Driving livestock.

About a year ago I had a conversation with a lady (name withheld for obvious reasons) about the treatment of livestock. Now while she and I agreed for the most part on the ethics of keeping animals we did have one sticking point. She would never make her animals do anything they did not want to do! If she wanted her cow to come into the milking stall she would lure it in with a bucket of feed. If the cow did not want to come in, it didn't and that was the end of that. She claimed this was OK and she wished to respect the animals rights.
I suggested that it would one day be necessary to drive the animal for its own good, such as so it could receive veterinary help. She replied that if the cow ever needed help it would come willingly.

Now here I must disagree with the lady in the strongest terms. Although it may sometimes be distasteful I firmly believe that any animal in your care must learn to be driven and yarded when you need it to be so. Otherwise you will have an unruly animal that cannot be penned, wormed, milked or given medical care unless it particularly feels like it. And I can assure you that if the animal is in pain, that it will not.

Unfortunately this is exactly what happened. In short her cow had a difficult birth and desperately needed veterinary attention afterwards. The cow panicked and would not come to the lady when she offered it a bucket of feed. When She and the Vet tried to drive the animal (for the first time in its life) it not surprisingly panicked and became utterly uncontrollable. The end was one dead cow, shot from a distance, and a motherless calf. All due to the naieve stupidity of the owner. Needless to say she took it very poorly when I suggested the whole incident was her fault.

If you have livestock it becomes your responsibility to ensure all their needs are met and this means that sometimes they must be forced into situations they don't like. Hooves must be trimmed, worming mix dosed and fly spray applied for the direct health of the animal. A cow in milk must be milked either by her calf or yourself otherwise she will suffer horribly. Calves must be weaned and all animals must learn to go where I direct them and this is for their own good health and well being.This is the inevitable tradeoff that comes with keeping any animal in confinement.
So what is cruel? The lady in question believes that my methods are cruel and I likewise believe the same about her method of animal husbandry. But the end result is that our livestock are all happy and healthy. They have no fear of being driven or touched and as a result can receive help when it is needed. She cannot say the same.

Five years old!

Well it has been five years since the youngest cloud farmer was born and it has been absolutely FANTASTIC! I love being a Dad and wouldn't change it for the world.
As he grows up, his birthdays become more important to him. Not, thankfully, because he expects a haul of presents (although with so many loving Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents and extended family he certainly gets more than his share..) but because he enjoys getting older and enjoying the responsibilities that come with it.
Lately he has become very big on gardening, he now has his own row of pot plants all given regular care regardless of whether said care is good for them or not. Mostly they survive. So when we were deciding on what to get him for his birthday the choice was easy.

And he absolutely loves them!

Seasons change

I look at my last entry and realize it was near a year ago. Ouch. Feeling guilty indeed. Therefore, realizing that there is probably no one following this blog anymore, I shall write for myself. Fair enough.

It has been a quiet year on the cloud farm. We have not made as much progress as I had hoped. Mostly this is due to a lack of finances. As we have covered the more inexpensive jobs we are now approaching the big ticket items and thus need money. Where possible we have done whatever preparation we can while we save for the materials needed.
Some projects we have covered though include finishing the first of the kitchen gardens so we can grow herbs and soft vegetables near the house. I have also completed the rock work for a fish pond for the youngest cloud farmer to keep some goldfish in. No doubt the goldfish will have to share the pond with the occasional plastic toy truck and irate cat as he attempts to broaden his knowledge of aquaculture.

The bees are doing really well. I managed to get my hands on some Genoese, an excellent strain of Golden Italian that I have wanted for a long time. These are an extremely quiet variety but still produce a very good amount of honey. So quiet you can almost do light work without smoke on the hive. This is something I would not have even dreamed of attempting on my previous varieties of Italian bees- good producers but stroppy indeed! From one small nucleus hive of four frames of brood and nurse bees the colony is now large enough to fill two large boxes (meaning a brood box and one super) to capacity and are working hard. I will leave them to it over winter and then split off another hive or two come spring.

We also now have meat pigeons. Once a staple part of the western diet, meat pigeons became unpopular after the great depression, viewed as a poor mans food, and so largely died out in most English speaking cultures. In some of the more enlightened countries -with no silly following of food fads, pigeon has remained a staple meat. It is cheap or free to produce, healthy and can be produced in a very small space. They are also very easy to prepare taking around five minutes to kill, pluck and draw ready for the pot.

At the moment we have six pairs although I might be picking up a few more pairs soon. The birds are currently incarcerated in their housing for three weeks until they get used to this being home. They can then be released to fly free range and will return to roost each night. Each pair will raise two squabs (young) each month or so when breeding. This should supply us with a regular addition to our diet throughout the year. The squabs are harvested at around four weeks when they are almost fully feathered but cannot quite fly yet.

The other important product from pigeon is their manure which is the highest nitrogen manure to be found. So rich that it must be well composted and broken down before you can put it on the garden. I intend to be adding this to my #1 lucky mineral mix that I brew for the garden.

and todays big job is

House stumps.


Our greatest Nemesis, the previous owner who thought he was a "handyman", has caused us a lot of work (not to mention a LOT of money). It seems that the more we look, the more we find. Shoddy cement, dangerous electrics, clueless panelling, over enthusiastic floor sanding, some very inventive plumbing and now fake house stumps.
Today I was grubbing about under the house replacing house stumps that had been bodged up to look like the real thing. I examined a bit of wobbly floor a few months back and had cause to crawl under the house. What should have been a simple bit of maintenance quickly turned into a fairly major repair. In some cases I found the bricks had been stacked in place to look like a real stump until I actually touched them and realised they were not actually supporting the house at all. So, much bad language, pouring new bell plugs and then a few weeks later placing the new stumps in and filling them with concrete.

 A lot of work indeed but I know it is now solid for the rest of my life- the ones I have so far replaced anyway. There are a couple of the old wooden stumps I don't like the look of and will replace sometime in the future.

Back

Back after an extended break.
I owe you all an apology and an explanation so here goes.
I could blame the wet season making it almost impossible to do anything that does not involve mud. I could say I was too busy with my money grubbing job. I could name any number of reasons for not posting recently but that would just be making excuses. In reality I have been in a rut, my work life has been very hard lately and in hindsight I realise I have been suffering from depression. My wife pointed it out and it suddenly became very clear.
To give some background- I work in a high security prison. I am a custodial correctional officer and for seven years now I have been working on the "coal face" in high security. It is hard to explain just how soul destroying this job can be, nor just how much this will change you as a person. As the saying goes, "I have seen shit you wouldn't believe".
I have seen hatred, violence, desperation and depravity on a scale I once did not believe could exist. I have seen blood, lots of blood. I have seen people do things to themselves and others because they simply don't care anymore, or perhaps never did, with a complete lack of empathy in any form. I have seen so much more. I have been attacked and injured, threatened and at times scared for my life.
Well eventually a job like this will get to you no matter how tough you think you are. It did and I slowly sank down into a deep depression because I simply did not know how to deal with it all.
It was my beautiful wife who brought me to my senses. She always does and please believe me when I say that I could not live without her in my life.
In any case I am feeling much better. I have *finally* managed to get some holiday time from work and I am thoroughly enjoying myself. Work by which I mean real work, on something important, (not just labouring to make someone else wealthy) is good for both the body and soul. My muscles hurt, my back is twinging and I have dirt under my nails. I couldn't be happier!

In other news

Finally, after many years, I am getting back into beekeeping. Once I was an enthusiastic beekeeper with over forty hives keeping me busy. I loved it. Bees are absolutely fascinating not to mention quite profitable. So here is the first completed brood box just needing the bees. I will hopefully be getting a nucleus hive soon.

 The wheelbarrow is beginning to show its age. I have pulled it in out of the weather and begun stripping it back. The wheel needs a new steel tyre which I shall make myself. The timbers are so swollen with water that I have clamped it into place so it stays straight and will leave it to dry for a week.

 The barrow body also needs a few new timbers in the front board. I have removed the broken sections and will also leave it all to dry out for a week. Then the missing parts will be replaced and the whole thing will get a good soaking coat of oil and the axle grease repacked. It should then be good for another ten years.

When I was making space for the boiler shed I cut back the nearby elder trees and threw the waste into the pigs yard. Today I noticed the cut sections happily sprouting in the rain. A very determined species of tree although I don't fancy its chances with the pigs.

 

 We have had a really good season with the bananas this year. The bunches are larger, fatter and richer than ever before. The local fruit birds are glutted and so there are plenty left for us. This is our third bunch in two weeks. I suspect most of it will go to fatten the pigs. I can only eat so many bananas...

 This is Jasmine. Sole cat since Sebastian came off second best with a large brown snake. Jasmine is a superb ratter and will usually nail two or more each night. Oddly enough she shows little interest in the local bird life. A good thing or she and I would be having words.

Weird and pretty

One thing I love about the wet weather is that it brings out many of the things you would not normally see. In the warm and wet many of the rainforest fungus will bloom overnight to be gone the next day. Others will grow like wood and last for years.

 These beautiful little mushrooms are about the size of the palm of your hand and a vivid golden colour. As they age the cap inverts like an umbrella in the wind.

This fungus is one of the weirdest I have come across in a while. It is tough and leathery and feels like skin to the touch. It is growing flat on the ground on a path by the water tanks. It gets trodden on every day but doesn't appear to mind. It is currently about 30 centimetres across and still growing.

These tiny fungus are about the size of your fingernail, cherry red and have a beautiful lipstick gloss. They came up only once a few years ago and I have never seen them since. Obviously we would not dream of ever eating any of these fungus- the odds of a horrific death are all too high. But they are certainly beautiful.

I also love the mossy growth we get where it is dark and wet. There is something about the soft green moss I find very appealing. in the dry season it shrivels up into a crumbly brown mat and appears to be thoroughly dead until it next gets wet and greens again.