End of another week

Well, The Cook has taken the kids for a little break and I’m here looking after the place on my own. It was a frenzy of massive proportions the two weeks before she left. We had to spray 500 over the paddocks, get the cattle in and all the general organisation of going away.

 

We managed to do it with about five minutes to spare and the loss of only one finger – just kidding mum!

Since they have been away I’ve managed to reduce our poultry numbers somewhat. I made a pond for the ducks – it’s rather deep so the ducks and geese can have a good time diving and swimming. I didn’t realise that the roosters would try swimming as well! I’ve lost two so far and have to only open the pond when I’m in the chook pen, I feel like a life guard – and even with me standing there I’ve still had to drag a couple of roosters out of the water. Roosters aren’t the only things I’ve lost, three ducks have died and I wasn’t sure why – but now I know – the Turkey has been standing on them trying to mate, so know I have had to lock up the turkey, until spring is over. I must track down a hen for him in the next week or so.

Sadly that’s not all, I went out to feed Archer tonight and found he had died in his sleep, he was stretched out in his sunny spot and had just gone to sleep and not woken up. So tomorrow I need to dig him a great big hole in the flower garden. No more trips to the pub old fella!


Archer, in blue collar, Penny and Shadow



I had planned to do a lot this week – apart from the duck pond, but I spent a far bit of time collecting acorns in Cooma and sorting out animals. The horses led me on a merry chase down the river – my boots are still drying out, and I’ve lost the cattle out the back again.

I have to try and shear George this week – with the hand shears, he's overdue and it should be fun being his first time.

I got a great big bite from a pig this morning whilst I was feeding out the bread. It’s left an impressive mark, a bruise and drew blood. Luckily she got me on the elbow joint and not the arm proper, I think she would have broken it if she had got me on another part of the arm.

Had my first snake contact on Sunday, I lifted a box to make way for some feed and it slithered out at me, I lifted my skirts and ran screaming like a girl to the house, the snake was quickly moved on and I don’t think it’ll be bothering me again this year.

We’ve had a pig napping incident as well. Five pigs in all were taken, all small one’s – don’t know how they did it. But the Stock Squad found them bought them home – in the back of a ute. I’ve had to keep them separated from all the other pigs for the last six weeks. I also had to put tags in their ears – that was an experience, the boys helped, they tackled the pigs to the ground whilst I fixed the tag. The first one was fine, didn’t make a sound – we were all worried because we had never done it before. The second one squealed wildly and made us a little shy about doing the rest – but after five minutes we had them tagged and a month later they are still in – thank heavens.

So, this coming weekend I’ve got fencing and weeds to spray, I need to fence off the duck pond – that’ll need a roof as well and general tidy up – never a slow moment here. I need to check the Cooks garden as well, the days have been lovely and warm and I may need to water some things.

Now it rains

It was a little wet and windy today – just what we needed. The day started off slow but soon with kids galloping off to school and pigs to feed everything regained its momentum. The Cook had a well deserved lay in and I looked after the animals. We’ve recently reduced our numbers by about a dozen pigs and it’s made a big difference. Most of the ones that went were bigger pigs as well, so the feed is going a lot farther.

I spent the remainder of the morning after feeding dodging the Cook and her jobs – she was on the look out to put me to ‘gainful’ employment. As there is nothing to eat in the house until we can get to the shops again I headed up to the back 500 acres to have a look for weeds. Of course I found more than enough to be depressing. I haven’t been right up in the back corner adjacent to the railway line much, there’s a lot of tussock coming across the tracks onto our place, luckily it shouldn’t be too hard to get under control (famous last words). I was also trying to find any trace of our second Jersey Bull – no luck there, I’ll have to go see the neighbour and see if he’s seen him.

On the way back I came via the back of the hill behind the house, I ran into the Wedge Tail Eagles who were hunting rabbits in the grass ,I managed to get a couple of quick pics before they disappeared over the ridge. I also spotted a couple of new native flowers, I still can’t identify them – they weren’t flowering properly so I may go back on the weekend to have another look.

I don't know if there was something in the water here but some of the animals are a little odd today. The kitten thinks it's a lion and has been pouncing on anything that moves in the house from behind cover - and after seeing snakes it's not a pleasant feeling to have a kitten sink it's claws into your ankle. The fat dog has been doing that crazy dog thing running around with her tail between her legs all over the lawn. Fatso has been following me around all day - getting in my way when ever it is convenient for her and lastly George - he's joning in where ever he can and being a real dag.

When the boys arrived home they were put strait to work cleaning up the shearing shed, earlier in the day I’d found a blue birds egg on the grass up there and left it on a table. Anyway Ben found another couple and bought them back to the house. He’s quite the survivalist and pestered the cook to be able to break one of the eggs open and see what it look like inside. I was thinking it’d be a half grown chic or that it would be rotten. But low and behold it was just a normal egg, Ben asked if you could eat it, to which I responded that you could if it was a survival situation – so he wanted to try it. Out came the frying pan and Ben went to work cooking his egg, once finished he and Harry divided it and put it to the test – they both ate their share and decided it tasted just like ........chicken!

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......

It's getting closer

Well we finally had a little bit of rain on Friday. Unfortunately we had our rain gauge run over by a mystery visitor the other day so I don’t know how much we ended up with. People down town were saying we received about 9 - 10mm, which is better then nothing - but nowhere near what we need.

Ben is a star; he got his picture in the local paper – again. It was to do with the seed balling day run last weekend.

The big black boar came back again Saturday – again the day after rain. This time we had arranged for someone to come out shooting that morning. They rolled up about 6am and the boar was standing in the paddock waiting. They couldn’t believe it, I had to pry the Cook from the bedroom ceiling when they fired their first shot, scared the hell out of her. I didn’t actually wake up – the cook had to shake me. Anyway the shooters missed the pig. I found his tracks latter in the day and there was no sign or evidence of him being hurt.

The Cook decided to make pancakes for breakfast on Saturday. Harry was going to somewhere for a sleep over and we need to make sure he is full before he leaves otherwise he eats people out of house and home. The Cook broke sic eggs into a bowl then added flour and milk – somewhere in there she got confused about wether she was making scrambled eggs or pancakes. Of course, we fear for our lives so we said nothing and just smiled and ate them.

We spent Saturday doing various farm chores, which never seem to get done. We had the Mums out grazing Saturday after the rain. They love it out the front at he moment lots of great weeds and sweet grasses to snack on.

The Cook showed me a huge egg she’d found in the chook pen the day before, she said she’d never seen such a big duck egg in her life. Then she said at first I thought it was a turkey egg until I realised we only have boy turkeys. I then pointed out to her that it was a goose egg – causing a little embarrassed laughter and a threat about putting it on the blog, which of course I take very seriously – and won’t say a thing….

Sunday morning was beautiful, we had a slight westerly breeze bringing in the warm inland air and by 10am it was 17 degrees. Sadly things changed by 5pm – back to 60kmph icy winds.

The fruit trees are all in bloom and the bees are going crazy all day. Hopefully we won’t get any heavy frost before the fruit sets. The sheep came down again and we have a few more lambs – one is coloured, with black legs and a black and white face.

We received a letter today saying that our Flora and Fauna Sanctuary had been approved and will be gazetted in the near future. They’ll send us out a copy when it happens. We received our signage the other day, but I still don’t know where I’m supposed to put it exactly.

The three little pigs are pressing their claim to the dog’s mattress. Last night we could hear a ruckus out in the mud room which turned out being Shadow trying to lie on the mat – on top of a piglet or two. I don’t know who’ll win this, but we’ve never had piglets wanting to live with the dogs before.

Whilst I was out clearing briars on Sunday George decided to follow me. He ended up chasing the car right out to the far end of the property. He was happy to graze around the car until it was time to go home. I felt sorry for him because it was getting late, so I let him get into the back of the Jeep and ride back with me.

Seed Balling

Water is becoming an issue for us again. Although we have enough to keep us going for the immediate future but once summer kicks in we are going to really struggle. To date we have had less then 140mm of rain, down from 260mm for the same period last year and way below the 330mm on average for this time of year.

So we’ve decided to reduce our pig numbers down to about 12 pigs – we figure that at this point we need to plan for the worst case. I think we can support our twenty odd sheep without too much problems. So now comes the job of picking the ones we’ll keep. Don’t worry – Fatso and Floppsy are safe and Tiberius our Boar will stay as well – that leaves nine choices.

We hatched a mob of chickens last week as well, the Cook has the incubator turned up high and has been collecting eggs from across the district for hatching. I’m hoping I can get some off of Mrs Duck Herder and see if we can hatch some handsome ducks like hers.

We had a Field Day on Saturday in partnership with Greening Australia, Landcare and K2C. We spent the early afternoon making seed balls, which are balls of clay about the size of a marble containing various sees and a little fertilizer – basically seeds inside a womb. The idea is to throw these balls into areas were you couldn’t easily plant but want to grow tress and shrubs. There is a long history attached to this method, but natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka is recognised as the more recent advocate of the system. He is famous for never ploughing and just using seed balls for all his planting – vegetables, cereals and trees.

It was nice to get out in the open and spread some of these balls around the farm. We had about twenty people helping and seeded the area along a rocky ridge. It was made even more exciting by the discovery of an echidna by some of the children. We’d seen a disturbed ants nest further down the hill, but to find the actual culprit was fantastic. People where also able to see some of the threatened and endangered plants and trees we have also.

Of course George had to be a participant as well and chased the cars along the track out to the ridge; I think he was in the middle of the convoy by the time we got there. Once we had stopped he mingled with the crowd and managed to get his picture taken with Graham from Greening Australia for one of the local newsletters.

Before the Field Day the Head Teacher from teh Albury TAFE dropped in to pick up a couple of pigs. The TAFE's eco farm is diversifying into the free range pig business and chose us to source their pigs from. Unfortunately they arrived in a vehicle much higher then our loading ramp. This wasn't a problem for the two smaller sows they wanted - we just lifted them into the truck - after a short carry. It was the Boar they weree opicking up for the another person that was going to be difficult. In the end we used a bale of straw and some bread to lure the boar into the vehicle. We were both surprised at how easily he went up in the end. The Boar that went was Boris he's not the prettiest boar, but he was the toughest of the three young Boars we had, he also was a bit of a fancier of the ear scratch. Hopefully he'll enjoy his new home.

We are getting hammered by cold fronts at the moment as well. Last night we had 100kmph winds and Sunday afternoon was terrible. The worst part is we only receive very small rain falls which dry up immediately with the wind. All the pig humpies have been blown down near the river so another job to add to the list for the weekend.

At one point last night the three little pigs decided they’d rather sleep with the dogs’ then out in their shelter. They kicked poor old Archer off of his mat and set up home happily grunting and snorting. Unfortunately for them Archer got a little upset by about 9:30pm and decided that enough was enough – and he turffed them out into the night.

Sunday

The jury is in and the wood fired roast pig gets full marks. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures of the results for tomorrow’s Blog – there are heaps of left over’s, none for me however….!!!!!

The pigs spent a quite Sunday grazing over the river flat, with the goats and George of course. George raced the car down the drive when he saw the Cook return from her truffle lunch – and he beat her up the driveway.

The Cook had a terrific lunch and is full of enthusiasm for truffles again. This will mean more fencing and hard work for me – but she’s the boss. We will have to carefully decide exactly where they will be planted; I think the last spot was too close to the pigs and the power lines, so next time we’ll choose a better, smarter spot. Our soil and temperature are perfect for truffles here and there are already a number of growers close by.

I fixed the electric fence for the time being, just glad I don’t have a pace maker - yet. I think I need to go back around the whole lot and replace some of the work I’ve done previously. One big mistake I made was not being able to isolate individual paddocks. I think I can fix that without too much effort or cost. I also needed to use more steel posts in the hinge joint parts, the little pigs have no respect for that stuff.

I will also need to finish the front paddocks and put a hot wire around the river flat later on just to stop the young pigs getting too adventurous and heading for the highway.

The Cooks day off

Poor old Cook. She had a day off yesterday – sort of. She started out having to complete all the chores because the boys had gone off to a friend’s for a sleep over. By the time she had finished those she noticed that the horses were down in the river again so she went off to fetch them back, on the way she lost the sheep. Poor old George doesn’t like getting his feet wet so he wouldn't cross the river.

It turned out, once she got down there, that one of the horses had hurt itself. So she needed to look after that first and later went back for the others. Then she went looking for the sheep – which of course had already returned to the house paddock – but it took her an hour of searching to find that out. Once everything was settled at home, she had to take a trip into Cooma and get our car in for repair and do a little shopping.

She finally arrived home – much later then intended, just in time to feed the animals. By the time I arrived home she was in the kitchen cooking dinner for the two of us – what a women, what would I do with out her?

Anyway, she had left the preparation for the next mornings feeds up to me – and rightly so. So I spent a while doing before dinner. Then we both sat down and watched Australian Story and Peter Andrews whilst enjoying a delicious curry.

I had arrived late home. I’d had to drop something off on my way and thought I’d take a long cut. I’d never been down the ‘Angle Road’ before and it was definitely something I shouldn’t have done at night. I had the car and trailer going side ways around corners and missed turnoffs – nearly ended up in a paddock once! I haven’t been on a road with corrugations that bad for years.

Then on the way down the highway I had to wait a while because of an accident. A four wheel drive had rolled off the road avoiding a kangaroo whilst travelling to the snow.

This morning on my way to pick up bread I was passed by a fellow in a ute just before Williamsdale, he passed me on a pretty dangerous spot and wasn’t going slow. I caught up to him a bout three kilometres later pulling a kangaroo out of his radiator – he wasn’t going to get to work today. I am amazed at the speeds people travel at on the highway this time of year. The sides of the road are littered with car debris and dead kangaroos – you’d think it would be obvious.

George

George the sheep has once again disgraced himself. I went out onto the front veranda last night and found he had eaten – yes, eaten half a dozen cardboard boxes that used to contain books, video tapes and cloths. We had stored the boxes on the veranda whilst we did some, as yet not started, interior renovations. Not only has he eaten the boxes – and you’d have to ask why, he lives in the front yard , nearly an acre of good grass and has unrestricted access to the paddocks and he gets fed bread and grain; but, he’s eaten two very large bags of shredded paper we were going to use on the compost heap that we had in the shed.

He also frightened the life out of me last night when I went to feed the dogs. As I opened the back door he must have been standing on the other side and burst through the door – I had no idea what was going on, and tripped backwards over Shadow and landed flat on my back in the middle of the door way, George decided I’d make a good door mat and walked over me to get inside. He has also developed a funny reaction to cement, when ever he stands on it he wee’s.

The two piglets living inside the house have found their voice and will soon have to leave their fire side comfort. The Cook has rules and as soon as they become noisy they are out. The next load of pigs is off on Monday, so it’ll be another big weekend. We’ve also got to find the time to pick up feed, deliver a Boar and attend Soccer and a NSF working B – then there is fencing and weed control.

Hopefully the wind will subside tonight, it’s been howling the past few days and there is now snow on the mountains again. Looking at the weather charts we had the lowest pressure barometric pressure we get over us yesterday and by Sunday we will have the highest barometric pressure from the high travelling across the Great Australian Bight – it’s not normal to get both ends of the spectrum in less than a week.

Looks like the pigs fence is off again, I think I need a new battery, there hasn’t been much sun lately on the old one might be having problems. So the Cook is kicking my behind to sort that out and I’ve already got a hundred other things planned for tomorrow – maybe I’ll just sleep in……….

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.

Above average - at last!

I felt like a Roman Emperor returning from Gaul last night. Being a Tuesday I had a trailer full of bread on the back of the jeep, as I turned into the driveway across the TSR I could see the goats standing atop the rocky hills behind the house. They must have seen me drive in and started racing down the side of the rocky hill. As I pulled up at the gate both Shadow and George where waiting for me and followed me up to the house, by the time I got there, the goats had arrived and the pigs had all come in out of the paddocks. Everybody loves me!!!!!

Yesterday afternoon bought more rain and by 5:00pm we had received more them 20mm for the 24hrs. This takes our monthly rainfall above the average for the first time since June 2006.

So – next it’s the cold. ANZAC day approaches fast and officially that’s the start of the cold weather. All the farms around us have been busy planting the last few days in preparation and the past couple of days’ rain has paddocks starting to turn green already.

Tomorrow the DPI are running their Love Grass Field day on the TSR next door. I can’t go unfortunately, but the Cook has volunteered.

Pass

I’m still trying to sort out our PigPass, this allows me to sell pork from the farm to the public – it’s a kind of Quality Assurance guarantee. It’s bread day and of course it’s an early morning drive into town. We had a little bit of misty rain when I left the house, but I don’t think it amounted to more then 0.2 – 0.5mm’s.

It’s time for the orphans to be exiled to the pig yard. One of the little dears has started jumping out of their box. I was making their weetbix last night when I got a real fright as she ran her wet nose up the back of my leg. So; maybe tonight there will be no animals in the barn/house.

The bushfire started by lightning in the State Forest to our west is still going. It’s a week since it started. Another broke out on Thursday about seven kilometres to our south west as well, but that fire has been out for a couple of days.

I nearly locked George in with the pigs this morning. The trouble maker pushes his way in to get a feed of bread in the morning and because it was dark I didn’t see him. I think he would have been quietly upset and rather put out if I had of left him there. I wonder if they would have eaten him???

Getting too dry

Lucky we have a Midwife on staff here at Valley View. We’d moved a pregnant sow into a paddock of here own over the weekend, our Midwife was doing her rounds yesterday when she discovered the sow in birthing mode. This was the sows first litter so she thought she’d take a look. She went to investigate and found the sow in a little bit of trouble having a piglet in breach. So the Midwife went to work and rescued the little one with a good yank – she managed to get blood and yuk all over herself as well. The sow ended up having six piglets in all – better than twelve. We have soooo many piglets – anybody want one?

The pigs where out again last night and this morning and the fence was not working as well as it should. I had a look around the yards and couldn’t find any problems. The Cook/Jack boot Jane/Midwife and I had been talking about it last night so I figured I try her suggestion of wetting around the ground stake – seems to have worked, good on you girl!

Last night I went out feed the dogs, it’s no moon so it’s pretty dark at the moment but I seem to make my way around the yard okay in the dark. Anyway I was throwing them some bones, normally George the lamb hangs around so I‘m used to a crowd. Anyway I’m throwing a bone to Archie when I notice that there are already two dogs sitting on the lawn next to me – it was one of the runties from last year – damned darkness. Pigs aren’t supposed to eat meat so I took off after her (stupid idea), tripped over the esky and whacked myself against the tap. So I figured running around in the dark was a bad idea and decided to negotiate with the pig instead. I fetched a loaf of bread from the trailer – got stalked by the goats - and tried to talk her into trading with me. I had to divide the bread up with the goats – everyone was happy, the dogs got the bone, the pigs and goats had bread and I’m sure George did too. I just hope the goats never learn how to use a tazer or I’m really in trouble.

Just goes to show how dry it is. There are articles in the paper today about ACTEW/AGL, the local water people for the ACT are trying to find out why the quality of the water coming down the Murrumbidgee is so poor at the moment – I can tell them – it’s because it’s not flowing anymore, there’s no inflows, not for weeks – it’s dry people DRY!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to ask the guy’s up in Rocky something as well – but I‘ve forgotten what it was. Obviously it wasn’t about sheep. Never mind I’ll remember. It’s nearly Autumn which is our rain season – lets hope.

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.

George - he's getting big!

The Jeep broke down again – that’s why no Blog yesterday. I spent all my time in town hitting it with a hammer! Fuel pump is shot, not bad – 15 years service, 420 000 km. I’ll need to get it towed to Cooma so we can get it fixed – another job for the fridge list. Hopefully I can have this done before next Tuesday.

The horses made life a little bit harder last night as well. Phoe disappeared somewhere just before dusk and we couldn’t find her anywhere. After a lot of searching, in the dark, we called it a night – this morning the Cook found her in the next door paddock happy as Larry with her silly trotter mates.

Some of the young chooks are looking a little bit scrawny as well, it might be worms, I’m not sure. Anyway, we’ve bought them into the house to be fed for a few days, the Cook has the wormer out and we’ll see how they go – it may have had something to do with heat as well.

We’ve had clouds and the BOM has forecast rain for the last few days - but not a drop has fallen anywhere near us. There is rain over Bredbo on the radar picture today – but it’s not making it to the ground. At least the humidity should be high enough to stop the grass burning if there is any lightning.

Girl - boy - girl - boy - boy- girl - girl - girl

It was a weekend like no other – hot and dry. Okay so it was like all the rest. What did I say about the pig – Friday night she had 10 piglets, all pretty healthy and well. She has 16 nipples!!! One of the weaners from the last lot of piglets was suckling on her last night. When I tried to take him away – he weights nearly 20kg, when the damned thing squealed she came after me and tried to take a leg off.

Archie decide to talk a walk down to the Bredbo Primary School – I think he had ideas of becoming the teachers pet.

I had to take the kids into town on Saturday, I was just dropping them off when the Cook calls me on the mobile – There’s a snake in the chicken box, what am I going to do about it. By the description it would appear it was a Tiger Snake, nothing too poisonous. I told her to run down the house and grab the camera – a shot of a tiger snake eating a chook would be great for the Blog. So she ducked off , and grabbed the camera – I didn’t have to ask twice! When she arrived back the snake had gone – I got a text message “It’s worse – Snake has gone, don’t know where”. I asked Ben if he had fed the chickens, he said “yes”. I asked him if he did the ones in the box – he said “yes”. I asked him if he had seen the snake in the box – he just looked at me and said “what snake?”

Poor little George. He lost his tail on the weekend. We had him ringed when we sheared so we did expect it. Ben and I were following him up from the garden when it dropped off right in front of us. Ben stopped and starred opened mouthed, Shadow ducked in from the side and grabbed it in her mouth – she wanted it for breakfast! The Cook got totally grossed out and told me to catch the dog, get the tail and bury it – I’ll still laughing, but not out loud.

Sunday morning we found the front gate to the TSR closed and Mia the horse locked in the road paddock. Luckily the gate to the highway was shut. We have no idea what was going on, but the gate was latched so it had to be a person.

Sunday afternoon I was home alone building another pig shelter. I unloaded a pile of posts out of the trailer I had picked up in Cooma. The truck was in the way so I decided to move it for convenience. As I drove forward I heard an almighty squeal, I thought I’d run over a dozen pigs. I jumped out and looked under the Jeep – nothing, then I looked under the trailer.

One of the big pigs must have crawled under the trailer and gone to sleep whilst I was unloading – I didn’t see it. Now it was starring at me from between the axels, well and truly stuck. I tried taking off the trailers wheels but the pig couldn’t fit out the gap. So I tried jacking the trailer up, but I couldn’t get it high enough. Finally I managed to get a long log and a stump and lever the axel high enough for him to escape – with out even a mark. I went back to move the Jeep – and the fuel pump had stopped again, another hour of fluffing about before I could get it moving and finish the job.
The Cook came home and asked what I had got up too – “Not a lot” I replied

PIctures aren't working again - I'll upload later.

To hot to type

The Cook had a little bit of drama coming back from the coast yesterday, so things have been a little waylaid. She came up over the range from the coast and overheated the Jeep. Nothing serious, just slowed her down a bit – didn’t stop her going shopping however.

I walked up the back to check on the sheep last night and all seem to have survived shearing OK. Little Mildred, or Milly, was hanging with the mob. Her bell could be heard all the way down the hillside. George followed me the whole way like a dog, I don’t think he’s realised he’s really a sheep yet. Thankfully the Cooks garden survived her absence – helped by the fact I left the drippers on all night and day, by accident.

Everybody was sunburnt, tired and grumpy last night and bed was the best place to be. It never went below 25 Deg C all night – but we were all so tired nobody noticed. We’re expecting a cool change tonight, with any luck.

Just quackly

With the Cook and Boys away last night I didn’t finish the chores until 10:00pm, makes for a long day after a 5:30am rise. All the animals were fine – however I have left the chickens locked up until they get home.

George, of course, was ferociously hunger by the time I got home and assaulted me as soon as I got out of the car. His stomach rules our life at the moment. Some of the sows are coming in season thick and fast, this only lasts for three days, then there will be peace again for a few weeks.

Wool went to market today – get paid tonight. It won’t be a lot, but at least I can think about doing the walls of the pig pens before winter. I was hoping to be able to do this before the NSF day – which now looks promising.

It’s going to be a scorcher today, it’s already 30 Deg C, probably get to 32 again and tomorrow they forecast 35 deg C. This, thankfully, is down two degrees from yesterdays forecast. The pigs are handling the heat with out much fuss so far, and now the sheep are shorn they should be alright as well. Of course, today is bread day so another early rise and late night is on the cards.

Click go the Shears

Shearing is done! It took nearly all weekend, but it’s done. The first bale of Valley View wool is off to the buyer and I still have to clean out the shed. The mustering was the fun part – because it rained. We had eight people helping muster, I had the Cook and her sister and Malcom had his two dogs – must say I might get myself a couple of dogs, they work better then the two girls I had and you only have to whistle – not stop and explain why you want them to go up there, or block that gap or stay and they don’t stagger around all Sunday creaking and groaning (it’s ok the Cook doesn’t have time to read this right now).

It was an early start Sunday and the work didn’t end until well after dark. I’d forgotten how hard shearing and the associated work is, luckily it only happens once a year. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the shearing shed and yards. I want to get myself a welder so I can build a good steel set of yards, I’ve probably got a year to get the most important jobs done – which I’ll probably start a week before it’s next shearing.

The kids help out and, as usual, did their best. Couldn’t really do it all on our own so we are lucky to have them around.

I picked up Georges’ new girlfriend Friday afternoon in Yass. She wasn’t very impressed and is now up in the ewes paddock with the rest of the sheep. She stayed with George for a little while, but I think George is a little young for her.

We did get a little over 9mm of rain for the weekend. But a lot of the storms missed us either side – yet again. Unfortunately there was a lot of lightning which is dangerous this time of year. After the rain on Sunday afternoon I went to check the sheep and make sure they had settled down OK. I only found a dozen or so, but they all seemed ok, the rest have headed for the gullies and hill tops – I did see two foxes, both heading towards the house.

And guess what we had for dinner Sunday night – Roast leg of Lamb, well done Cook.