i live on this farm, quietly, peacefully. i love my animals and i am happy and feel blessed to be living amongst family - queer, environmentally conscious, communal, harmonious.

anyone who has been reading this blog for a while will be aware that i do not own this farm, but that i reside here as a tenant, but love it as if it were my own, and care for the earth and the animals with respect and honor.

this farm is at the centre of an outrageous litigation claim, which impacts upon me on a daily basis. greed gone mad.

while i am personally not involved in the case (i am merely collateral damage), the claimant makes my life uncomfortable on many fronts.

this blog (as well as other personal websites and the public domain blogs and information of anyone who has stayed on the farm) is scrutinized and printed out as part of a surveillance campaign that doesn’t stop at the public domain, but involves surveillance of the farm with telephoto lens. i do not know what other surveillance is in place. it is the nature of surveillance to remain invisible.

i am writing this post to let you know that i will not be posting here until the litigation is over.

peace and love

Ms Vxx

 

It’s really damn hot. For winter, it’s hot. Too hot. Disturbingly hot. This morning I drove past a tabloid sheet that pronounced today the "hottest winter day ever". I felt every degree, arm out the window as i drove. Last time I ventured into the bigbackyard to blog I was in need of gumboots and wet weather gear (or was alternatively unclothed, often a better way to manage the ridiculous downpours). Today, by contrast, I set foot on dry land, gumboot-less and in need of sun protection. Where once there were small lakes and sodden fields the earth is dry, compacted, cracked, shrinking away from fence posts and pipes and from around the stems and roots of plants. I find myself wondering, with an edge of anxiety, when the next shower will come. My sister calls me and says she’s run out of water. I am shocked. She’s had an excess of water for about 2 years. I am suddenly conscious again of the capricious nature of the weather and that drought is only ever a few days away from the last shower. We’ve been living in a wet dream of too much water for so long now that the days of hauling water from the duck’s bath to nourish the plants is a dim memory. From the side door I can see the usually psychedelic greenness of the surrounding hills turning brown before my eyes. Smoke rises like a warning from spot fires along the horizon. Farmers are burning off, anticipating a scorching summer. The smoke creates a quality of light which engenders a sense of unease: yellowish, dense and strained through the threat of fires to come. I plan rescue strategies for the vegetable gardens and carry bucket after bucket of water to the newly planted and embattled palms in the driveway. Looking out into the big paddock, I worry about the lack of pasture for the cows, and the impact of their hooves on the dry earth. Only weeks ago the paddock was carpeted by an impossible lushness of fodder for my small herd. Today I see a carpet of yellow; fireweed; and a forest of those weeds that grow green parachutes full of beautiful but evil diaphanous seed-silk, carried on the hot early summer breezes. I don’t know the name for this weed. I see very little in the way of food for my cows, in particular little to nourish cows in calf. I worry about the cost of feeding the cows through the dry, about hauling bales of lucerne from Casino or Tatham to see them through.

Sage words from local farmers indicate a dry season that may last well into next year, no doubt punctuated by heavy weather phenomena, the kind of weather that rumbles and boils out of a clear blue sky at the end of a scathingly hot day. The kind of weather that splits trees in two and blows apart churches. The kind of weather that turns on you, spitting in fury. No, Dorothy, we are not in Kansas anymore but Heavy Weather is here to stay…

So, having created the weather for this entry, i sit sweating in the double edged loveliness of it, looking into the cavernous gap of time between my last foray into the bigbackyard and this, today’s expedition. Alot has happened.

I did just mention in passing, did i not, without really a pause for breath; "cows in calf"? Yes! I did! While there is no empirical evidence to support my belief, I am quite certain that Little Grrl (now the banner pinup cow for this site!) is in calf. I’m unsure about Rosie, but Little Grrl was looking decidedly rotund this afternoon when I went to feed her and while I have, as I say, no empirical evidence, I witnessed some interesting bullish happenings last time Little Grrl was on heat. Not the least of these things being that Charlie is now a capable bull, and tall enough to mount Little Grrl successfully. Which he was doing repeatedly the last time she was on heat. However, more interestingly, during the same estrus period a bull from the next door property managed to jump all fences and and spend the night with Little Grrl in the house paddock. That bulls can sense the estrus from quite some distance and another property away is quite amazing. They are quite capable of and will jump fences to get to a cow in heat. As i witnessed. I’d say it was a rowdy night, judging by the bellowing, and none of my cows slept much, but the bulls know when to take their leave, and in the morning, not a sign of big bull. This will be Little Grrl’s first calf, which also means that she will be a lactating heifer, and I will have 2 house cows to milk. I feel some trepidation about milking Little Grrl. She has horns and is not afraid to use them. Her udder has never been handled, and while she has been hand raised and is very domesticated, she’s feisty and frisky and will top a puny human every time, regardless of puny human cow-topping strategies… one should always respect a good set of horns. I expect I will have to build her a stanchion for milking purposes, and perhaps restrain her while milking so she doesn’t kick me. All this will be a new experience for me, as I’m so used to milking Rosie freestyle, she being the most accommodating of cows.

My small herd of four became three recently. Regular visitors to the backyard will have seen photos of Miss Pretty, the sweet calf I raised by hand from just days old. She was a rescue calf from Trevor’s Dairy where the Lad used to work. A pure Illawarra dairy calf, sweet natured, very docile and human-friendly. Miss Pretty died recently after swallowing something which caused a blockage in her oesophagus and subsequently created bloat. Bloat is a distressing ailment for an animal. The animal is unable to belch, swallow saliva (cows produce up to an amazing 100 litres of saliva a day) or chew their cud. The gasses in the rumen expand and can’t escape, creating pressure on the lungs and obstructing bloodflow. Death can occur very quickly from suffocation and other complications. In a cow, diagnosis is often difficult and death is often sudden. Decisions need to be made quickly. The veterinary approaches to dealing with such emergencies are primitive and harsh. Thus a knife between the ribs or a metal tube down the oesophagus are part of the arsenal of emergency veterinary treatments. But one does what one can to try and preserve the life of a healthy animal. I desperately wanted to save Miss Pretty. I wanted to watch her calve and milk her. In the end, following 4 very distressing visits from the vet all through the day and night, I chose to euthanize Miss Pretty to end her suffering. The treatments were punishing. I couldn’t watch anymore. Miss Pretty was euthanized and buried down in the old pig pen, near May the goat and Charlie the rescue calf. I wasn’t alone in digging her grave and tossing the red soil on her red red coat. There were 5 of us quietly digging her grave, sweating alot and passing small comments. I am blessed to be living as part of a community that honors the processes of life and death as part of a sustainable system rather than just eating it, vacuum packed, from the supermarket.

 

Of course where there is death there is also an abundance of life. From where I sit, I can turn my head left and see out the side door down the garden path, towards the vegetable gardens and the hills beyond. The house gardens are still green, and the vegetable beds are full of bolting brassicas, rushing toward seed in the unseasonal heat. I have been eating fresh broccoli for nights and nights now, snapped from the stalk and steamed, with only cracked pepper as an accessory. Perhaps a squeeze of lemon. Maybe the smallest dob of butter. One doesn’t want to overdress fresh broccoli. The chinese cabbages are sprouting unruly heads of yellow flowers, securing their place in next season’s garden. Cauliflowers are nearing their denouement, packed tightly in their parcel of outer leaves, perfectly formed, having outrun the appetites of the green caterpillars. Baby greens are thriving and there is an abundance of last season’s straggler leeks, spring onions, brown onions, kaffir lime leaves, curry leaves, lemongrass, limes, lemons, galangal and mint for the creation of sublime evening meals.

citrus mania - taken by esther, farmfriend and marmalade queen

This abundance is due in large part to the time and energy of my farm family and to the neverending stream of urban retreaters, wwoofers and devoted friends who are so generous with their time and skills. After a despondent season or two, the gardens have now been beautifully overhauled and feel manageable, viable and are beginning a cycle of newfound productivity, I do believe.

Continuing the theme of abundance, I found yesterday a goose egg in the small goose house under the mulberry tree (which, incidentally, is ripening its berries at a rapid rate and subsequently i have stained lips and fingers most of the time…). This egg was the first goose egg i think i have ever seen. The appearance of the egg makes one thing clear: one of the geese is female, and since, apparently, it is rare for geese to lay unfertilised eggs, I would say I have a mating pair! I haven’t yet seen any mating activities between the birds, and believe me i keep a close eye on such things, but goslings would be a fine thing. The egg is sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, while i ponder what to do with it. Apparently if the egg is eaten on the day it is laid it is referred to as a Golden Egg. This is now a second day egg. I haven’t come across any references to second day egg naming. The shell of the egg is very white and somewhat matte and chalky. it sits next to a much smaller duck egg, with it’s waxy, smooth and slightly blueish shell, and a tiny smooth brown shelled chicken’s egg.

 

eggs: goose, duck, chicken

I think I will have a goosey scramble for dinner. 

Sending you all golden eggs and an abundance of all that is good. Let’s catch up again soon.

Ms V x

Heavy Weather: Taken From the title of a novel by cyberpunk writer Bruce Sterling. The sf thriller is set in a near-future world suffering from "heavy weather" - tornadoes and other phenomena caused by the runaway greenhouse effect. Last year a tornado hit Dunoon. My friend’s response to my frantic texting, knowing my penchant for drama, was "… yes, Dorothy … were’s Toto?". We don’t have tornados in Australia, do we?

i seem to have lost track of times and seasons. there was once apparently some order to these things. wet seasons, dry seasons. i recall a year hence we were rained in for months from december through to february at least. heaps of us. going crazy but laughing alot. this year over the period where many many gorgeous queers visited the farm we had such fine beautiful weather, sunny, and the rain came just as it was needed. the storms, when they visited, were spectacular, but it wasn’t like the season of heavy weather a year prior, which was drenching, unstoppable, flooding, cabin-fevered…

however, today and yesterday and for a few days, in an unseasonable turn (or is it? i don’t know anymore…) the heavens have opened and i can barely leave the property as there is a rather large lake in the driveway. i put on my running shoes and jog out of the property, down the potholed asphalt that passes for roads round these parts, running through the overflows from stormwater drains, dodging fallen branches, listening to the rushing floodwaters running off into dams and flooded fields. sweating in the rain. taking off my shirt as i run so i can feel the rain on my skin. inside, in a farmhouse, cabin fevered, in a rural locale named dorroughby, i feel like the world isn’t possible, but running along these back tracks and past farms and wet cows and everything dripping and green, the world seems possible.

it’s raining in the jungle

one soggy chook on the verandah… they hate the rain. the rest came to join her…

 

exuberant fungal growth

…even milking in the rain feels possible. i milk in a very freestyle way. i just make up a feed for rosie, put it in front of her and milk freestyle, bucket on the grass. i wash her teats first with warm and soapy water and always lubricate her teats with something natural. so she eats and i milk, and if she finishes eating before i finish milking, she wanders off, and i just follow her with the bucket. she usually finds a patch of grass to much on and just stands quietly until i finish. she’s pretty awesome like that. but given that i don’t have shelter milking in the rain is always a challenge. Water drips off her fur and into the bucket. I’m slopping around in the mud and puddles. if she flicks her wet tail whatever she’s carrying around in it might fly into the milk. a muddy hoof in the bucket also makes for a nice milkshake. any one of these things means that the chooks and ducks get the milk, not us… but if the cosmos is aligned correctly and all my wetness avoidance strategies are in place, then i can manage enough for the day. today i managed enough for the day, despite the cosmos feeling very very wrong…

the farm herd is smaller, more compact in keeping with the transitions that have happened here which i have been logging irregularly. my beloved farm family (The Likely Dairy Lad and Farmboy Deb) have departed to follow their personal journeys in the city and the dogs are chasing different rabbits in new parks. they are much missed. there are new farmhousekids (Jarrod and Janet) and new geese (Portis and Lamb). the bovine herd is reduced to 4. this is what I can manage at the moment. Rosie has 2 foster calves. Pretty, who will stay with us and become a housecow like her mum. see many pictures of Miss Pretty in earlier posts. rosie is also fostering Charlie, who came from the dairy. he’s a stocky, bullish bull, already has his horns and is a lovely santa illawarra cross, dark caramel. he will not live with us forever. Little Girl makes 4.

terrible picture of the geese Portis and Lamb. i can’t get close to them yet, they are still pretty wary…

the geese are to keep the orchard free of weeds and keep the grass down. i am in the process of making that more viable. they don’t like long grass (check that growth!) and it can be dangerous for them to feed on long tough grasses. Our mechanised tools of grass maintenance are currently out of order (they get worked hard) so there’s been alot of hand weeding and slashing going on… oh… we do not know if they are a mating pair or not… genderfluid geese… friend mez suggests that a female has an "egg waddle" going on, like a lower belly and a waddle to accommodate, and that she is smaller than the male. i would hazard that lamb, on the right is a goose, and that portis is a gander. really wouldn’t have a clue though. any goose experts out there?

i spoke about artificial insemination in earlier posts in passing, and the time has come to bring it on. so far it’s been rough and ready and entirely unsuccessful. if you have time and powers of observation and the ability to interpret what you are seeing, then you can know when a cow is on heat, and receptive to insemination. this tells you all about it…

"Standing estrus, or "heat," is the most reliable indication that a cow is going to ovulate and release an ovum… Estrous behavior is used to determine when a cow should be inseminated. A brief window of opportunity exists for fertilization of the ovum and pregnancy of the cow to occur… Ovulation usually occurs approximately 28 to 32 hours after the onset of estrus in dairy cows (Trimberger 1948; Walker et al. 1996). After ovulation, there is only a short period when ova can be fertilized (fig. 1). Optimal fertility of ova is projected to be between 6 and 12 hours after ovulation (Brackett et al. 1980)."
from here>http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_b/B-117.html

standing estrus is when the cow stands still when mounted by another cow, rather than moving away. if she stands still, and is observed to do so a number of times, then one can assume she is on heat. easy! easy to misinterpret, hard to calculate.

you can also get these strips, like scratchies, which glow flourescent green when the cow comes on heat. theory being that one cow stands still, another mounts her, rubbing off the silver and revealing the flouro green. rosie’s tail happened to switch away at flies just about where we applied the strip, gradually rubbing away all the silver. useless. one can also needle the cow to bring her onto heat. takes up to 10 days for that to work. the needling and the strip should work together. no such luck. disaster.

then you have Dwight Wyatt, local AI guy. professional imseminator. i have his number, and i plan to use it.

both Rosie and Little Girl are ready to be inseminated, but as there is a dry period when cows are in calf, they will need to be inseminated about 3 months apart, so that we are not left short of milk for any period. this process will take about a year all up i guess. this will be Little Girl’s first calf. i’m a little trepidatious about milking her. she has her horns still and loves to fling her head about. i haven’t dome any kind of proparation with Little Girl around milking. they should have their teats handled early on so they get used the the feeling. she’s just wild. there’ll be no freesyle milking of Little Girl…

it’s 2.36am. i have to sign off. there is rosie to be milked, there are roads to be run, and then a weeding date at 9!

i always promise to be back soon. 

i promise to be back soon.

goodnight, farm freaks. all the love in the world. Ms. V x

… to take care of before returning to normal programing…

I’m looking for a farmhousemate. I figured this would be as good a place as any to post my needs in that regard…

I’m looking for a farmhousemate

Timeframe: April - earlier timeframe negotiable

NOTE: I AM REALLY HAPPY TO CONSIDER SHORT TERM FARMSTAYS/URBAN RETREATERS/TRAVELERS FOR PERIODS OF ONE MONTH OR MORE, BEGINNING IN APRIL. ALL DETAILS THE SAME WHETHER SHORT TERM OR LONG TERM. CONTACT ME FOR DETAILS…

If you or someone you know is seeking a treechange on a small farm with multiple dwellings, in an eco friendly, sustainable environment with self sufficient leanings who is ok with a non-vego but veg-friendly space and is queer, not a big drinker, drug taker or pothead, let me know or send them my way…

needs to be:
. queer/queer friendly
. familiar with living in a communal way
. not just looking for a roof over a head
. knows the 101 on self sufficiency and sustainability
. good with animals
. cool about a non-veg but veg-friendly environment (also the aspects of non-veg that are part of self sufficiency)
. domestically trained (i cannot abide a messy living space)
. wants to share cooking/eating/cleaning/food shopping
. ok with random people coming and going all the time
. ok with occasional big events happening in the living environment (i.e. camp camp)
. would find gardening, animal care, farm projects a joy to be involved with
. not necessarily drug or alcohol or smoke free but definitely recreational NOT habitual
. reliable

The rent is $150/week ex-bills
utilities include:
gas
electricity
phoneline
broadband
water

Beautiful environment. Tropical gardens, outdoor bathrooms (and an indoor one), chooks, ducks, cows, fresh milk and eggs, vege gardens, nice people (artists, writers, masseur, yogis and so on)

if you contact me i can tell you more

virginia@bucketmedia.net
 

 

Blogging is a strange art. To publish or not to publish? Who will be reading this and should i care? Who’d have thought that blogging about calves and gardens would create such dilemmas. And yet… here I am… having not blogged in an age, worrying about this and that. I love this form, this opportunity to tell stories, to draw people into my world. i love the respite from the intensity of other forms of writing i indulge in (i use the word "indulge" after some deliberation..). The purity of reportage, the simplicity of just making a chronicle of the days. I know it brings people joy, and is useful. To tell people how to make butter, or to kill a duck, or to make a trellis out of bamboo and string - these are things that people want to know about, and maybe they find answers here, as i do in other people’s blogs, when i google "stiff back legs calf" or some such thing!

But here I am, struggling with, not writer’s block, but with feeling unable to write here about things which are integral to the farm and its wholeness. Much has happened and that happening, and being unable to write about that happening, has created an erasure, a period of non-reportage, a forgotten moment in the backyard.

 Simply put. Calves have come and gone. Milk has been off and on and off. Rosie grieved mournfully over the loss of Rabbit, who we sold. It’s a terrible sound, and tuned into some sad frequency in my own heart and mind and the resonation was often too much, so that we left the house alot to escape her grief. Little Joe, the rescue calf died. We had to take his breath in the end, he was so weak and would not recover. Gardens struggle and chickens hatch. Many people came and went over Christmas and New Year. We had 45 people camping here and there were performances on the back verandah, so much love, and so much fascination.

The Likely Dairylad has gone back to the city. Today I am in the farmhouse alone, and it’s very big and empty and quiet.

i wrote this in the early hours, when i couldn’t sleep in the bigness of the house

 

oh! the day!

wraiths hang in the sky
like sad rags

the cows are silent, listening

i live on light,
barely snack on sleep

the day wraps around the farmhouse
like a christo

- my island home -

the sea is green
and i cannot walk on water

there is far too much air in here
for me to breathe alone

………………………….

This in an unusual kind of post for this blog. I am just stepping back out into the yard, blinking in the sun and acknowledging change. I will try to fill in the holes as the dust settles. The chronicle of the days will return to normal programming. I have missed the bigbackyard.

Love love and love

Ms. V

It seems that Heavy Weather is back with a vengeance… Brisbane has been trashed by freak storms for days on end. We’ve had ceaseless rain for 2 weeks, now punctuated by blazing days with a hint of the storm to come rumbling on the horizon. Yesterday, after a very very hot day, the Dairylad and I sat on the back verandah and watched the clouds build and boil and race across the sky, eventually hitting us with great sound and fury - every kind of lightning, winds,  and bucketing rain. Two little calves sheltered on the verandah, soaked, despite the warm protected home we made for them. The rain was driving in horizontally and overflowing from the gutters, straight on to the little ones. I expect this weather pattern to continue, much as it did at the end of last year, leading up to the floods of new year.

I mentioned calves (do I ever *not* mention calves in this blog?) … Yes, we have calves. You saw Pretty (since that’s what we’ve called her in lieu of a name since she arrived here, it has become her name!) in the last post. She’s still tiny and delicate and sweet natured. She’s been a little sick, but is getting stronger every day. She has a companion now, a little bull calf called Joe. There is a story to Joe. He was rescued during a day of freakish storms…

I answered the phone the other day to one of our very neighbourly neighbours, Heidi. She told me that she had just been visiting some friends down the road, when a farmer called by to say that the mother of one of his calves had died, and he didn’t think he’d be able to rear the calf. Heidi, knowing that we are the local calf nursery, told the farmer that we might be willing to take the calf. I asked how old and what breed and so on, and apparently the bull was only 2 days old, and his mother had died while calving. So I’m guessing this means that he didn’t get the very first all-important drink from his mum. (the colostrum she produces post calving passes on her immunity to the calf, protecting the calf from all sorts of disease. There is a window period of 6 hours when the calf is receptive to this.) Anyway, it turns out the calf is a pure bred and registered Limousin bull (nice beef breed - Sunny’s sire out of Tippi was a Limousin). For us to buy a pure Limousin calf would cost us round $150. Bulls run to the thousands. So our good turn for the farmer was really a great bonus for us. We collected him in treacherous weather… I am sure the calf would have died had he stayed in the rain, and without a mum and no milk… he came home in the car with us, and was bedded down on the verandah with Miss Pretty. He’s a quiet calf, reluctant to drink, and very… slow… he moves very slowly. We’ll be happy the day he does a little high kick and highland fling, in the way that calves do. It’s such an expression of good health and happiness on their part. Not sure why he’s so… lacklustre, but possibly he’s still recovering from a traumatic birth and also, maybe he didn’t get his first drink. Anyway, we are deciding whether we should/could to keep him as our herd bull… He would produce beautiful calves with Frenchy - Charloais/LimousinX, and also with our other cows. Obviously he’s not going to be up to the job for another 2 years, but it’s about building something slowly, this cow business…

Currently we are in the position of having to artificially inseminate our cows, since we don’t have a bull. And milkers need to be impregnated in order to produce milk. As long as they have a calf on them they will continue to produce milk, though I’m no sure how long the cow produces milk for in quantities that are useful after calving. Little Girl is about ready to be impregnated for the first time, and Rosie will probably be ready in a few months also, though we need to stagger the impregnation, since the cows are dried off a few months before calving, so we want to organise it so that we aren’t without milk during that period. Frenchy can be impregnated at any time from now on, really.

So to have our own herd bull would be fantastic. We just have to see how he holds up I guess, and whether our small holding is suitable for keeping a bull. And maybe check on a few things like what size calves he’s likely to produce, and will any of our cows have trouble calving. His mum died because she prolapsed. It’s a bit graphic, but he’s a huge calf, and i’m not surprised his mum’s insides fell out while calving. I don’t want that to happen to any of our cows.

Apart from calves, there are gardens. I’ve had quite a productive time, and have had much welcome assistance from city dwellers coming for a farmstay. Erica and Coonan and Katy spent about a week in total here, and when it wasn’t raining, spent time in the gardens with me, mowing and reorganising the garden beds so that they are more manageable for me, and less available to rabbits. So things are getting crossed off my mammoth list. I’m happiest when writing lists and crossing things off said list.

So now I have one huge garden bed whittled down to a raised bed of reasonable size. The rest of the mammoth garden bed will return from whence it came - to lawn… The raised bed is still a work in progress, but looking good. Around this I will place pots up on decorative stumps and grow herbs and green leafy vegetables in them. Just down the hill a tad from this raised bed is the bed which was the winter bed of onions and leeks, which we have been eating for a long time now. Plenty of leeks still to eat out of that bed! This one I will fence with rabbit wire and star pickets. It will get any the runoff from the raised bed, which will be very beneficial for it. There are 2 more beds. One, neglected for the longest time, I mulched just this morning. It self seeds a variety of greens such as tatsoi, baby spinach, chard, rocket and parsley. Oh and bulbing fennel. I just gave it some love and attention, and I’m sure it will become a productive part of the system again soon! The second bed is full of weeds and seeding parsley. The bed is fully in te shade, since it contains a lime tree, a large rosemary shrub and a huge cycad. Anyway, I’m going to mulch it and see where to go from there. Some herbs seem happy in there, growing in amongst the trees and other plants.

The other thing which is about to happen is that we are installing a "hidden fence", a dog containment area which means that, come Saturday, our chooks and ducks will be free to range again, without fear of massacre. This will make me very happy. The ducks can go home, the chooks can live in a duck free environment and maybe maybe i will even get some geese for the orchard!

Seems that systems are being restored, and if my environment is functional, then perhaps i will be more so!

Now, I have photos, of course! Of Miss Pretty thinking I am her mum, and of a sleeping Joe. Gorgeous.

joe sleeping, which is all he ever seems to do, on the first sunny day after 2 weeks of rain

joe’s eyelashes

miss pretty

i am her mother… !

more gorgeousness

a succesful escape attempt by 2 small dogs… just go out through the glass!

pretty lyra - farmstay dog (belongs to erica, urban escapee and gardening buddy)

my lovely Likely Dairylad and 2 lovable terrors

That’s all for today… I shall post photos of the garden progress next time.

Backyard love,

from your Ms Everything, Vxx 

Writing this blog has been one of the most pleasurable things I have embarked upon in recent times. This began as a way to chronicle the life and times of… and also as a challenge to myself, usually a writer of obscure poetic melodrama, a challenge to write in a style that was not disclosive, and yet was warm and personal. To tackle a kind of reportage. To write about our day to dayness in an engaging way. To *do* narrative, of a fashion. To let people into our world. To take them on a holiday, maybe. To document learnings, and hopefully make them as fascinating to others as they are to us. To infuse words with a personal politics that reflected the basics of self sufficiency and sustainability. To keep it queer, in a country-assed kind of way! Since the Likely Dairylad writes less and milks more, or something like that, I have come to think of this farmer’s-almanac-of-a-kind as my own, though i probably don’t feed it as often as i should.

There’s always a line to be drawn. There are things I don’t write about here. And yet, boundaries bleed and sometimes what’s happening on the farm is more about the human inhabitants than about the bovines. We have struggles, living as we do, and i made reference to some of those struggles in the last post, and flagged some internal observations and conflicts.

…

short intermission for milking and to re-bury a decomposing duck for the umpteenth time… this time i have built a veritable cairn on top of it, perhaps it will be allowed to decompose with grace now, instead of being unceremoniously dragged around the lawn, eviscerated…

…

So where was i? Ah yes, I thought I would write today about some changes on the farm which I guess are just as much part of our day to dayness as the birth or death of a calf or our dairy adventures or why the hell is the hen’s comb flopping like that or any one of a multitude of happenings that bless or assault us on a daily basis.

The Likely Dairylad, my amazing and enthusiastic partner in this rural adventure, will return to the city in the near - middle distant future. I will remain on the farm, and we will continue to share the lives of our animals and some farm projects. There are things that LD needs to do and experience in the city, including live life fully and alone. Tackle the mundane day to dayness without support. Make new friends, open up the social spectrum somewhat. I’ve done alot of that. LD has not, well, not with her eyes wide open and the fear and excitement of a brand new day in her heart. I’ve no doubt she will miss this life terribly. It’s a living dream, it’s incomparable, it’s beautiful but when you live the dream, rather than dream the dream, it comes complete with the same struggles and sacrifices that urban dwellers face. Rent, taxes, death, politics, injustice and so on.

[edit :: i do feel heartsick over the leaving, however matter of fact I sound]

Things here will change little. I have embarked upon a list of mammoth proportions. I mentioned in the last post that i was feeling somewhat overwhelmed and disillusioned, that there were some systems failing and this was making my experience of living here a bit of a struggle. This feeling has lifted a little, especially since I’ve just been visited by the dream team! Michael, who owns the farm, and Matty, who did alot of the landscaping here. It was lovely to have them visit. Michael now wears a suit every day and lives in inner urban Melbourne, which seems incongruent with the Michael I know, doing hard labor in the garden, creating gorgeous life from the bones of an old dairy farm. So they spent a whirlwind few days here, pruning, replanting, taking care of alot of the stuff I just couldn’t manage to maintain alone. It’s given me a good kick start. We talked alot about how to rethink the systems so they are manageable.

The next project is to rationalise the garden beds, let some of the large vegetable garden area go back to lawn and create a couple of nice raised beds in order to keep rabbits at bay. Much of the work of making the systems functional again really hinges on getting the dog containment area in place, so that the ducks and chooks can free range again.The pastures suffer when this doesn’t happen (the chooks scratch around the cow shit for grain, spreading it widely, breaking it down quickly). The chooks become depressed and squabble in a smal area no matter that they free range in a fantastic run. The depleted duck flock, orpingtons and muscovies are living in with the chooks, since this seems to be the only dog-proof area. They might all be poultry but they shouldn’t live together. Even the different duck breeds don’t get along so well. I really want to put muscovies and geese in the orchard, and the orpingtons by the vege garde in their former home, so i can use their water for the vegetables.

The farm should not be run by the dogs, the dogs should be contained and the animals should be free. Right now, the other animals suffer because the dogs are prey driven. Hopefully it shouldn’t be too long before I can have the hidden fence installed, and the dogs can have a huge area to play in, without causing harm to the other living creatures.

So yes, challenges abound. I will prevail!

On another couple of notes… I think today a new dairy heifer is arriving on the farm, a little girl to grow into another housecow. 3 housecows! Wow… I’ll take a picture and edit it into this post later today. She will be my baby, so naming rights fall to me… ahhhh.. i might be all out…

…and here she is … she’s so dainty, such a long legged high stepper! red and white like her mamma. I can only think of names like daisy and bluebell and buttercup and lovely and beautiful when i look at these sweet things… suggestions welcome!

prettiest little thing - another housecow… looks like we are in cheese!

Camp Camp is happening again this New Year. I’ve put together an info kit, made mailouts, but thought i might link to earlier Camp Camp posts , and another , AND another… AND ANOTHER… and post the info kit for those who are interested. Perhaps I’ll make a dedicated Camp Camp website also…

NOW…how to post a pdf here…

OK, so I’ve made a new website for Camp Camp… pretty generic but has high quality maps and so on, and everything you need to know you will find there…

Camp Camp page

OK… that’s it for now… gotta get on with the day. It’s gorgeous here today, blinding emerald leaves and grass in the spring sunlight.

Love to you, backyarders. Vx 

I’ve been feeling somewhat out of sorts, a little estranged from the sustainable living aspirations and ethics that underpin this whole life project. A little unproductive and certainly overwhelmed by the amount there is to be done, and perhaps a little immobilised by that. The Dairylad works as hard as any man i know, including my father, often 13 hours a day, taking on tasks which would have seemed unimaginable even 6 months ago. I struggle with and embrace the role which falls to me, or which i have constructed for myself, farmhousewife. I am put in mind of my mother, and understand the dynamic of partnership between her and my dad. Of course I have no children (mum had 5 under the age of 6) and have only hobby acreage as opposed to tens of thousands of acres (mum was responsible for the house gardens and provided for the whole family from those gardens. Amazing). I guess my mum must have suffered from a sense of social isolation that i cannot even imagine. 50 km along a rutted dirt road to the nearest town. Not large regional centre. Country town. Still, despite the differences in scale i find myself in a roleplay of farmer and farmer’s wife which is very traditional, very 1950’s, a construction, a performance, and yet not. A partnership which is necessary in order that the life we live is functional and possible.

So, I find myself, as I said, somewhat immobilised. There are systems which i am unhappy with, machinery which fails, the struggle i have with time, a concern around pasture and management of the pastures, fences to be fixed, weeds, weeds, weeds, a dog with a high prey drive, a failed winter season in the vegie patch and a need to make the spring/summer season productive, fences to be built around the house gardens to keep out the rabbits, the orchard to be reclaimed from weeds and neglect, domestic duty to be undertaken. There is social isolation and loneliness. And always always no money.

I’m kind of down too, because a duck was killed last night. We really need to install a dog containment system. The people who moved in next door and run horses own the business which created and installs the system we want to use! Perhaps we’d get a neighbour discount, but we’re still looking at $1,000 we do not have. Yes, I feel upset about the duck today, which is a contributing factor to this slump. Life and death on the farm I can manage, but that kind of death I am struggling with today.

In addition to this I also really need to maintain my own personal internal systems for strength of body and mind. Yoga keeps me on an even keel (over 20 years of practice, a few of teaching) and requires a dedication which is hard to find sometimes. A productive creative energy needs to be nurtured and fed also, through writing, or making films or image making, or web production. I cannot be fulfilled without this.

Despite all this, I look forward to the day when I get it right, because, as i have said before, this life is a blessing, and i love every blade of grass and the sweetness that is our small herd, and the challenges of making all this work to our advantage, and living a life of grace and beauty.

So today, some glitches aside, I managed to find some clarity through yoga and remembered beauty. I just showered outdoors, for one of the few times this season, and marveled at the greenness and at the glittering sun making gems of the droplets which sat on my skin and on the broad green leaves surrounding the shower.

About a kilometer or so down the road from home is one of the gorgeous natural wonders of our backyard. Whian Whian falls is a waterway, falls and string of swimming holes that cascades down a rocky creekbed and through bits of rainforest and eucalypt. It’s rarely dry, and sometimes is wild with the spray making mist and eddies and small whirlpools whirling in the fast rushing water. It’s a gorgeous spot to cool off in the summer, and clean up after sweaty gardening and anima wrangling. The other day we took the dogs down there, who are not exactly water babies, but are athletic and agile ad loved springing from rock to rock. I lay in the icy water, in miniature spa baths, and swam without kicking across quiet pools. It transforms at a cellular level. Resolve to do this more frequently. I took some photos on my phone. once again, excuse the quality!

Jimmy Jack, wearing geeky harness, looking worried

gorgeous little reedy marshy rockpool ecosystem

rushing water, over shiny rocks, into little spa baths

under the rainforest canopy

The cows are always a delight, and we clearly adore them, given the amount of screen space dedicated to them… We have a new calf, named Rabbit, and he’s gorgeous, with satellite ears and lots of high kicks. His arrival means that our milking situation has altered somewhat, since Rosie is now mum to Rabbit as well as Willy. The fostering business can be tricky, if the mum doesn’t take to the little calf. If this is the case the fostered calf will get nothing to eat, and little calves really need their milk. It sets them up for life, literally. Rosie is placid and happy as a rule, but certainly exercises her top cow status over the littler heifers when she needs to… she didn’t take to rabbit at first, there was a bit of butting and pile driving happening, but she really was ok as long as her biological calf, Willy, was getting his fair share of the milk… so we could sneak Rabbit in round the back (where he often copped a golden shower or a big cow pat harido) and he’d get a belly full. Now, though, I guess she figured Rabbit’s not going anywhere and she has totally adopted him and grooms him all over till he is just one big mess of cowlicks. It’s seriously gorgeous! Monitoring the milk intake of the calves and managing them is very different to when there’s just one calf. Too much milk and they’ll get scours (I think we covered scours extensively in earlier blogposts… it’s like calf diarrhoea) not enough and they’ll go hungry. We keep them apart from Rosie day and night, and they come together for feeding and grooming/bonding time in the morning and in the evening. Rosie needs to rest and make more milk overnight, and having 2 calves on her all day is very draining, though she does pine for them when they are apart. I take about 2-3 litres of milk on the morning and the calves still have plenty to drink after that. It is my way of regulating how much they drink. Willy has mild scours at the moment, but he’s such a guzzler that he takes the lion’s share of whatever is left. It is generally agreed that when a calf is scouring you should take them off milk and allow them access to elecrolytes in water. We prefer to keep minimum milk up to them, as well as the electrolytes. They need sustenance. So I don’t have the total excess of milk i used to have, for cheese and butter and yoghurt, but i have enough for our on needs and the needs of a few others. The few others covers some cow feed, which is great.

 Here’s a couple of pictures of rabbit:

satellite ears

gorgeous and shiny

I was chatting the other day with a neighbour about making yoghurt, comparing methods and so on, and we decided it might be a useful thing to run a Housecow and Dairy workshop, 101 style, teaching people how to milk, showing them about feed, teaching them about making butter and yoghurt, just really basic stuff. Even realy simple stuff about recognising common diseases, how to deal with things like scours and how to teach a calf to suckle, to bottle or bucket feed. I like the idea, especially since the Dairylad can throw in a few interesting bits and pieces learned in the industry. I’m really keen on the idea. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m done for today. Oh, but I wantd to mention that the end of the year will bring Camp Camp II - the Reprise. There are some earlier posts about last year’s floodfest and farm hijinks. We look forward to it immensely.

OK, friends and strangers, farmhousewife has duties which cannot be ignored. I’ll return, hopefully with my groove back, really soon.

Love, green grass and waterfalls to you all

Vxx

I’ve been meaning to write an update about our herd and general goings-on in farmland, and today seems appropriate, given that our herd lost one more member today. We’ve said goodbye to Tippi, Sunny and Hinimoa, and today we said goodbye to Luka, sadly.

i’ve been inside for most of the time over the last couple of days. Winter has made a surprise re entry onto the weather scene, and i’ve been attempting to keep warm. I’ve also had a couple of little projects on the boil, both of which necessitate hours at the screen, so perhaps i haven’t been as tuned into the daily events in our animals lives as i normally would be.

This morning seemed normal, little friends Luka and Willy in the home paddock, Willy waiting for his feed from mum, post-milking… Luka always nearby. Luka has always been a strange little calf, not readily accepted by the herd, and has required special feeding attention just in order that she gets food in her belly and isn’t steamrollered by the bigger cows. None of the cows seemed to take on the role of grooming or mothering her, as you see them so often doing to each other, so she was a bit of an outcast.

We bought Luka at a farm outside of Mullumbimby some 8 months ago I guess. She was sold as a Murray Grey Galloway cross, i’m not sure how old at the time. Since that day she has barely grown! Willy is bigger than her! Willy was born but a moment ago. We long ago came to the conclusion that she was a miniature breed, and, while we have a philosophy of each herd cow having a purpose, she was really just our pet, given her delicate constitution and sweet nature. Kids loved her.

Shes been quite sickly pretty much all her life until recently, when she seemed to have become much more lively and active, getting leaner and (marginally) taller. We’ve pulled her through many situations which seemed life threatening, none of which we have been able to diagnose. It’s notoriously difficult to diagnose disease in cattle as many of the symptoms are the same - stiff back legs, awkward gait, bloated belly, and often they will go down, either part way or completely prone. They can die quite quickly, but if you catch them in time you can often turn them around as quickly as they wen down. Epsom salts mixed with apple cider vinegar is a bit of a cure-all, and it has worked for Luka on more than one occasion. If they go down and are completely prone, legs out stiff, for too long, then breathing becomes labored and they can’t get themselves up. They will probably die if they don’t get assistance. You can roll them over if they are completely prone and prop them so they can breathe properly and administer some kind of treatment. Their systems can’t work properly is they are completely prone, so they can’t chew cud, ruminate, belch and so on, and that is vital to a cow. In most cases I know what’s going on, I’m quite attuned to where the animals are and if one has been missing for some time. Not today, sadly.

I went out to feed the animals and put out the bucket which Willy and Luka share, but only Willy was to be found. Luka loves her food so this was unusual. Bek, our farm family cottage grrl was with me, helping out, and she thought there was a big rock just the other side of the fence. The side of the fence that is’t our side of the fence. I knew it was Luka, and I knew she was dead. I ran down, and she was still warm. We sat with her for a while and stroked her (she had such beautifully soft fur) and I thought that if I had just been a little more attuned I’d have been able to save her.  She had such delicate little hoofs, shiny little high heeled boots, tiny, not cow sized, and such long eyelashes. Charlene isn’t back from work yet, but i know she’ll be sad. I don’t quite know how to manage the disposal, I guess we burn her. I don’t know how or why she died, I would just be guessing, but I don’t like to think of her suffering when I could have helped her, I’m sure.

This happens on the eve of picking up a new little calf from Charlene’s work, a lovely little black angus cross called rabbit.

 A little reminder of the sweetness that was Luka…

 
Luka and me

Happier post next time

Vx

 

 So I mentioned in the last post that Charlene has a new job. She’s still a dairylad, just changed venues. It was not a choice she would have made given different circumstances, and it was certainly nothing to do with dissatisfaction at Briarose dairy. Charlene drove the equivalent of a trip to Sydney every 3 days in her travels to and from work, 2 shifts a day. Petrol is at a premium and i’m sure she’s not the only person who is having to make decisions based on the cost of commuting, especially in regional areas where the distances are long and public transport is light on, ok, nonexistent… She loved her workmates at Briarose, she learned alot, loved the cows (they’re so pretty!) and especially will miss Alan who she worked alongside most days. In her words, he’s the best guy she’s ever met. What is so beautiful about this family (not just Brian and Rosie, but Flo and Roy, Brian’s parents also) and the workers at Briarose is that they accepted Charlene for exactly who she is, no judgment, open hearted and open minds, knowing she came fresh from the city with no experience, but what they could see was her desire to learn, her love for the cows and a sharp intelligence.

She started her new job today, with Trevor and his wife Alyssa at Dan Springs. Dan Springs is a 300 acre property just 10 minutes walk from home. They run Illawarra cattle and some fresians. Illawarras are big reddish brown and white cows that are big boned and very docile. They have long serious faces, not the cute upturned pixie noses of the jerseys.

The Illawarra

She will be their sole employee, so she will learn everything about the farm and Trevor has already learned all he needs to know about Charlene on the dairy grapevine (this is a phenomena we are just beginning to understand…) and seems well pleased… They produce alot of milk, quite high in protein but nowhere near the creaminess of the jersey. She came home well pleased with books underarm, having spent a day hooning around on quad bikes, riding shotgun on the tractor, learning about silage, communing with calves, and having eaten lunch with the family (including a delicious thai desert of coconut jelly!) AND an afternoon tea of scones. Her hours will be sane - every second day she starts at 5.10am, and on the other day she starts at the totally civilised hour of 8.30am… and she’ll be able to walk home for lunch! minus coconut jelly… unless i get inspired!

So to use a totally meaningless piece of verbiage… it’s all good!

I wanted some pictures of our herd as it is now, since the small ones have grown so much and, while it might look like a raggletaggle bunch of cows, I think we have a really nice herd. Every cow has it’s place. Little Girl will be our second housecow (so i’d better get that cheesemaking paraphernalia happening quick smart…), Frenchie is our prime beef breeder. Tippi is Mum to Sunny, and is growing her into a lovely little beef cow through mother’s milk (nothing better to grow a calf on…). Sunny and Willy will be grown freely and stay with their mums and will provide food for us and others when they are big enough (it’s not awful, it’s self sufficiency folks). Luka is a freak of nature albeit a cuddly little bear of a freak, and her job is just to be adorable. Tippi will go to market eventually. Rosie will be our housecow for always.

Little Girl, like a princess wearing a tiara

There’s something tasty down there

legs and udders

hiding behind mum

the family

One of the problems we are having at the moment is how dry it is, and the consequent lack of nutritious feed for our herd. A couple of days ago we sent Hinimoa away on a truck to the marketplace. There was just not enough feed to go around. Hinimoa is one of Michael’s original Dexter herd, and was born on the property, so it was hard to send her away. I hope she went to join a herd of Dexters, but we cannot know her fate. A fact of life is bills, and the sale of Hinimoa will enable us to get a piece of machinery fixed. She was a crazy, rotund, bolshy cow and we’ve all had our moments of terror with her as she bore down upon us shaking her head and horns like a wild thing but she’d always pull up short just as you were about to make a run for it… i’ve seen the looks of terror in the eyes of visitors…which often made me laugh, cruel as that may seem!

 The other problem we are having with pasture at the moment is fireweed… fireweed is evil… it spreads, as its name suggests, like wildfire, and carpets te ground so that no groundcover can grow… When one looks out over a field of fireweed te sunny yellow flowers look deceptively uplifting, like little buttercups in spring and so on…

 

…but the thirteen petalled flower is noxious, inedible by livestock, poisonous and difficult to eradicate. My mission… eradicate fireweed! So today I spent some hours pulling acres of fireweed by hand and carting it to the burn pile. Thankfull I’m a little bit obsessive compulsive, so tasks that require a singleminded dedication and repetition and stamina are right up my alley. I *will* eradicate the fireweed! The reason for its existence is a deficiency in the soil (I need to know more about this), but if one can establish ground cover, then the fireweed will retreat. Hopefully by hand weeding, and if some rain comes, there might be some hope for the pasture to reestablish… Then there are the thistles and the tobacco weed and the farmer’s friend and the alien weed with its evil pods… I would rather weed acres and acres by hand though than use any chemical eradicator…

It seems I’m making a habit of including recipes in my posts lately. The one I’m going to include today is the one that I won the very local bakeoff with! Well, i think me and the baklava kind of won it together, and maybe the baklava just pipped me at the post, but the judges, being ever so fair, made 2 prizes for the baked goods. My prize was a fridge magnet bearing the slogan, overlayed over a 1950’s kitchen and its’ 1950’s housewife, * a clean house is the sign of a wasted life* Ah, how ironic, me being a pedant about domestic duty and all that… most people laughed, some looked at me with pity - those who *knew*. Anyway, dammit I won, and I’m all about competition.

Oh yes, so what did i bake? Well, it was a gluten free lemon curd tart with almond and hazlenut base with chocolate ganache topping. Yes. Well you might drool. It’s damn fine… and here’s the recipe, cannibalised bits and pieces from a number of recipes… I’ll have to try and dig up a photo of this one from somewhere…

Gluten Free Pastry:
6 tbsp butter
3 tbsp caster sugar
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 free range egg
1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup of almond meal

Now I find that sometimes this makes quite a wet dough and i tend to add more almond meal and so on, up to 1 cup of each to make it more workable. It does harden up when it rests in the fridge. You can also add hazelnut meal, or whatever you fancy.

Spring form tin, greased and floured.

. Preheat the oven to 200C
. Briefly mix butter, sugar and grated lemon zest in a food processor or similar
. Add the egg and beat for a moment or 2
. Mix in the flours and add extra if you need until the dough comes together
. Make a ball of the pastry, wrap it in clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour
. Roll out the dough on a floured surface in the shape of the tin, cut enough for the sides and the base. This is more of a press into the pan dough, because of its consistency.
. Prick all over the base with a fork.
. Line the pastry with baking paper and fill it with rice or ceramic baking beans. Bake for 15 minutes.
. Remove paper and grains and cook in the oven for a further 5 minutes or until it seems well cooked.
. Set aside to cool

Lemon Curd Filling:
4 lemons
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 lb unsalted butter
4 large free range eggs
pinch salt

. Remove the zest of the lemons
. Squeeze 1/2 cup of juice and set aside
. Process the zest and the sugar in a blender or some such
. In a mixer, cream the butter with the sugar zest mixture
. Add the eggs one at a time, the add the lime juice until all is combined. the mixture will separate, and this is normal. Once you heat it, it will emulsify.
. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and heat over a low heat until thickened. The curd will thicken at about 175F
. Set aside to cool
. Pour into shell and allow to set at room temperature.

Chocolate Ganache
Some full cream, maybe a cup
About 3/4 block of dark bitter chocolate (I use the 85% lindt or green and black), cut up into small pieces
I tend to just estimate this bit, the quantities aren’t fixed.

. Heat the cream to a simmer. Do not boil
. Take the cream off the heat and drop the chocolate in. Stir until the chocolate melts into the cream, smoothly.
. Set aside. Put in the fridge if you like
. When the curd is set and the ganache is cool and slightly thick, you can pour the ganache over the curd.
. Another use for the ganache in this recipe is to line the pie case with ganache, base and sides before you pour in the cooled curd.

 Eat! I wish i had a photo of this, but I will take one next time I make it.

Time passes, its cold today and we’ll be needing a fire, the cows are bellowing and the ducks are telling me to get them some food, and make it snappy…

Thanks for dropping by

farmhousewife xx