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?

snoozing

It’s the first of October, the days are getting warmer, longer and day light saving starts on the weekend. It’s a long weekend with special meaning – the end of snow season! No more idiots on the road speeding to the snow, stopping out the front and depositing their rubbish in our driveway or running over innocent wombats.

The cows took a walk over to our neighbour Buzz’s oat paddock yesterday. They enjoyed themselves for a couple of hours whilst the Cook was busy with the Greening Australia people. She finally had to saddle up old Phoe and go round them up. This is the part about being on the farm that she likes the best – up on her horse chasing the poor old cows around.

The new pony is settling in OK, seems to have found its place in the paddock and the pecking order. The people who brought it took away a rooster as well - good. I had a look at the baby chickens we hatched about six weeks ago this morning and they are growing well and looking healthy; the next batch of hatchlings is due tomorrow – can’t wait to see what we get this time.

Don't foxes eat rabbits?

I went into town yesterday and on the way home I stopped to open the front gate, when I got out of the car, standing about 12 feet away, behind the car, was a young red fox. It didn’t seem very worried about me and started to walk towards me, I shouted at it and it just looked at me. Then I remembered that I had the dogs in the car, and so I opened the back door and let them out. The fox watched me the whole time and even seemed a little interested in what I was doing. The dogs bounded out of the car and bolted out onto the road – then ignoring the fox ran off towards the house – in the opposite direction, the fox still looking at me trotted off down the driveway towards the TSR dam. Obviously the dogs aren’t hungry enough.

We have a rabbit plague at the moment as well, I went out to the car this morning and there was nine rabbits on the front lawn, I then counted another five on the back yard and a couple under the silos. Not having a gun license yet – or a gun, I’m a little ham strung as to what I can do. I have rung a fellow in town, who hunts rabbits with ferrets, but I’ve not heard back from him yet – I think Ben would enjoy a good BBQ rabbit on the webber.

Sadly one of the little runty pigs we had brought into the house over the weekend died yesterday, it was a female and was a lot smaller then the others. It’s probably a good thing that it didn’t make it as it would have just been another small pig I couldn’t sell. The other two are going from strength to strength, they are eating from a bowl and scoff down weetbix and milk hourly. It’s much easier then the hourly bottle feeds we had the first runties on.

The cattle were missing this morning, I ‘m not sure were they have wandered off too. I’ll have to go down the end of the pig paddocks this morning to see if they have gone threw the fence and wandered down along the river – it never ends! Beccy the calf is going well and drinks up to six litres of milk a day now, Harry feeds her mostly and I think he really enjoys his new chore.

Pig mustering

The weekends over and it’s time to get back to work. I managed to fix a few things around the farm, couple of fences and stuff. The seed is all planted and there is the chance of rain in the next few days.

We had to separate Dahlia from the other mum’s on Saturday; her piglets weren’t getting a fair go at the milk and looked like starved Ethiopians. Unfortunately when we separated her, four of Snappy’s piglets decided they would rather move in with Dahlia. So now we have three of Dahlia's piglets in the house, she has ten suckling off of her and Snappy only has five – but she’s very happy.

Didn’t get anything done in the garden – by the time we’d finished Saturday and with the wind blowing a gale again Sunday there wasn’t any time. I did move some fertilizer and straw down to the garden for this weeks chores.

Big news however, we’ve managed to procure 35 Merino sheep. Our first flock! I was hoping to get horned Wiltshire sheep, but I couldn’t refuse the offer of free sheep. So Sunday we head off to collect them from the other side of Canberra.

Nearly forgot - Happy birthday Mum!!!!!!! from all us down here!!! XXX OOO

More to do.

It’s Friday at last – and the Cook has my weekend all planned out for me. I need to get some more gardens ready, there is a little bit of fencing that needs doing down at the oats paddock and I need to check out how the planting has gone. We’ve got Max coming for a sleep over as well.

We ran into the Greening Australia guy at the servo last night on the way home, he’s coming out on Tuesday to look at a couple of new sites for seeding, hopefully we can sort this out soon. I forgot to mention that he DPI/TAFE people came out last week and had a good time. Apparently one of the young lads got bitten by an ant on the finger, the girl in charge said he should show it to the Cook as she is a nurse. The Cook took one look at it and told the fellow that amputation was the only cure and she has a small axe which could take care of finger that size – understandably he sought a second opinion.

The new runties are doing OK, they are drinking from the bowl which is good. Hopefully over the weekend we can feed them up and get them putting on weight.

Animal house

There is never a dull day on the farm. I went out to feed the pigs this morning and thought I’d take a look at the piglets in their huddle. I don’t usually do more then check them quickly and make sure they are all there. I talked about the ones I’d noticed that were a little scrawny on Monday. One wasn’t looking too hot and the other was still looking thin, so I grabbed them both and gave them a couple of feeds from a syringe again, but when I had a look at one I found that it had a bad cut around its head, I think it had been either stepped on or bitten by one of the mums.

There was no blood or anything, but it doesn’t look that good - so we’ve got piglets in the house again. I hope we can pull these guys through, I hate seeing them in poor condition or hurt.

Todays photo was taken by the Cook on our drive yesterday at the top of the Tinderry Range.

Beccy is getting more demanding and is drinking really well. The sheep has taken a liking to the bread and will walk right up to me and stamp her foot demanding I give her bread in the morning. After yesterdays scenic tour we arrived home to find the cook had left the lights on in the little car, so as well as every thing else I had to recharge the battery over night ( she did ask me if I noticed the lights on – as we drove down Jerangle Rd).

Young Ben is getting a Principals Pennant tomorrow at Assembly – he’s very excited – so well done Ben.

This photo is of the two watch dogs waiting for the kids to leave for school so they could snatch a couple of duck eggs for breakfast - not half obvious are they!!!

Oats get sown tomorrow - I hope.