Spare milk

There is never really any such thing as spare milk. What we don't drink we make into cheese. Failing that it will go to fatten pigs or meat chickens. However, on days we do not save the milk for ourselves in the sterile bucket, there is always a little extra for the cats.

June update

It has been a very odd beginning to the winter this year. A month of mucky weather before finally turning on a week of beautiful skies and cold nights. Finally it is cold enough to have a fire at night and snuggle up under the doona. The rain, out of season, was hard as it mucked up my work schedule.
In a fit of desperation I tried to clear an old garden bed of a noxious vine (I always understood it to be called Brazilian Passion vine but a search has yielded no results). It is a rampantly growing vine that strongly resembles domestic passion fruit vines in every way except it bears no edible fruit. It is also a strong grower and will readily smother whole trees if left unchecked. The vine was well entangled in the undergrowth and had climbed up into the trees above. So in a fit of either brilliance, stupidity or possibly desperation I took a long length of one inch rope and tied it around the middle of the vine. My intention was to use the tractor to pull the vine free of the garden bed in one mass. I have done this successfully several times before on a smaller scale. Unfortunately the vine was well anchored at both ends. The tractor ended up snapping the rope several times and then gouged deep ruts into the orchard lawn.
This gave me the "Irrits" so I fetched my trusty chainsaw and cut away everything the vine was attached to. This meant felling every tree in the garden as well. I then cut it all up and burned it off as much as I could. The bigger stuff will need more time to dry yet so I will have a bonfire towards the end of winter.

It is a pity I don't have a before and after shot as the effect would be quite dramatic. I also intend to fell most of the trees in the foreground leaving a rather handsome Tibouchina. My wife was rather taken aback at the extent of my glorious victory over the rampant vine hordes. Apparently I was just supposed to be "neatening up the garden beds". Oh well.
On the plus side I think we have found a good site for my new potting shed.
 

Q&A #7 Don't you find using a gun contrary to your lifestyle?

OK, this is one of those questions that doesn't go away. I am frequently taken to task by the anti-gun brigade because I use a rifle on the farm. I am told guns are only for killing, guns make murderers, guns are evil, guns supply criminals and so on and so forth.
So let me make this clear. A gun is a tool. It is not evil or anything else, it is just a tool made of wood and steel. On its own a gun is completely inanimate and harmless. The weakness in a gun is the human using it. The exact same weakness is found in humans using both cars and knives- both of which cause far more deaths in Australia each year than guns! I have yet to hear of anyone joining an anti-knife or anti-car lobby however. It simply appears that the media and a few politicians find it convenient to villainize guns and gun owners in a country where the majority lives in an urban environment and has no use for such tools. Were the same sources to try to ban cars and knives they would be looked upon as idiots!

Having said that I firmly do not believe everyone should have the right to own a gun. There are most definitely individuals out there who should not be allowed to own a gun, or for that matter be permitted to breed! I am a firm advocate of licensing the individual and tracking ownership of all firearms. Why? For the same reason you need a car license! To prove you are a fit person to use this device.

Now on a farm a gun becomes an essential tool if you keep livestock. We live by a firm set of rules regarding the humane treatment of our animals and one of those is that the death of any livestock must be instant, unexpected and painless. The most reliable method to achieve this by far is to destroy the animals brain with a single well placed shot from a rifle. A rifle allows me to stand at a safe distance or shoot from an unseen angle and carries killing force over a long distance. I take great care to be an expert with my marksmanship and will never take the shot unless I am absolutely sure of its placement. Likewise I carefully follow all safety procedures with a firearm. If you do this you should never have reason for an accident.

1. A gun is always considered to be loaded and is treated as such. Whenever you pick up a firearm the muzzle is kept pointed in a safe direction and the weapon is opened to inspect the condition (to find out if there is a bullet in the chamber and if the magazine is loaded). You do this regardless of having just witnessed someone else do this in front of you. 
2. You must ALWAYS be aware of the direction the muzzle is pointed regardless of having just safety checked the weapon. This will eventually become a habit and this is a good thing.
3. You must be aware of the background before you shoot- where is the bullet going to go and how far will it travel.
4. You must ALWAYS positively identify your target before shooting. 
5. You must make safe (step#1) your gun when you have finished shooting and before it is cleaned and stored.
6. Your gun must be safely and legally stored in a locked container. In this country this means the container meets certain safe requirements and is firmly bolted to the building.

I have been a shooter all of my adult life. I know a gun for what it is, a tool. Likewise I know to use the correct tool for the job. For light game and livestock I use a .22 rifle. It fires a very small bullet and is a very versatile gun for small livestock such as sheep and the like. For larger livestock where I want to be sure of a definite kill even if I slightly miss the brain I would use a .44Magnum rifle. This fires a large lead slug that transfers enormous energy to the target so that even if the brain were missed by an inch or so, the resultant shock wave will still pulverize it instantly. This is exceptionally good for livestock that wants to move around a lot like pigs or should you need to put down an injured bullock in an emergency. I make it a habit to always check on the results of the shot when I slaughter an animal. I want to ensure a painless kill.

So there you have it folks. I use guns like I use any other tool.
To the young anti-gun-lobby-lady-from-the-city I can only ask you to show me your anti-car lobby and anti-knife lobby cards when next you visit. If you really are about saving lives and not just joining the media bandwagon you will of course belong to these groups too.

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..

Q&A #6 Why dont you keep goats?

I am often asked this question.
There is a popular misconception among the green fraternity that the Goat is the perfect animal for any smallholding. Well, they aren't.
Now before a million goat lovers write me heated letters please understand that many years ago I and my family lived on goat milk and chevon (goat meat) for several years. I have dealt with goats under any circumstance you can think of and my opinion is that if you like goats, you can have them! While goats can be absolutely lovable creatures at times they are also stubborn, devious and far, far too intelligent! In addition a goat is the single hardest animal in creation to fence in! The last time a frustrated gardener asked me how to keep her goats fenced out of her vegetable garden after their latest raid had leveled the place I suggested razor wire and machine gun sentries! Failing that put the goats in the freezer. You can either have orchards and veggie gardens- or goats but you will never keep the two successfully together.
Having said all that, my main reason for not keeping goats here is that this area is simply not suited for them. We receive far too much rain and goats hate getting wet, they are also very susceptible to parasites found in wet conditions and get foot-rot easily. Cattle remain unfazed by these obstacles and fare much better in this area. Now if I lived down on the dry lands I would consider goats indeed because a goat will thrive on absolutely rubbish land and produce just as much milk and meat as it would on green pastures. I have seen them do so when cattle were wasting away!
At the end of the day you must grow what is suitable for your area and accept that some things will just never thrive in some areas. Therefore we keep cattle and pigs, hardy breed chickens and meat pigeons. These are animals complimentary to our area, landscape and weather. 

Q&A #5 Please explain the "nutrient cycle" you mentioned?

The Nutrient cycle is really the core of our whole existence on this planet- and where humanity for the most part has come unstuck.
In essence it means that all nutrient (energy) remains in constant motion as each creature lives it uses nutrient and in its wastes and eventual death in turn provides nutrient to other creatures. On a small farm if we were to farm in a truly organic manner this would mean that we try to return as much of the nutrient we use as possible to the soil so that it in turn can be used to feed the farm as a whole. If we try to only import nutrient (in the form of stock feed and the like) and do not allow the end nutrient to leave the farm it follows that over time you will enrich the soil of the farm far beyond its original capacity. Of course this means that you are technically stealing nutrient from another source. This is the problem with industrial level farming where the soil is continually harvested for all it can provide and the nutrient is then shipped off to big cities where it is consumed and then flushed out to sea as sewage.
What a colossal waste!
Worst of all is that those industrial farms are then "fertilized" with chemicals made largely from petroleum and even then they are grudgingly given only as much as the next crop needs and no more. The soil is in no way improved or fed. The soil life dies and the soil is little more than a growing medium bare of life. Doubt me? Go dig a hole in a field on a large scale industrial farm and see how many worms and the like you find. Compare this to even a simple shovelful of soil from a good organic garden!
The point I am getting at is that you must feed the soil before you feed anything else on your farm! From your soil comes all other life on the farm. It is a living creature, like a coral reef, full of diverse life. Each contributes to the soil and enhances plant life. The plant life in turn feeds us as vegetables, our livestock as grass and makes compost to be returned to the soil. Trees reach deep down to the bedrock where they extract nutrient grasses cannot reach, they will then shed leaves and bark to create that wonderfully rich humus. Trees also attract wildlife which import nutrient in the form of droppings.
So on the perfect farm I would feed my soil. All my livestock would contribute through their manure- processed into a more readily usable fertilizer to feed the soil life. All household organic wastes are either fed to livestock or else directly composted. A variety of livestock is kept to provide a variety of manures each rich in their own elements. Cow manure is soft and easily makes good black soil, pig manure is rich in almost every area and chickens and pigeons manure is high in nitrogen and phosphorus. Best of all is human manure. The ultimate sin of humanity is to pump this, the best available nutrient of all, into the ocean out of pure squeamishness. It has long been proven that human wastes are easily processed and rendered harmless of any pathogens while also producing a valuable fuel gas, methane, at the same time! If I can (and I am still checking the council by-laws but it does look feasible) I will be emptying and spreading the contents of my septic tank onto a paddock left unstocked for three months. The sunlight and exposure to air will render it harmless in a short time and the results on the grass should be dynamic. Indeed, if possible I would like to be eventually buried on this farm, or perhaps mulched, to give some tree in the orchard a good head start.
On the perfect farm nothing should be wasted. All that you use should come from your farm and then returned to the soil when you are done with it. In time the soil will grow rich beyond anything you have ever seen and will abound with life. That is true farming and that is the Nutrient cycle.

April rains

The wet season has come late this year, again. Nevertheless we are continuing work about the place as we can.
The meat pigeons, which had been doing so well suffered a serious setback when a local python discovered a way into their shed at night. Suddenly there were no more squabs to be had and even the eggs began to disappear. So after some discussion we decided the best way to solve this problem was to cement the floor of the shed and seal up all of the ways in. I doubt even a mouse could get into the pigeon loft now without a ladder. The shed was always designed to have a cement floor for this reason, we just had to move that project ahead on the list to make sure we can keep a steady supply of meat coming. Nests began to appear all over the shed once the floor went in! I counted eight nesting mothers this morning and we should be eating squab again in four weeks or so.

Last week I went over to a mates place to bring our meat steer back for slaughter. Loading him proved surprisingly easy for once. On Tuesday the slaughter man came in (yes, we still have not constructed the gambrel and frame we need for a full sized beast) and did the kill and quarter. I then carried each quarter into the waiting cold room to age for a couple of weeks. The quarters were heavy indeed! Or perhaps I am just getting old. Either way the steer, Timmy, was three and a half years old and in prime condition. We enjoyed a breakfast of devilled kidneys the next morning.