Yep – been fencing, a lot lately. Still need to get my electric fence up and running again. It’s been down for a couple of days now and it won’t be long until the pigs work that out. Weed chipping has been another priority this week with things drying out we need to get the majority of the weeds out before they go to seed.

Safe!



This weekend is going to be a couple of days of spraying weeds in the conservation areas. The tussock weeds have really taken off this summer and need to be contained and removed before they spread even further.

We’ve had a couple of snake incidents this week as well. Both down in the Cooks garden and both brown snakes. One keeps getting into the chicken shelter under the compost tubs. I was down there the other day and a smallish snake had managed to get in with the chicks, the mother hen was fighting it off and the seven chicks had climb up to the top of the wire and were hanging upside down watching the fight.

I managed to get between the snake and the chicken, but trying to get the snake out, stop the dogs getting the snake and protecting the chook was a challenge. It ended slithering out under the pumpkin bush back to the gully. The other one was a little more exciting, I was going out to move some fence posts, luckily I was carrying the shovel, this one was laying along side the steel water pipe stainer posts and when I picked one up I disturbed it. Unfortunately the snake turned on me and I had no choice but to wacked it with the shovel before he had a go at me. I really hate snakes!

Floppsy leaving her bath

I got up the other morning to squeals of delight coming from the old bath tub water trough next to the house. It was a lovely morning, probably about 23 deg and still, I went out to investigate and found Floppsy the Pig taking an early morning bath in the trough. I tried to get a photo but she is a little shy and prudish, so I only got her as she left. I could just imagine her sitting in the tub wearing a shower cap and washing her back with a loafer.

Attack chook

Monday night I went to pick up the Bees from Monika. It took a while for all the Bees to come home to their box – but by 8pm I had them on the back of the truck and heading home. Monika help load them – I don’t think she was 100% sure about what we were doing (don’t tell her – neither was I). I unloaded them as soon as I got home and hopefully they awoke to a nice Valley View sunrise this morning. Surprisingly there was no rain this morning, its forecast for later today, and then warm and fine for the rest of the afternoon.


I had to get myself a new hoe handle, broke two on the weekend chipping weeds; weeds in these parts can be pretty tough. But it was probably the rocks that broke the hoe, weeds just hide them – it’s a conspiracy.
Of course I didn’t get home until late Monday and the pigs were very pleased to see me roll the feeds out at 9:30pm, well after dark. I managed to get everybody penned, fed and looked after, including myself by 11:30pm ready for a 4:45am rise to collect the bread in the morning.
And the $23 chicken the cook bought – just superb, we haven’t had a chicken that good for a long while. And with Harrison at school camp there was even some left over for lunches.
Tuesday night I came home to find the house driveway had subsided into the gas pipeline. Unfortunately the previous leaser of the TSR had ploughed across the drainage channels we had put in and helped cause the problems. I didn’t see the holes at first and had dragged the trailer load of bread across it before I realised what was happening.
More mushrooms coming up in the garden – but I’m not the only one eating them now, looks like the Possums are helping them selves to some as well.
I walked in the house last night and The Cook was limping around the kitchen, I asked her what was wrong and got;

“Bloody rooster! It attacked my foot today” to which I replied,

“Okay, the rooster is only so big how did it hurt you that bad?”

“It spurred me in the foot – it went right through my gum boot!”

- at this point I'm thinking it isn’t going well for the rooster, her foot had swollen up like a foot ball and was turning a nice shade of blue. I was starting to think that Coq au Vont was for dinner.
It didn’t help when I said “great now I have something for the blog”.  The rooster survived, I'm borderline.
In the next couple of weeks we’ve got pigs going off for processing. Unfortunately we couldn’t get any hams done this year, we couldn’t find a butcher. Maybe we’ll have some during the year instead. I’m starting to think I might make my own for this Christmas.

Back so soon??

Another eventful weekend at Valley View. But before that – Thursday evening the Cook made her first Lasagne with homemade pasta sheets – how good was that?? I am a lasagne lover from way back and I’ve got to say it was the best I’ve had for years. Funnily, we were sitting wondering how long we needed to let it cook for when Italian Food Safari came on – and they were making homemade pasta for Lasagne – problem solved, thanks Maeve.

Friday afternoon I was in the feed store picking up some feed after visiting the local rural store. A bloke rocks up with a box under his arm and asks the guy behind the counter if he could task a rooster to sell. “Not a lot of demand for roosters in suburbia” say’s Jim, “you could advertise them in the paper maybe”

The guy looked a little worried; I asked him if it was a good looking rooster? So he gave me a look – he was a very nice looking young roosters. I said I’d take him, and the guy said “hang on and I’ll get the other two out of the car.”

So off I headed to Mrs D’s house trailer load of feed, fencing wire and three roosters. I picked up the new Khaki Campbell Drake and headed home. The drive gives a good amount of time to think up and rehearse what I’m going to tell the Cook. A number of reasons for increasing the number of roosters on the farm came to me along the way – all of them very lame. Finally I settled on the reasoning that if I keep collecting roosters soon there has got to be a shortage – and I will be able to corner the market, and yeah I know, she didn’t think it was a good excuse either.

So the kids settled in the roosters and drake – he took possession of the KC Ducks strait away, and I tried to make myself as small as possible whilst the Cook muttered something to herself. Funny thing was, she was cooking omelettes for dinner, which didn’t make it easy to change the subject – I even got heckled by the children.

Saturday I headed off early to the Love Grass workshop. It was an interesting meeting, managed to discover a new strategy for dealing with invasions but overall it was the same old same old and by the end I was wondering why I bothered.

On the way home I got to pull in at the local hardware shop and spend a little quality time window shopping for tools. I picked up a couple of odds and ends and headed out. I then pulled in to the supermarket to pickup date roll and milk. When I pulled into the car park I noticed two chickens scratching around in the bushes between the cars. I thought it was a bit strange, there aren’t many houses close by and the chickens looked well enough. When I came out they were still there and scratching around in the bush close to the car. So I walked over and picked up the bigger of the two – an Isa Brown. The other one was a Bantam – probably a Buff Orpington or something similar. I chased it into the bush and caught it also, so there I was standing in the bush with two chickens, one under each arm. What’s that saying – a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush – somehow I think it doesn’t apply here??

So I sat the two chickens on the back seat – on my jacket all the way home. I didn’t need to think up any wild to tell the Cook this time, which is lucky because I was all out of creative ideas after Friday. So this time when I rocked into the kitchen with two chickens under my arm I was greeted a lot more civilly.

Sunday was freezing – minus 8 Degrees C in the morning. I don’t go outside until it’s at least 5 Degrees C. Old Nev called us with some disturbing news - Matthew (my Brother) was off getting his Pony Club Instructors License this weekend. You'd need to know the family history for this but they must have got him drunk or promised him something to make him do that - I can't wait to see a picture of him wearing jodphers on his blog. If he doesn't have any I think the family should all chip in - can't have him doing pony club improperly attired, what would old Di say??.

It took a while to warm up – but by the time Land Line was over I was outside fencing. The ground remains cold, especially on cloudy days with out the sun, and by 6pm I was well and truly cold and ready to get by the fire. Luckily for me the Cook sent the kids out with a cup of tea and orders to give me a hand at about 4pm which helped me get the job done.

Of course, for me the weekend ends when I get the kids on the bus on Monday morning. So after chores I stuck the kids in the Jeep and headed for the bus stop. We stopped to feed the sow near the gate and as is normal I turned off the car to give Harry the keys to lock the gate. Unfortunately when I tried to restart the Jeep it cracked a sad and refused to start. “Quick - start walking to the Bus” I said to the kids and raced back up to the shed to grab the spare battery and jumper leads. In ten minutes I had the Jeep going and managed to reach the kids just as they made it to the gate, I got a couple of dirty looks, but at least they made the bus.

First week of the new year - gone already.

It’s time to get back to work and stop all this laying about. I’m talking to the Cook! We’ve had a pretty hectic Christmas with heaps of visitors, lots of rain and more piglets.

Santa certainly did bring the rain and we’ve had over 80mm since Christmas eve. Everything is lovely and green and we won’t have to worry about fires for a week or two. The river is flowing, but no flooding yet so the pump is safe. The kids discovered we have fish living in our water tank. Looks like carp, I did want to try Aquaculture – but not in our drinking water would have been the preferred way.


Ben had a snake chase him around the chook pen the other day, Saturday I think. Each time he called me the snake had disappeared before I got there. We also spotted a rather large Red Bellied Black in the back paddock on Sunday. He was lying in the sun, the Cook wanted to know if I wanted to get out and have a look – after you sweetheart!

The Chook Dome has been completed and Harald did a wonderful job. It now houses half a dozen chooks a nice rooster and the three Khaki Campbell Ducks. The ducks quack every time we leave the house, but they really enjoy the showers the get from the garden sprinkler. And the chooks seem happy; some one is laying an egg a day so we can’t complain. If my calculations are correct we only need another three hundred and six eggs and the Chook Dome will have paid for itself.



I managed to find time to fix a few of the home fences, managed to strain the back fence and pull over the gate post - the Cook wasn’t very happy with me about that. Anyway, still can’t keep the goats out, which is a bit if a shame. I have fortified the pig enclosures and they are happily producing in the manner that will provide us with much pork this year. There are two whom are marked for bacon which are looking rather good.

We had a rather dramatic end to the week with a car catching fire on the highway in the front of the farm yesterday afternoon. I saw it from the pig yards and thought it was an accident at first, I raced up the drive and was just in time to see the car engulfed in flames, and luckily the two occupants had managed to get out before it was too late. I was amazed as they both lit up a cigarette and stood back to watch. It took the Fire Brigade nearly fifteen minutes to arrive, but the car was burnt out by then, I was grateful that he driver had managed to stop on the gravel and not the grass – even with all the rain the wind would have pushed a fire into the paddocks and who knows what could have happened.

New hatchings

Wombat tracks in the mud

The Cook has spent the last couple of nights on her hands and knees in the dinning room. It’s the only way she can see into the incubator and watch the chicks hatch. So far we have had nine out of twenty four hatched. They are a mix of types some are ours and some we bought locally. We have a good setup now and things are working well, they grow so much better under the heat lamps then they did under light bulbs.

So far we have two Hamburgs which are growing much quicker then the rest. The three that I picked up from Monika are growing and have feathers now; I think they are from our small white hen and maybe one of the red roosters. The Cook has had to help some out of the egg and one even managed to get a warm bath and blow dry. She just loves hatchings and spends hours watching the little ones escape their shell and play around their new home. Although most spend the first few hours sprawled in front of the heat lamp recuperating from their ordeal.

I’ve finally managed to get the grain mill fixed and now we can get back to crushing the pigs feed. Unfortunately the feed guy didn’t make it this week so we are on shop bought rations for a week, the pigs don’t mind and I’ve never seen them pass up a free feed yet. I had a talk to somebody about our electric fence and it appears there’s not enough moisture in the ground to conduct properly and therefore the pigs aren’t getting zapped. I need to go around and rewire some of the fence so that the ground is set up differently and should work better.

We’ve been getting the odd light shower over the past few days – but I don’t know exactly how much because somebody ran over my rain gauge. But we’ve not had enough to make the electric fence work unfortunately.

We’re glad we decided not to sow any crops this year as well – would have been another waste of money.

I spent the weekend installing a new surveillance system for both the pigs and the farm. We’ve had continuing problems with ‘unknown’ people entering the farm during the day. I’ve managed to make a catalogue of tyre marks as well to match with cars. I splurged a little and have purchased both daylight and infra red cameras with zoom. The range is amazing – so far I’ve been able to read number plates at 200 metres. It’s also hooked into the internet so I can monitor it from anywhere and it sends an SMS alarm if it detects certain types of movement or tampering. I might hook it up to the Blog one day when I’ve got a spare five minutes.

Catching up.

looking North along the Gully

We packed in a lot over the past week. The Jeep went in for some long awaited repairs – which took a little longer then first thought. But no wit is up and running at full speed. Of course only having one car was a little bit of a bother, but we managed.

There were a number of meetings, including the Natural Sequence Farming AGM and a Weeds vs NSF show down at the Bredbo Pub. Both went well with the showdown going well with nearly 80 participants. The Council Weed Inspector was very accepting and I think his approach to the whole evening was encouraging.

Then Saturday it was off to Yass early in the morning for a Field Day with Peter Andrews. It was horrible weather and by 9:00am I was soaked. Reminded me of lovely times I spent on the training area near Rockhampton. Once the sun came out it was mild enough that I didn’t catch pneumonia.

The property we visited was very elegant and obviously had a bit of money spent on it. The lady had a variety of animals including; Alpaca’s, Dorpers, East Friesian Sheep and Jersey cows. She was supposed to have pigs – but I didn’t see any. The country was a little rough and I doubt if there was room for the serious implementation of NSF principles.

I was going to have a rest of Sunday – yeah right. Fences needed fixing feeds need making and feed needed to be moved. I had to feed out the remainder of the green feed and clean up the mess. Sunday afternoon I let all the pigs out for a graze on the new fresh grass in the potato paddock – they loved it, but by 5:00pm they were all ready to get back home and have dinner.

The Cook has named the smallest one of the three piglets Scruffy. They other two haven’t got names yet, but they are looking really good and as they are able to be registered may be good candidates for show pigs. The buggers chase me everywhere I go – day or night, squealing happily. They eat with the big pigs and then expect to be fed again when the dogs eat. Luckily we have lots bread.

George has left home – on a trial basis. He’s living with the mob of sheep in the bottom paddock, the ones with all the lambs. There is no Ram with them so he’s pretty happy. He still comes when you call and he chased the car down the track yesterday them once we had gone he returned to his girls.

Monika from work hatched some of our eggs (three) in her incubator and I took the chicks home with me last night. She was sad to see them go – but she likes ducks better. They have settled in nicely with the other five chicks we have at the moment. By next week we’ll have more from the two dozen eggs ready to hatch in the incubator at the moment. We managed to find eggs from Hamburg’s, Old English Game, Plymouth Rock and some Silkies.

The Geese are still laying and hopefully we will try incubating some of their eggs once the latest lot of chicks have hatched. That’ll test the incubator, might have to put some duck eggs in with that lot as well.

The willows have started to sprout and the highway was lined with snow white blossoms in places this morning. The wild apple trees are really showing off this year and if we get some rain it should be a great crop. The first of the new Bredbo Markets ran on Sunday and was pretty impressive by all accounts (the Cook). She said there were a lot of stalls – mostly Arts and Craft. Probably not the place to sell our pork, but there maybe something else we can do instead – keep posted. The Cook has also found a Butcher to process our Bacon and make Sausages for us as well. More on that latter also – BTW he’s German ……. So they should be good…..

Oh yeah - we've had about 8mm ofn ain as well......

Nuts!

I was visitor 4444 yesterday!!!

After a long wait, we have finally landed our first bum nut. One of the chickens has started laying, we don’t know who yet, but it is very much appreciated. It has taken a while and a huge effort including incubation, feeding and midnight fox alerts.

All of the neighbours’ cows are on our place at the moment as well. The Cook was wondering why they hadn’t been disturbing the water hole over the last few days – this explains it. She also had a meeting yesterday with the Catchment Management Authority Ranger? I’m not sure what they are called. They seem keen to work with us to remedy a major problem we have in our large gully. But we will wait and see.

The animals are all doing well, we’ve had a flush of green since the rain and everybody is getting as much grass as they can before the frosts start. Normally we would have been having regular frost by now, usually by ANZAC day its brass monkey weather; but so far it’s been rather mild.

I’m off to the Grasslands Field day tomorrow so I may not get to the Blog until really late – if at all. If not, remember ANZAC Day and what its really for – Lest We Forget.

Three little Pigs

Three little pigs have taken over our lives. It’s not good enough that I feed them separately, give them special treatment or let them spend the first few weeks of their lives in the nice warm house – now they have thrown the dog out of her bed. Every time we go outside they come running out from the shelter looking for food. They follow the Cook around like puppies and it drives her nuts.

This morning I had to feed them under the trailer because Maya the pony was trying to nick their breakfast. When I reappeared to do a couple of chores the three of them where sound asleep on the dog’s bed, poor old Shadow was lying on the cold concrete.

The Cook and I took a quick trip up the gully last night to check out one of our project areas. First we had to escape the piglets, and then George chased the car along the track for about three kilometres. He kept up well; he did better then the dog. He stopped at the dam and waited for our return, Shadow kept following us at her slightly slower pace. After a bit of an inspection and a wander about we headed back. At the dam, George leapt out in front of the Jeep and wouldn’t let us past. The Cook decided to get out and opened the back of the Jeep and both of them jumped in – if I ever doubted he thought he was a dog; I don’t now.

I was going to collect acorns this weekend but the weather was less then favourable, so looks like next weekend.

I finally finished the chicken’s fence on the Saturday with the top row of wire going up. I put over 1000 wire clips on the fence with pliers – and have the blisters to prove. Hopefully this will stop the fox for a short time.

We had another visit from the wild pigs on Friday night. At about 9:30pm I heard a sudden eruption of pig noise come from the river side of the pens, I raced out and grabbed the spot light from out of the car but by the time I got to the paddock all I could hear was a pig yelping down along the river. I wasn’t sure until the morning exactly what it was, I had a dreadful thought that maybe a piglet had been taken by a fox. But after roll call at breakfast I had accounted for all the piglets. I think what I heard was a wild pig that unexpectedly hit the electric fence.

Next week I’ll need to finish the pig houses. Drainage is going to be the next little problem I have tot deal with, and I need to build up the floors in the mother’s shelter.
Then I’ll have to think about putting in another fence around the river side of the pig yards.

Dusty......

We had an amazing dust storm last night, we couldn’t see for more then 500m all afternoon. And wind, the wind was blowing between 25 and 40 knots all afternoon. I think some of the geese lost all their feathers. Luckily the pigs a re low to the ground and rather heavy – sort of like me.

I checked in on the piglets at one stage – luckily they had attached themselves to their mothers by the use of suction and at last count w hadn’t lost any. It’s really Autumn here now, all the trees have started turning yellow and red and we are being greeted by frost each morning. It was thick today. And of course the fire is going on each night.

The Cook headed off to the Lovegrass Field Day down by the TSR and at last report there was about 22 people in attendance. She said it was interesting but nothing ground breaking.

The dogs saw off a fox last night, unfortunately Shadow is still to slow and Archer to silly to catch one. Some of the chickens are escaping in the morning as well which I will need to fix on the weekend.

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.

Pub Crawling

Busy one today – dog tore off to the pub again. I’ve had him on the dry the last few nights and I think it just got too much for him. I’m just lucky he can’t carry a six pack all the way home. I suspect he has a stash under the bridge.

There are a lot of rabbits about at the moment; they’ve eaten a lot of the carrots and vegetables that were left in the garden. We had two great carrots eaten down to ground level over the weekend and others just completely disappeared.

I managed to keep the pigs in at last. The Cook watched one go under the piece of fence I fixed the other night and witnessed a lot of squealing and grunting as the pig negotiated both the electric and barbed wire. Of course keeping them within their paddocks is as much for their own good as ours – they could get into allsorts of trouble if they started wandering off to different places.

I didn’t tell you that the Cook bought some more chickens on the weekend. I was almost in Canberra on Saturday when the phone rang and it was the Cook. She had the Saturday paper and found some chickens advertised – would I mind having a look at them? I had nothing to do and so took up the challenge. I arrived at the lady’s house – a very flash house, and was taken out the back to the fancy chook house. She had already sold the ones I liked, so I had a look at a couple of Golden Laced Wynndotte. It was a lovely chicken and had a chick, which I had to take if I took the chicken - sure why not? I also ended up with a rooster and two Pencil Laced Wyndottes. I needed a couple of boxes to carry them home so I arranged with the lady to come back later and pick them up – which was fine.

I took Ben back and he, being the chicken whisperer that he is, rounded up the chickens and boxed them up for the trip home. So now we have a few more chickens to add to the foxes menu. I saw a fox on Saturday morning whilst I was driving around town looking for the dog. It was in the neighbours Lucerne field across the river from the house.

Everybody should have Backyard Chickens

I love the River Cottage TV program with Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall – We’ve seen episodes time after time and never tire. There is one continual theme throughout the series “anybody can do this” - and it’s true anybody can. But what is this? Raise pigs, grow vegies, be self sufficient?

Well really I don’t think it’s any of these single things. I think that the ethical treatment of animals is very important and we do everything that we can to make sure our animals are treated well. I also believe that everybody should strive to become more self reliant when it comes to food. It doesn’t take much – start small, a hanging pot of cherry tomatoes on the veranda, some mint under the tank stand or lemon grass in the garden. Once you start the bug will bite and you’ll be off. I don’t know how many people I know in Canberra who have plum trees and don’t even eat the plums! It’s worth giving it a go – look at the young lad keeping bee’s on his roof in the West End.

I’ve been amazed at the number of people here, where I work, who have chickens in their back yard. The free range egg market is red hot and people line up for the chance to get fresh, free range eggs.

Having said all that – I have a paddock full of pigs I need to get sorted out. It’s time to start eating pork, nothing more to it. Probably work better if I could find the Cook a new stove – but one thing at a time. No good letting a small thing like an oven get in the way. So, this time next week – I am aiming at having the pig processing wheels in motion.

Bee’s, there’s a thought. I had a hive lined up the other day but I lost the phone number. I’ve put an add in the local classifieds to try and find some – lets see what happens. Worms is the other thing – I don’t have any, that I know of, but I will need some soon.

This morning was bread pickup. The Cook is doing a course in town so I had to take her with me. The Jeep is in Cooma having a faulty fuel pump replaced – so we had to take the little car. I can usually fit a good load in the small car, but normally I’m by myself. Anyway, the Cook and I packed the car to the gunnels with bread and jumped in for our trip into the city. The poor old Cook – now a year older, had to squeeze in and be carefully assisted into her seat. As we zipped around the various roundabouts she became lost in a pile of bread until all you could see were her arms flailing about. I forgot she needs air sometimes. Luckily I didn’t roll the car – ha ha! She didn’t like the joke either. We finally arrived at our destination where she struggled out of the car, bread rolling out of the car on to the road everywhere. It took us twenty minutes just to get it all back in. And then I found out somebody I know saw us – what a laugh.

No more rain.

The rain didn’t quite make it down as far as us. We ended up with a little bit of drizzle this morning but nothing much else. I finished two sides of one of the pig outbuildings, a few more modifications and we should be ready for an improved and more comfortable winter for the pigs this year.

Once I’ve finished this project it should nearly be acorn collecting time again. I’m planning on a big collection this year to carry us all the way through winter – which equates to approximately one bag per day or 400 bags. Normally a bag weights in at 25kgs so I’m looking for about 10 tonnes of acorns, which is about 10 trailer loads – last year I gathered about 3-4 trailer loads.

Then it’ll be time to get the garden back into shape for spring – after that I have plans to …………… Can’t say too much about that yet!

The young chickens keep escaping from the chicken pen. This weekend we’ll spend sometime collecting rocks and making the bottom of the fence pig proof. The piglets keep pushing under the wire and last week they stole a whole clutch of eggs from under a broody duck.

The house is full of animals again, we had to evict a bunch of chickens to look after a sick piglet and there are already a gathering of chicks and ducklings sleeping next to the bathroom.

I took a walk up to the NSF site to collect a pair of sunglasses one of the group left behind last week. George, Shadow and Archer all came along for the walk, George lasted the entire way and I am sure he thinks he’s a dog. We ran into Mildred who is still wearing her bell, she makes a lovely tinkling sound as she bolts across the flat.

Anyway – more plans to make, need to get in amongst the weeds soon as well. I’m sure the Cook has something lined up – especially after the one gum boot for valentines and one gum boot for her birthday debacle!!!!! That reminds me – I need to find a cake. It’s never too late to make up the lost ground.

Horrible!

There is only one way to describe it - HORRIBLE. The weather has been just horrible. Today we reached 38Deg C - tomorrow it'll be the same, then cool down to 33Deg C. The pigs are coping with it just, the horses and cows are a little upset and teh goats hate it. The sheep have been coming down to drink from the troughs at night and head back to the shaded gullies during the day.

After thinking everything was going so well over the past few days I arrived hme to chaos yesterday. Twelve pigs had escaped, the electric fence didn't work, the female turkey Cybil, had hatched two Ducklings, I don't know why, but; the male turkeys attacked them and they all died. And to top it all off - I burnt dinner.

Tomorrow I need to take the kids in to town for a sleep over and pick up some timber - then come home and finish building the pig pen before next weekend. The Cook is getting ready for her big trip to Gunning for the Biodynamic course. Sh e didn't get home from work to really late yesterday so she's slightly tired as well.

I'll probably have to start carting water from the Murrumbidgee over the weekend so I can give the pigs a good wallow - I'll have to leave that until the cool time.

No picture today - sorry, too hot to stay on the computer for too long

The Shear Ignominy

Well we finally talked somebody into doing some shearing - not all the sheep but the most needy. The rest will be done in a fortnight. One of the Rams was flyblown on the belly but the rest were OK.

I found the flyblown one down under a tree this morning and thought I could give him a clip with the hand shears - I now have even more respect for the old timers. Those shears are so hard to use! you have no idea if you've never tried. It took me an hour just to get through the matted wool along his back - The Cook ringing someone we know and graphically describing what I was doing was what secured us a shearer - thank god.

Earlier in the day I had gone into town to pay some bills and get a hair cut - boring stuff really. Whilst I was away the Cook and our brood fed the pigs, lamb, calf and chickens - by the time I arrived home they were all flat out in the lounge room watching DVD's.

We had a family measure session tonight - Harry has grown another two inches since October (he's only about three inches shorter then me!), Ben has grown about an inche; no wonder none of their clothes fit them.

The garden has really suffered in the winds we've been having. We had to use the large water tank on the trailer today in an attempt to resuscitate the potatoes - we put almost 750lts of water on them today more tomorrow, hopefully it will work. I've been watering whats left of the pumpkins by hand which is quite laborious.

The Cook has managed to germinate a number of native seeds into seedlings. We're hoping to be able to plant these in Autumn. None of the seeds that we planted with Greening Australia seem to have germinated - I need to have a closer look at them tomorrow.

The Devil you know.

Well looking Back on the farm diary I didn’t realize how much we had done over the past twelve months. Started out with the arrival of twenty-five piglets, the kid’s first yabby expedition and a visit from Aunty Iris. The Cook castrated her first piglets a month later, I engaged in mortal combat with a couple of snakes and drove to Townsville.

And that was just the first month! Things didn’t slow down at all - the Cook rescued sheepy from the river, We had our first visit from Bush Heritage and the Cook did her Soil Biology workshop. By the end of February we thought we had things well under control – yeah right! I had only just returned from Townsville when we had a visit from Gayle, I took in CMC Rocks the Snowy’s and the Cook milked the cow.

By April we started having trouble containing piglets so we weaned the first lot. We had a soil workshop on the property, Flopsy the pig was taken to the vet for an ear infection and we had our first frosts. I started collecting acorns for the pigs over Winter, we had our first ANZAC Day in Bredbo and had a visit from Mum.

We went to a lot of field days, met a lot of interesting people and spent an awful lot of money on pig food. By May we had almost eighty pigs and the Cook went to Adelaide with the kids. We also visited the Mountain Creek farm run by Michael Croft; which was a great inspiration to us, and Ben started playing Soccer. In May we also had our first piglets inside and our first piglet die.

By june it was winter well and truly, Rusty the Donkey died, we had problems with the school bus and the pigs opened a new paddock – thanks to some help from a couple of mates. In July we had the arrival of a new calf and another attempt to milk Belle. It snowed at home and things really started to cool off.

The rest of the happenings are on the Blog, too many to repeat here.
The kids had their first Christmas holiday sleepover with four mates from Canberra. Lots of computer play, water fights and eating. Tomorrows New Years eve, have a safe one. I haven’t updated the last couple of days due to the sleep over and no spare computers.

We found out who was our 2000th visitor, who was also our 1999. He logged off and on again just so he could say it was him - good on ya Maverick!!!

Todays picture is of a Blue Devil a native to these parts - it was very windy when I took the photo, cheers

Less pigs

The weekend before Christmas, and all through the house – nothing was stirring, not even a gosling! That’s how it goes at our house, although we have our fair share of mice it’s the goslings that are the biggest animals in the barn.

I came up the drive on Friday afternoon to the sight of a mangy fox drinking from the horses’ water trough. Damned things aren’t afraid of anything! Saturday morning we had to separate some of the gilts from the herd for people to look at. They ended up taking two gilts and four weaner’s home with them to Boorowa. They were pretty happy with them and had a good laugh at our “racing pigs” as they ran from one end of the paddock to the other chasing one with a mouth full of bread.

Saturday afternoon we finished the paddock down in the front of the house – which was going to be for the goats, and just need to wire it up before some pigs can occupy it.

Sunday was warm, I spent most he day mowing the lawn, Jane came over in the afternoon with three Peking Ducks for the Cook. She stayed for the afternoon, wandering about and looking at things. I ventured off to the orchard down the road, I’d heard they have a good smoke house and I wanted to check things out. So I turned up and had a chat to the people who were very nice. The fed me a home made smoked pork sausage and some home made bread, it was great! They showed me around their Goose farm and vineyard and told all about how they do everything in the traditional ways. They had the most delicious cherry’s I’ve ever tasted, not as big as you get in the shops but way more flavour.

Before I left we agreed on them killing a pig and doing the smoking – maybe making some smoked bacon during winter. They gave me a loaf of home made bread and a couple of smoked sausages and sent me on my way.

The Cook and I had the sausages for dinner Sunday night – beautiful, firm and tasty!

What happened to Summer?

Things got away from me over the past couple of days – we spent the day at Scottsdale on Friday at an African Lovegrass Workshop. It was very interesting, apart from the fact that he people form the NSW DPI and the local Agronomist were particularly rude and obnoxious throughout the day. We met a couple from Candelo who have had a lot of success with using worm tea on their love grass to make it more palatable. We will be trying this in the pigs areas, just need to round up some worms.

We finally had a chance to catch up with a friend from way back as well. He share farms Ingellara, the Biodynamic farm down the road and we’ve been trying to catch up for months.

During the Field Day, as with all days at Scottdale it rained – we ended up with about 15mm over the weekend – nothing compared to Canberra’s 53mm. Then of course we have had a couple of days of wind, now everything is nice and dry again.

I was inside on Saturday having a cuppa and chat with Matthew on the phone, I remembered I needed to fill the pigs feeds with water so I dashed out side. I had only reached the gate when I noticed a huge Wedge tailed Eagle sitting on one of the ducks in the back yard. A second Eagle swooped down and landed on the corner post of the chicken yard. Luckily I was able to scare them off and save the poor duck – which apart from a couple of scrapes and a cut to the head came off OK. Of course she hasn’t left the chicken house since.

Sunday was quite, a little bit windy and cold. I spent a little bit of time cutting down the old Love Grass tussocks in the front paddock and the Serrated Tussock down by the creek. Unfortunately when I picked up the mail this morning I had a warning form the Council that I was getting a weeds inspection after New Years – yippeeee can’t wait!

The Cooks Potato patch is looking good - in todays picture.

More Rain

I’d forgotten what to do on a wet day it’s been that long. Saturday we received the best part of our 52mm for the week. This brings our total for the year to about 300mm which is less the half our yearly average.

I went down and checked the oats on Sunday morning. It’s all heading and it’s only about three inches high. What the rain hasn’t ruined Buzz’s sheep has eaten. I can’t keep the mongrel things out, they go through any fence the buggers.

Surprise, surprise – the fox was back on Sunday morning and dragged off the Cook’s favourite rooster. I’m setting traps for it in a couple of days to see what I can do – but I’ll know him when I see it – he’ll be bloody fat!

Potato’s are going much better then the oats and it looks like we’ll have a bumper harvest. I finished the temporary loading ramp for the pigs as well – it’s time to lock a couple up and go get some pork made!! I have had more people enquire about pork but not many hand over a wad of readies for one yet – I know patients is a virtue.

The Cook went to the Grasslands Field day and had a ball. She met the President of the NSF who told her they were coming out in February and that Peter Andrews himself may be coming out in March – she’s very excited. I also received an email from the CMA, they may be interested in participating in the NSF venture as well – I suppose we can only wait and see. We didn’t get a grant from the Caring for our Country DEWHA/DAFF Open Grants – this year, we’ll try again next year.