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