May update

It has been a busy month, thus my tardiness in posting here. Sorry about that.
We aged the steer killed late last month for two and a half weeks in the coldroom before doing the cut up. The meat aged particularly well. Very little burn and almost no mold on the exterior surfaces. We cut up on some raised benches in the carport, making cleanup easier- no floors to scrub afterwards, plus all the fiddly bits that hit the floor are consumed by chickens. I am very pleased with the quality of the meat, there was plenty of body fat and the flesh is rich and marbled. So I broke the carcasse down into fillets, oysters, blade for mincing and shanks for slow roasting, Rump and round steaks, silverside for mincing (I detest silverside). Roasts from the T bone and nearby. The mince was then turned into a selection of sausages, plain beef bangers and herb and garlic specials. I also made a couple of pounds of spicy chorizo as I love a good chorizo. The bones were then recovered for the dogs and the final inedible waste would not have filled a twenty litre bucket! I am exceptionally happy with the rate of meat recovery we are getting now. The freezer is now packed and it is a good feeling to look into the freezer knowing you are supplied with beef for the coming year.
While I had the cold room running I took the opportunity to cull some of the guineafowl flock and hang them like game in the cold room for four days. To do this I set up a hide in the milking shed and quietly shot four adults with the .22. Headshots so as not to spoil the meat. They turned out to be quite palatable but rather dry. I am thinking a stew next time or else using the slow cooker.

Work on the hot house has been curtailed by a very late wet season with overnight falls of up to 206mm making the ground too soft to drive machinery across under any circumstances. On the plus side the water tanks are all full.

The new addition to our farm is a pair of kittens (Rei and Sen, left to right) to aid and eventually replace Jasmine in her mouse catching duties. The timing could not be better as we appear to be having a mouse plague in our district. Both kittens have already notched up several kills and show signs of being excellent ratters..