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

 

I’ve been to Sydney for a few days having city time, which I enjoy so much more now that I don’t live there. I had developed a weariness about Sydney before I made the sea/tree change to this place, become estranged from all the things I loved about the gritty city, and strangely unable to access it socially, too tired from working or commuting or just having general existential battles. Now that I go back on occasion I am learning to love Sydney again, love the inner city, and probably see my friends more than I did when I lived there… They come here for respite, and I go there… I’m always glad to come home, though, and a couple of days away is pretty much the limit when there are only 2 of you to manage the animals and so on…

 I stayed here:

 

(photo courtesy of Shellfiche’s Flickrstream, taken by our sweet friend Neha who you will have met in an earlier post)

This is the nunnery, in Newtown, so called because of its’ history of female habitation, from catholic presbytry to finishing school to brothel I believe! Now it’s full of wild and free queer grrls who work with machines of all sorts and make art and dumpster dive and build community and get active, politically and do karate and build bikes and bake and garden and live an interesting, moving towards sustainable, inner city life. They party alot too. It’s a wonderfully chaotic household, like it contains its own vortex of energy within its walls. Often the nunnery grrls make the trek north and imbibe the farm energetic, ali most especially, making the most of the earth and the animals and the fabulous stove and oven in the kitchen! Ali always leaves us with jars of lemon curd, or chocolate coated orange peel or marmalade or pickled things… Other fabulous friends get out the mattock and chip thistles, or help us with fencing, or preparing garden beds, or building something or other. Visitors help us to see our life afresh… for the blessing that it is…

I have been meaning to put up a cheesemaking post, and I have pics, so here we go.

Currently the products that I have made most are butter, yoghurt (previous posts) and ricotta, or paneer. Since I have few cheesemaking utensils, I’ve been only able to make cheese that doesn’t require rennet. I have since tracked down a great all-things-cheese site called cheeselinks, and I can order all sorts of utensils and other requirements through them including vegetarian rennet… so as soon as cash flow allows, I’ll be getting myself kitted out…

So here’s my version of ricotta making, using Marja Fitzgerald’s all purpose Healthy Housecow book as a guide (it’s well loved, now, this book, with pages falling out and bits of our life smeared over them)…

You will need:

1 heavy bottomed pot that will hold 4 litres of milk
1 cooking thermometer
1 slotted spoon
6 tablespoons of lemon juice
4 tablespoons of hot water
1 colander
cheesecloth
salt and herbs (if desired)

Pour 4 litres of milk into a pot and heat over a gentle heat until the milk reaches a temperature of between 88 and 92C, not boiling, but with small bubbles forming and rising.

Take off the heat immediately and stir in 6 tbsp of lemon juice diluted with 6 tbsp of hot water (you can substitute apple cider vinegar for lemon juice)

Stir for 2 or 3 seconds maximum. You will see curds beginning to form.

curds forming

Cover for a minute or 2.

Strain the curds into a cheesecloth lined colander, or ladle out with a slotted spoon.

curds are firm enough to ladle out

curds draining and being stirred

Leave the curds to drain for 15 minutes or so, stirring every now and again. 

Add a bit of salt or some chopped herbs at this stage if you so desire.

After draining, tie the cheesecloth around the ball of cheese and tie it off tightly.

tie off the cheese with the cloth

Hang it somewhere to drain.

ricotta hanging from our pots’n'pans ladder. i just put a bowl underneath to catch the drainings.

After about 3 hours retie the cloth tightly.

Leave for about 12 hours or overnight. You should have then a fairly firm ball of cheese.

You can make a softer cheese by adding cream to the curds after they have drained, or a firmer cheese by refrigerating or aging in a cool spot for about 5 days. The firm cheese you can grate or cut into cubes and eaten like traditional paneer.

Oh yes, what’s left in the pot is whey. It can be used in cooking. I feed it to the chooks and ducks. They love it!

In other news, Sunny has gone across to the Other Side. She fell in love with a little calf on the neighbour’s property and just walked through the barbed wire fence and we watch her from afar, feeling anxious that she won’t come back (she didn’t last night) and Tippi cries for her. We’ll probably go on a reconnaisance mission this afternoon to see if we can find her. She must be hungry, unless one of the other cows is allowing her to feed from her.

 I have some lovely pictures Charlene took of the herd, and I’ll put them in the next post.

Also - Charlene has a new job, Hinimoa is no longer wth us, fireweed is evil, and spring planting time is upon us. Working holiday anyone???

All this and more in the next post.

Must go and commune with the animals now. They are hungry.

Much cheesy love, Dairygrrl xx

It’s been cold… and frosty… blades of grass crunching underfoot in the zeros and minuses that have been our mornings for the last month or more.. fires at night, and going outside to get warm.. since 1890’s floorboards are all well and good in summer (and in general… they’re pretty special), but my, they don’t provide much in the way of insulation in these temperatures…

I am almost at a loss as to where to begin… so i guess cows is as good a place as any…

When i left you unceremoniously some month or more ago, Tippi had just calved… and that sweet sunny event was recorded here, as is most everything that happens on the farm. I have been unable to record the birth of Willie, Rosie’s little bull calf. Well, i say *little* but that is a relative term. Willy’s a big boy, and in fact BOTH calves are now bigger than our freakish little angel heifer Luka who is most definitely a miniature something or other! They are both chocolate and sometimes i just have to check their bits to make sure i’m feeding or locking up the right calf, they are like twins… Oh my, they are so strong, and so healthy, it’s lovely to see them kicking up their heels and being wild like only calves can… they can run like the wind, no hope of catching them… you think you’re on top of the situation and then they break into a run and you realise they’ve just been strolling up to that point!

I have some lovely photos of Willy and Rosie. It was sad not to witness the birth of Willy. By the time we saw him for the first time he was up on his landlegs (or rather, finding them, like one of those articulated falling down toys that i had as a kid) and dry and already almost as big as his herd-sister sunny… sucking furiously… ahhh… nothing can replace mum’s milk when raising a calf…

Rosie and Willy

Rosie and Taniesha

Willy’s first day on earth

pretty boy

And of course this means… DAIRY! Yes, raw milk… 4 to 6 litres a day milked in the morning, squirt by warm squirt into the shiny bucket… Rosie is a placid and lovely cow, we are so lucky to have her and i cannot imagine we’ll ever have a cow so giving and unperturbed by our morning antics. I freestyle milk her, just squatting down beside her, not tethered or in a stanchion. She eats and then just waits until i have finished milking her, just in the middle of the paddock… she occasionally has a wander, and i follow her with the bucket, but generally she just stands there, waits, looks at me every now and again. We know the drill, and she just waits patiently while i do the biz with her teats… She knows that i let her baby out to suckle immediately after so she ’s not stressed about that and i milk her near the calf pen so she can see her boy, and she’s just happy with that.

We decided that we’d let Willy run with Rosie during the day and just lock him up at night, feed her lots and keep her strong so she makes lots of lovely milk overnight, enough for us and her bub. Raw milk is a delight that we do not ever wish to do without in our lives. It is so far removed from the crap that is in the dairy section of the supermarket it’s scandalous… We like to share our love of the creamier side of life, and feed any excess to our chooks and share with others in the local vicinity for pet consumption and cleopatra-style baths (it’s true)… and on that note, i’d like to draw our dear reader’s attention to this little project… a change in legislation around raw milk comsumption and distribution, and development of standards for raw milk production…

 From Joanne Hay, Editor of Nourished Magazine…

As you may already be aware, FSANZ (Food Standards Australia New Zealand)are proposing to change the laws relating to raw milk. They are asking for submissions from the general public.

The Nourished Community are undertaking a group blogging project, with which we hope to create a submission for FSANZ before September 17, their deadline.

Here’s the link to our working page.

http://editor.nourishedmagazine.com.au/articles/blog-with-us-for-real-raw-milk-tell-fsanz-what-you-want

We know that you are incredibly busy as is everyone in our industry, but please, if you can spare some time, help us just a little to direct FSANZ to Real Raw Milk Certification and availability to all Australians. We’ll likely not get another chance for at least a decade to have our say. Let’s say it now.

So I’ve been making yoghurt, based on instructions i found here but in my own homemade dinky little incubator, so it goes something like this (sorry i have no pics of this one, but yoghurt is so easy to make, you can do it a million and one ways. This just worked nicely for me, set well, wasn’t icky and slimy or too thin and so on…

To make the incubator:
1 esky that will fit at least 5 jars in it. My esky makes just one jar of yoghurt, which is fine, i can make it easily every day if i want.
Alfoil
4 jars to fill with hot hot water

Line the entire esky with alfoil, lid and all. That is all.

To make the yoghurt:
Cooking thermometer
Milk (as much milk as you want to make yoghurt)
Starter. I tbsp per jar. I used Valia cos i heard the cultures were best… i’d used Jalna before with not such good results….

Pour the milk into the saucepan on a middle heat not too low or high.
Heat the milk to 180F or 80C. Don’t let it burn. At this temperature I’m effectively pasteurising the milk. I’m trying different things all the time, and will let you know the results.
Let the milk cool to 54C
Place the yoghurt in the jar you intend to set it in.
Pour the milk over the yoghurt.
Shake the jar.
Place the jar in the incubator, in the middle of the 4 jars that you have filled with the hottest water from the tap. let there be space between the jars.
Put the lid on the incubator.
The yoghurt hould be set in 4-8 hours… well, mine was…

 I will also try heating it to only 54C, because i’m not totally sold on pasteurising… I have tried doing it with the milk straight from the cow, without the heating aspect, but at the moment, me being not the fastest milker in the west, and with the outside temperature being so cold, the milk cools down too fast for that to work.

Ok, I’m doing this in installments. I have to try and track down some images of the ricotta we made, oh and there was the lemon passionfruit curd and the choc coated orange peel that ali made, and I just won the very local bakeoff with a gluten free lemon curd tart with chocolate ganache on a hazlenut and almond base, oh and now the animals are wanting to be fed, and i’ll post again soon…

Love in your backyard

The Dairy Mistress xx