weekend, 15mm one day and 20mm last night. It started raining at about 9:30pm and didn’t stop until 5:00am good solid soaking rain. Somewhere between 3:00am and 5:00am the Cook and I had a good chat about my stupid idea to put a bell around one of the goat’s necks and chains on the others. All three of the goats had decided that the spot under our window was the best place to stay out of the weather and the “ding-ding” of the bell kept us awake for hours. When the bell wasn’t ringing, the other two goats would walk along the veranda dragging their chains – I can imagine roast goat will be on the webber tonight (still no oven).

The Cook had spent a couple of very long days in the garden, mulching, composting, weeding digging and replanting. It all looks rather splendid and with the over night rain should take off. I think she was looking forward to a good nights sleep. Today she has been in the garden harvesting the rhubarb and cooking it up – mmmmm!! yummy rhubarb strudel for dinner. She spent some of Easter bottling tomatoes as well and now we have almost a winters worth of those as well.

We have another piglet schwarm. A schwarm, for those who don’t know, is a group of about ten or so piglets that run around the farm in a small group – like a swarm of mosquitoes but more devastating. Luckily they have been pretty harmless so far, I think they have nabbed a couple of duck eggs, some lose acorns and the chook scraps. They are an absolute cack to watch and take on a character all of their own. The schwarm only lasts a couple of weeks, once they are too big to escape under fence of their pen it’s all over. It’s when the pigs are truly free to range, unless they go near the garden, then they are dinner.

I think I should check the compost heap if I don’t see the goats tonight……..

Is commercialisation the problem?

By now everybody has heard of ‘food miles’ or ‘slow food’ and ‘locavore’ or eating local. In an exchange of emails with a lady this week I posed the question;

“We know those guys and have visited their farm, it will be interesting to get their point of view about how big an enterprise like theirs can get before it "crosses the line" and becomes just another commercial scale - high input, farming system.

And in reply I received the following,

“I think that the size issue is a really important one for us as a society.

It seems to me that your question is correct - that if a free-range enterprise gets too big, it can end up being an eco-disaster, so we need to look at when that point is reached, and how farmers can make a decent living within that parameter. It really struck home to me when I was looking at the vege issue locally.

The Farmers Market is great, but lots of the vegies come a long way. Making a go of vegie farming in our eco-system, with its unreliable rainfall, cold winters and very hot summers is a real issue. Even growing your own has been a challenge in the last summer for me - I feel we have a lot to relearn! I guess the good thing is to realise that there are lots of others out there thinking about it to, and doing something”

So, the question is - how do I tell if I have crossed over from resource effective to resource intensive? Should it be obvious? Surly, if I’m using organic methods, the more I grow the more income I can generate without affecting the environment. But – what about the energy and resource inputs, are they the same per animal as they where before?

With the more waste and the more energy used for production the larger the environmental impact. The smaller the operation the less resource intensive and the environmental impacts are minimal. And there is waste at both ends. If there is an over abundance of product then there is a higher likely hood of waste at the both the producer and consumer end. Is it the farmer’s responsibility to manage this as well?

It would seem that size is an issue. Is commercialisation the problem or the answer? Is it economics? I can reduce costs by increasing the scale – but what are the environmental impacts of this and are they really justifiable. How big should one farm’s market share be? These are very complex questions and I don’t know the answers.


If anybody has any ideas or opinions, I’d love to here them.

Next week I'm going to add a few things about raising pigs - an increasing number of people have been asking questions about this lately.

Hung out to dry

I hope I made the Cook happy this weekend. Started out by erecting her Hills Hoist in the back yard at last, it’s only been two years. Unfortunately it seems I’ll have to get her a stump to stand on while she’s hanging out the washing – it’s too high. I went to the dump as well – this was a little delayed, Hugh came on the Lifestyle Channel so I just had to stop and watch.

Never mind, I also started digging her Moo Poo Pit for her biodynamic preparations. The ground was so damned hard that I broke my favourite Mattock, and cracked the shovel handle. I think I’ll have to wait until it rains to continue with that project. So what is a Moo Poo Pit? I hear you ask. From what I’m told it is a pit about a foot deep, you fill it with cow manure and compost to encourage worms to live in it. To keep the worms in you need to have boards lining the inside. Once the cow manure and compost has been attacked by the worms and digested, you remove the worm casting and mix with water. This can then be applied to your paddocks as a sol conditioner.

I finished the new paddock at the front of the property yesterday and we decided to move the young boars down there for the time being. The Cook rounded up a posse and lured them down to the paddock with a bucket of bread. At first they were happy enough to follow and eat the bread and we ended up with most of them in the paddock. After a small amount of pig drafting we weeded out the ones we wanted and locked them in the paddock. Unfortunately I’d forgotten to charge the fence energiser and the pigs discovered this in about ten minutes. I was busy fixing something when I turned around all the pigs had gone.

About five minutes later I hear the Cook bringing down the pigs again – this time they are a little less enthusiastic. They get half way down and decide to scoot back to the old pig yards. The Cook comes down to the paddock and has a look; she says to me “where have all the pigs gone?” I told her what happened, and she remarks that she was wondering where the extra male pigs had come from. Anyway, by the time I get back up to the yards there are two males left out and the Cook and Harry are trying to get them coaxed back into the paddocks; but, because it’s 7:00pm on a Sunday night they are being less co-operative. I think they ended up back in the pig yard; I need to go check because I don’t know for sure. Of course – the electric fence wasn’t working so I spent an hour looking for the problem in the dark.

There’s so much to do – now the paddock down the front is finished I need to build a shelter there. Luckily it has shade from the poplar trees so it’s a rather pleasant area for the pigs in summer. I still need to put the sides on the Boars hut and the back on the sows hut. The Cook needs the garden rabbit proofed, the little buggers have eaten all her carrots and numerous other vegetables. I’d love to start building a green house as well – but I need to get something done for the hand raised piglets and the young chicks so they can stay outside.

Potato salad

The Cook made a great potato salad the other day – the potatoes came strait out of the ground and onto our plate. She grows a variety of spuds in the garden very year including some of the purple specimens which name escapes me. She use’s them in her famous potato salad, a derivation of the German potato salad her mother used to make, and; which I look forward to every summer. The purple potatoes add that wow! Factor and always attract people’s attention and once they see the intriguing purple colour they simply just have to try them.

So - this is how the Cook does it – it’s a secret so don’t tell anybody; First comes the potatoes, they are dug out of the ground when only small, about the size of a golf ball. Give them a wash – but don’t peel them. Cook them in boiling water until soft. Drain and leave to cool a little then peel the skin, use a knife and don’t take any of the white flesh – just the skin.

Whilst they are still warm add two table spoons of mayonnaise and two of sour cream. Before mixing allow the mayonnaise and sour cream to soften – then mix, it’s easier and you don’t accidentally mash the potato. This is the secret part; She slices a little bit of pickled gherkin and adds some dill or parsley and mixes it all together and serves. For my masculine tastes I prefer the pickled gherkin replaced by anchovies – but that’s a personal thing. Also, by not peeling the potato until it is cooked you keep more of the goodness in the potato.

I would have liked to snapped a couple of pictures of this – but; If I had of taken the time to get the camera I would’ve missed out on one of my favourite summer foods. Maybe next year I can get one!

Onion envy

Malcom grew these onions and you've never seen anything as big before. There are three varieties here; White, Brown and Odourless. One of the cooks onions is in the ground to the right of Malcom's onions - it's only a quater of the size and it was planted on the same day. I am endevouring to reveal his secrets!

The Cooks on fire

The council weed man is here today, I should’ve taken his photo for the Blog, but I thought that it might be a little confrontational.

It cooled down over night after reaching 33.9 Deg C during the day. The cattle have moved down to the pastures along the river where the poplars shade the grass – but I think they’ll be fighting the sheep for the shade.

The goats still hang around the house, they don’t seem to keen to wander off to anywhere. Sometimes they head up to the rocks and the boys have to rescue them, but other then that. The Wedge Tailed Eagles were around again last night. They came right down over the house and circled around only metres above the trees – looking for slow chickens I suppose. I also saw the pair of Red Rump Parrots yesterday on the pump and Yellow Crested Black Cockatoos this morning. I ‘m going down to the pump tonight to see if I can photograph the parrots – hopefully I’ll have a picture for the Blog tomorrow.

Everything is drying out again, the river has receded to a slow dribble and the ground is hard. Last night we had a huge dust storm that lasted about an hour, we came in for dinner feeling hot and gritty.

Yeah, the Cook put on another great meal last night; she did a fabulous stir fry chicken, what made it special was that all the veg came straight from the garden. She was down there picking vegies only minutes before they were cooked - and it tasted divine.

I just took a break for a minute and rang around for some fencing stuff I need for the weekend – there is more then $2 difference in the price of steel posts. They are all the made in China type, and range from $5.59 each to $7.20 - that’s outrageous!! And there is a difference of over $50 in a 1500m roll of 2.5mm wire – pays to shop around!

Todays picture is from last night at feed time - everybody wanted a bit of the action!

The fox returns

We had visitors today, Kev, Judy and Christine - It's always good to see these guy's. They come out every now and then for a look around and BBQ. I took Kev for the Cooks Tour around the farm, we went around most of tbe boundary and up to the high spots with the best views. Christine fed George fromn the bottle and thought that was just great and now wants to start some chooks off in her own back yard - great idea.

On the farm side we had the pony yarded for a couple of weeks due to her overeating problem, she's slimed right down and now looks a lot better, she was very happy to be released back out with her mates this afternoon. The Goslings are spending their first night alone out in the chook pen. The dogs chased off a fox this evening so I hope they will be alright. We lost another chicken and rooster to the foxes this morning as well - just can't win with the damned things. The boy's and I even went bow hunting yesterday afternoon but saw no trace of a fox.

The apricot tree is providing a bountiful harvest. We've had our first fruit off it this year and they are just devine. The cook was planning on making some jam, but she can't stop eating them. Of course Shadow, the dog, waits under the tree all day to snaffle the ones that drop before the Cook can pick them.

We were lucky enough to get a double load of bread this week which has made the pigs very happy, lots to eat and drink - they'll think it's Christmas!

Bean there.

I’ve a lot of catching up to do. Firstly the garden – it’s looking great, the vegetables are coming on and things are really looking good. George is fine, he’s fully recovered form his illness. The Pigs are back in their paddocks but they have destroyed all but three of our truffle trees. And lastly, the Bull is back from the river and living with his mother again – she’s really an old cow. The fly blown sheep known as Beryl is doing well, but I haven’t finished mowing the lawn.

Still no new camera! Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Old Ted, the Bin Laden look a like, from Dubbo is supposed to be coming down for a visit tomorrow – but I haven’t heard from him yet. Matthew and Fiona went to visit Maryborough – haven’t heard from them either; and the Western Australian Nomads are moving to Karratha. I can’t keep up with it all!

The Cook can’t cook at the moment because she hasn’t an oven. But, I’ll keep looking in the papers and see if I can snag another bargain. We are spending a fortune on biscuits and snacks for the kids (yes the kids, not me – the kids!) and not having a stove also means no fresh bread or duck egg pavlova’s.

On the weekend when we were out at Jerangle we had the best feed of fresh Black Angus Steaks I’ve ever had. The guys up there really have a great place and their cattle were in peak condition – better then what I can say for my pigs at he moment.

Our cow is looking good, the Cook put out one of her Biodynamic licks the other night and the cow just goes crazy over it. The sheep tucked into it as well, I suspect there could be some fine tunning to do to the recipe before it is perfectly matched to our pastures.

Speaking of the Cook, she’s over in Braidwood today at a Serrated Tussock field day, then on Friday we’re off to a Love Grass field day – she’ll be all weeded out by the weekend. Hopefully we’ll get a heads up on what the developing story is with controlling these pests – I bet they don’t discuss the organic options.

Today spic is from the garden, enjoy.

Somebody make it rain - please!

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside! Kids left the back gates open yesterday whenthey went to herd the troublesome goats in off the rocks. The horses escaped and are now living in the rock paddock - which is OK except for the damage it will do to their feet. We'll have to keep a close eye on that.

The potatos and corn we've planted is starting to struggle - whats left of the corn anyway. We'll need to start watering if it dosen't rain in the next week. I still haven't been able to get out the back and check the oats - don't really know if I really want too just yet.

There was a garage sale in town the other day - I bought a great chicken cage for $40. We've put all the chicks in it for the time being, but Ben keeps bringing injured ones back to the house - I think there is more in the house then in the new cage. It looks like they are getting injured from being pecked - I suppose that means we'll end up with all except one in the house again. At least we'll know who's the top of the pecking order.

The Cook sprung me with the loot I'd made on the pigs and wanted to spend on fencing - now I'm off to the Rural Store to get a new trough for the pigs. In one hand - out the other!

Still have a lot of briers to clear up in the gullies, which I can't say I'm really happy about doing in summer. Every step I take along the gullies is a step closer to another snake. I saw a gaint brown snake onthe Nimmitabil River bridge yesterday, must have been six foot long or more. It wasn't there on the way, I only saw it on the way back. Hopefully we don't have too many of those buggers on our place.

What - no pictures????

Has it only been a week? How time flies. Lots has happened over the past week, we’ve had hot dry winds, sold some pigs and fixed the Jeep. Everything is drying out really quickly now, twice last week we had hot winds over 90kph lasting all day.

The Jeep has come back, new water pump and all – works wonderfully. Unfortunately we had to sell one of the children to pay for it. The pig paddocks are bare dirt at the moment; hopefully we will get some new fencing in over the next couple of weeks which will help solve that problem. They are still digging the incredible holes in the yard – for what purpose I don’t know, but it doesn’t appear to be escape as I first thought.

I managed to get out into the back paddocks and clear away a lot of the brier bushes over the past week as well. These things are extremely thorny rose like bushes that grow anywhere. I’ve noticed that they are growing right across the district, but I am amazed they are growing so well in the dry.

OK, you might have noticed that here is no photo today – well, we had a little accident with the camera – did I say we? No I meant the Cook had an accident with the camera. She was going into Cooma with the kids, I’d left the camera on the front seat of the car so she could take some photos. Not wanting to take the camera to Cooma (it was a high end Sony DSC F757) she thought she’d put it in the washing machine for safe keeping. When she got home, she decided to do a load of washing – chucked it in and off she went. The morale to this story is that digital camera’s don’t survive the spin cycle. So I don’t know what I’ll do for the short term, I wonder how many pigs I need to sell to get a new camera.

So I was pretty upset. Anyway, this weekend we went to an open farm day at an Organic farm over near Gundaroo (that’s near where we got the sheep from). It was an interesting day and we ran into a lot of people we knew, and caught up with others we hadn’t seen for quite a while. It was interesting to see how other people approached the market garden side of things, we took away a few good ideas and the Cook walked away with some new tools. Looks like more fencing and a lot of irrigation to start putting in.

The sheep are settling in to their new paddock, we’ve lost two that we know of. Probably from age, but I’ve got to go up and take a look at them tomorrow to see how they are holding up. Hopefully I’ll get them down for crutching and drenching in the not too distant future.

Beccy the calf is a bit of a wag. Harry has been feeding her lately but he went for a camp over the weekend. So we went out to feed her, she had come right up to the back of the house looking for dinner, she had her tongue out ready to take the bottle but just wouldn’t. She wouldn’t take it from the Cook, Ben or me. As soon as Harry arrived home the Cook gave him the bottle to feed her with and she went straight onto it. I think she has problems!

Speaking of problems – I’ve got to find a better way to capture piglets. Our first paying customer arrived on Saturday to pick up her piglets, at the time they were still running around in the paddocks. I hadn’t fed them in the morning figuring I’d wait and feed them when she arrived. This was fine until I caught the first pig and put it in her horse float. After that I couldn’t catch any more. At one stage Ben was hanging onto one whilst being dragged across the paddock. All the two ladies could do was stand and watch the commotion. Anyway we finally got three of the four piglets caught and put in the float. The final piglet, a girl eluded us for about half an hour and three loaves of bread. Finally, she ran out steam – or weighted down by bread and we caught her. Next time I’ll have to feed them lots and try catching them whilst they are asleep.

Well it’s Tuesday already, the next lot of pigs have left the farm bound for Borrowa. They were a little easier to catch then the first lot, which was lucky because both the kids were at school. The two groups of people who came out both had similar stories to ours about run down farm houses with no water and atrocious plumbing, bad electrical wiring and incredible cold. As bad as that all sounds, it was nice to know other people share our experiences – and survive. So I’m nine pigs lighter and have money to expand the pigopylous - what could possibly go wrong to muck this up!

BTW – lots more happening, just haven’t had tie to put it all here yet so keep checking back for updates – photo less updates that is.

to do's

There seems to be a big difference in the way people think about sustainability. I believe it means being able to farm with out effecting the environment or any local ecosystems. Being sustainable is harder work and probably less profitable then more industrial forms of agriculture, but at the end of the day it’s the condition of your property that you’ll be judged by. So how does a farmer judge what the balance is between sustainable and profitable? I’m still looking for an answer to this one – but it’s not lots of pigs.

I would like my pigs to live in green fields, interspersed with oak and chestnut trees, how do I get there? Over the last couple of weeks I’ve tried to stand back and reassess what it is I’m doing and how do I get there. I think reassessment or review is an important part of any enterprise and knowing when to change is important. Let’s face it, pigs are hard work, twice a day feeding, lots of water, electric fencing, housing and the list goes on. I like the pigs and they have just started to bring in a bit of money – but I’ve got to change the way we do things to make it easier.

Up until now we have been jumping from one thing to the next, we didn’t have the first pig paddock finished until the morning I picked up the pigs. The chicken pen is still only half finished. The sheep don’t even have a proper paddock yet. I haven’t finished fencing off the garden or begun on the orchard – and the Boss is going to bring trees home on Sunday. We don’t have water to everything and I have to cart buckets everywhere. The cook has to water the garden from a water can and, well, you get the picture.

So it’s time for what we used to call ‘consolidation’, I need to, in consultation with the cook, prioritise what our list of ‘to do’s’ is and get on with it. And not let anything else lead me astray. Of course I’m getting hassled about the renovations to the house as well – like I don’t have enough to do!


For got to mention on Tuesday - there is a LandCare general meeting in Bredbo this Saturday, which I am going too. It’s interesting hearing what people are doing and planning on doing. Some people are Biodynamic, some are Organic and some conventional, but ever body seems to get along and hopefully learn from each others experiences.

Today’s photo is of the Cooks garlic, one of three patches she has growing around the place.

Pig love

Monday saw us return to the scene of yesterday’s fun and with aching bodies to capture the remaining sheep and transport them back to Bredbo. Whilst we were gone and again soon after we arrived home we got a good shower of rain, which ended up being about 5mm. The sheep have all been put into a small receiving yard, at the front of the property, for a few days until we can get them up to the yards.

When we arrived home we found the pigs had turned off the electric fence, and we had pigs everywhere. One of the sows, who was obviously in season had moved in with the Boar, and they were both very happy. Some of the growers had moved in with the mums and a number of piglets had swapped mums as well. This is what happens when nobody is home!!!

Once we sorted all this out it was time for a cup of tea and a sit down. It rained again for about five minutes, the temperature dropped suddenly and it was like winter again. Finally after feeding the animals it was time to get inside and warm up. Unfortunately on our way inside we noticed one of the ducks lying on the grass in front of the chook house, poor old Pong our first Peking had died. It looks like he just laid down and gone to sleep, he was one of the animals we had brought with us from Murrumbateman when we first arrived here.

This morning we had a fairly heavy frost which hopefully hasn’t done any damage to eth potatoes. We also had snow on the hills along the Western ranges – no wonder it got so cold last night.

Macro economic chickens

The world is rushing past in over-drive as people try and fend off economic disaster and I just sit here and watch it pass. How come Countries and Governments have no problem forking out trillions of dollars at a moments notice to try and save capitalism and then be so frugal when it comes to investing in the health of the environment and mankind’s future?

Well it’s not macro economics but we did hatch about 20 chicks yesterday, lots of different colours. Calamity Jane, the former known as the Cook, was sitting by the fire last night with up turned chicks in her hand trying to sex them. I had to giggle to myself, the poor little chicks were squirming away and she was trying to peer up their ‘vent’.

The Greening Australia guy is out today doing some trial seeding. Nice to see some action in this quarter, hopefully we’ll get a result. They have asked to have a field day on the property to collect seed for them, Land Care and us. Of course we have given them the green light; however our share of the seed will be going to K2C or be propagated for planting on K2C properties.

I’ll get to see what is happening in the Oats Paddock this weekend with a little luck as well. I haven’t spoken to Denise yet but it appears everything has gone to plan. We are having a spell of warm weather here as well, up to 26 Deg today – which will hopefully culminate in a storm or two.

I have to start seriously thinking about getting some of the pigs off to be processed soon. I’ve got about six or eight that are at the 60 – 75kg mark and should dress out well. I just need to get a loading ramp built and organise everything down line from there. Currently we are thinking that we can sell most the meat locally to friends, neighbours and work mates. However, the end goal is to have them selling at the farmers market. I’ve heard that one of the major pork sellers at the markets has reached his peak production and is currently not attending one market and may not attend the other.

Garlic, I knew there was something else. A lady advertised organic garlic on the internet the other day so we contacted her to see if we could get some to plant here. She was nice enough to leave a bag full of seedlings at the servo for us. Calamity is down the garden planting it now. Hopefully we can get some good garlic stock from these for planting next year.

When I checked the site this morning I was the 999 hit, let me know who gets the 1000th hit, being a mile stone and all.

Say Cheese!

When I started my Blog I intended it to be a way I could pass on information about sustainable farming practices, our conservation efforts and how we were managing the two on the one property. Looing back on what I have done so far I see it has turned more into a diary of day to day life on the farm.

So, what I have decided to do is make a few changes. Firstly, from this week Monday will be diary day, Tuesday I will look at what’s new and topical in the sustainable farming world, Wednesday will be photo of the week, Thursday will feature topical issues and Friday will be a roundup of the weekly happenings – lets see how it works.

This week is school holidays, and on the TV at 6:00am – Yes I watch TV at 6:00am in the morning much to the cooks’ disgust, is a show on the Lifestyle channel called Cheese Slices. This program follows the adventures of some fellow travelling around the world investigating and show casing the world of cheese making. It’s not the most “entertaining” show on earth and it’s not Emmy material, but it is a good medium for showing the difference in old and new world thinking on one particular aspect of farming and food production.

I have, for a long time, been interested in cheese making. Growing up in a dairy farming area I always liked the routine and calmness that it offered. I like the idea of using raw milk for cheese making and I know that cheese making although far more time consuming and labour intensive then just milking, can be rewarding and enjoyable.

All this, of course, helps explain the Jersey cow in the front paddock. The Cook likes the idea of fresh cows’ milk for cooking and drinking, whilst I’m the cheese lover. I’ve been looking for more Jersey cows, or any milking cow for that matter, but these are rare to come by around these parts. And any I have found have been rather expensive, for example some went at a clearing sale the other day for $1500 each and heifers for $980. Anyway I may have had an idea this morning on the way to work which I will talk about next week. Of course a lot of people would think that dairy farming in an area like ours wasn’t such a good idea – but then they weren’t doing it as part of a closed farming system. Maybe I’ll try a blended cheese and use sheep or goats to supplement our cows – the possibilities!

The final Garnaut report on climate changes was released yesterday and suggests a shift away from beef and sheep production, to eating kangaroos. What a joke that this has become the focus of discussion in the farming community with regards to climate change! If the way people protested when the Defence Department wanted to cull some kangaroo’s in the ACT is anything to go by.

The whole farming system in this country needs to change; we need to become more sustainable, more regional and more disciplined. We need less reliance on chemicals, less reliance on energy, less reliance on resource intensive processes and more supportive for small scale local farmers, farmers markets and CSA’s. And what about reducing the amount of processing that is allowed? Do we need white bread? Do we need processed cheddar cheese? Can we live without fruit loops?

I'm Back!

We apologize for this break in transmission - we’ll return to our normal program as soon as possible. Sorry everybody I was a little sick over the past few days, damned flu got the better of me, but I’m OK now and it doesn’t look like I’ve given it to the cook. Well, a lot has happened and not happened over the past few days.

Firstly – it didn’t rain like they said it would. Sunday morning looked really promising – all we managed by the afternoon was 4mm. That was supposed to be two days worth of rain – nothing!

I placed an advertisement in the Allclassifieds free web site about our piglets – for sale $80 each at eight weeks old. I’ve sold eight up to now, out of the seventeen we have from the last two litters.

350 spuds in and planted – I don’t think we thought they would be that hard to plant. I can’t take much of the credit, the Head Gardener did most of the hard work. It took two days to get them all in the ground – I hope they work. I tried to use an old set of harrows on the ploughed area to break it up, it seemed to work OK, towed around the paddock on the back of the Jeep. With no tractor I couldn’t see another way, I thought of asking the cook to drag them around – but even in a delusionary state I thought better of that. We’ll see later how well it worked.

The cooks mate Jane rang on Saturday – she has found us another goat – great, where is that hole in the head I put down around here somewhere??? I was supposed to go and pick up feed on the weekend as well, but the lurgy put a stop to that – need to fix that up tonight.

We have a new boarder – a three week old Black Angus Heifer named Beccy. She was a twin, the smaller one, and has been rejected by her mother – so the cook is feeding it from a bottle. She came from the guys down at Ingelara. I hope she does alright she’s got really bad scours which isn’t healthy at her age.

Blossoming

Still on the spring theme; the blossoms on the apricot tree are out and hopefully we can produce a good crop. After the head gardener gave it a sever pruning in autumn we weren’t expecting to see so many bubs on it this year.

Big soccer day this weekend, Cooma has its Gala Day where all the teams play a round robin accumulating goals, the team with the most goals at the end of the day wins – Go Strikers!!!!

On the farm I think it’s planting this weekend with Potatoes and pumpkins being the first things to go into the ploughed field. I’ll take some photos of how that progresses. I need to take a look at the irrigator and make sure it's OK for the season as well.

Piglets are doing fine, James went out and took photos before he leaves this afternoon, of course they thought that he was going to feed them, so there was a lot of squealing and snorting – and the pigs made a little bit of noise as well!!! The little chicks are looking good too, they have acclimated to the outside well and are growing well.

More snow

It wasn't as cold at home as it was in Canberra yesterday. The fog didn't lift until late but the clouds hang around all day. It started to rain just as the last light began to fade and by 8:00pm we measured about 3.5mm. The Bush Heritage visit on Monday has been postponed until the 23rd of August which is no big deal. Greening Australia are still planning to do a field survey on Monday afternoon.

There's lots of feeds to do for the weekend, and I hope to get more straw for the pigs. It's been cold the last few mornings with a minus five and minus four, and more of the same forecast for next week. This weekend we'll be starting the weeding of the ploughed field - looking forward to that!! And - while your on the net, go visit the ABC Rural web site, they have my picture of the TSR on their front page. They got the name wrong - there is no way I look like a Mary!!!

Ploughing in the money

Nearly forgot, when the Boss got up on Saturday morning she went out and had a look around. Doing her usual thing checking the goats weren't in the garden, the dogs hadn't nicked off for pancakes, the piglets weren't in the chicken yard - when she notices that the vegie patch had been ploughed up. This marks the begining of our market garden expansion, but first we need to get all the Africa Love Grass out.

We hadn't noticed anything when we drove in because it was raining, and the kids hadn't said anything either - and they had fed the horses right in the middle of it.