BRRRR! Bloody westerly winds gusting and cloudy, overcast conditions. Today was a chainsaw pruning and mulching day, took the tops out of some leggy macadamias and stagged a loquat tree and an avocado. Place looked like a tornado went through until I chopped it all up smaller. The lemon grass and arrowroot also got a number three, I did not know that cows liked eating it until now. Dug up the first of this season's yacon. Masses of tubers, not bad raw either. Anybody got any yacon recipes? First batch of jaboticaba jam bottled this morning, not bad at all. Just need to remember the labelling bit because there are rosella jam and Grumichama jam in the same cupboard. Out of control pumpkin vines should be dying off and letting the first crop mature but have all re-flowered and put on twice as many new fruit? The persimmon trees have just now all lost their leaves, nearly the shortest day of the year, due in a week and a bit, I look forward to the day lengths increasing and especially the sun appearing earlier in the morning. Weird how the weather here gets colder until August even though the day length is increasing. Chicken slow cooked in sweet oranges simmering away on the wood fire, pumpkin soup with potato and bacon chunks first course with custard apple and cream for dessert. Just as well I don't eat like this every day. Otherwise I'd be as big as a house. Winter has arrived. Quite enjoyable if you are warm and well fed.
My pumpkins are doing the same here. Late to set fruit which are all still small - but they are still flowering and setting new fruit! It was pickled daikon making for me yesterday, followed by fried rice with most of the stuff in it (other than the rice) coming from the garden.
Is it you making all the jam Curramore1???? I'm feeling a lot of pressure on the jam front on this forum of late : ) It was windy here yesterday too, the first day that it really felt like winter : ) It felt very invigorating, which was fortunate because it blew a heck of a lot of leaves off the oak tree. Endlessly raking leaves gives me the pip : / The days sure are awfully short when the sun comes up late & goes to bed early. Makes it hard to get everything done that has to be done doesn't it? I've had 2 sore swollen hands & a bung elbow for a week, & that's getting pretty tedious I can tell you. At least it's not such a chore to be taking it easy this weather ... in fact, I was glad to be inside a few times yesterday : ) But then again, like you say, when you're eating well, it doesn't pay to be sitting around too much : ) What jobs have you got on your list for the week? : )
Hi Helen, just finished making a big cauldron of pea and ham as we have all the boys home atm, and it is bloody chilly today. I got up at 5.00 to check the lambing ewes and have been warming up a few and mothering them up a bit more. Cooked a hearty brekky for all and cleaned up. The boys have off farm jobs this week so lunch packing and flask filling etc. Work this week is varied. Pick and blanch a heap of snow peas and sugar snap peas next. Catch up a couple of horses and ride them cross country 15 km to another paddock to retrieve some silly heifers which got under a creek fence into the scrub next door without damaging me or the animals. Putting this off as I am warm in the house with the fire going and drinking a cappaccino or three. Cut, bark and replace a broken off strainer post on the National park boundary fence, sharpen my neighbours firewood chainsaw, check the lambing ewes and calving heifers, cut and swab some devil's fig, cockspur, wild tobacco and lantana, chip some variegated thistle, move some water around the place, repair a flat motorbike tyre, bottle a batch of European lager and a pilsener, clean the autumn leaves out of the gutters, down pipes and strainers and finish stagging 20 or so avocado trees which have gotten too leggy to harvest easily. I feel guilty already for sitting here in my comfy chair. Went for a prowl for five or six hours yesterday to reduce the wild pig population a bit before they raid my pumpkins again. Got a sow and 5 suckers just on dark after traipsing around up hill and down dale. The sore hands and elbow? Age, overuse, injury or all three Helen? The shortest day is due in just a week or so Helen, then more day-length, not long now. Nice to feel warm and cosy in bed in this chilly weather. I am clearing out to the Gulf the week after next with some mates to go native for a bit in a warmer place and gorge on fish and crabs. Got a spitload of stuff to get done here first though so I had better get on with the day. When it gets wintery I do the jam thing. I get tired of just honey on toast all the time and I use jam in biscuits and to spice up the odd lamb shank or shoulder chop braise bubbling away on the wood fire. I think that I give more jam away than I eat. Sort of a visit me and you go home with a leg of lamb, a basket of oranges, a cabbage, a hand of bananas, a pumpkin and a bottle of brew and a jar of jam. Keep warm.
No need for that Helen. Which bit set you off? Sorry for causing you grief. Talk later. My back as in most tall men gives me grief, but usually because it has been used to lift 100kg strainer posts or I have forgotten that I am not a youth and don't bounce as well as I think I should. Cooler weather reminds me of past broken bones and work wounds. I have a branch puncture scar in my left, lower forearm that went in 100 mm or so that just has a dull ache in the mornings and an axe cut across my left knee joint that I suffered as a youth that occasionally reminds me to take it a bit easier. Surprisingly multiple sets of past rib fractures don't worry me at all yet, touch wood. Got the fencing job out of the way and delivered the nags, they shied at every wind blown branch and stick all the way and were definitely too fresh for an old bloke for a start, but I was too stubborn to go back. I walked home along the valley creek and up and over the range which took over 2 hours. At least I didn't have to get off and open and close a million gates on the way home. On with the list after I figure out what to cook for tea. I think bread and butter pudding or a baked custard.
lol ... : ) You beat me hands down with old battle scars : ) Mine are similar in nature, but less severe, & fewer in number : ) When I read what you wrote this morning I was thinking you were confident riding one & leading one on a windy morning Nothing like a fresh horse on a cold morning when you've got an ache in your bones. It sure makes you think about how hard the ground is & how you don't bounce like you used to : ) I take it they were young as well as fresh, given you had to get off to open the gates? I made bread & butter pudding the other day ... it was divine : ) I put jam on the bread & butter & add extra sultanas ... it is to die for : ) I'm not so keep on baked custard, but wouldn't say no if someone else made it : ) : )
Not young and fresh Helen, just older and cunning and fat and frisky from not being ridden for six months and I'd just trimmed their feet. The gates here through my neighbours are all dodgy cocky gates, you can open from horseback, but not close them. I like muscat raisins instead of sultanas and a dash of liqueur muscat wine in my decadent B&B pudd. with a heavy dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg and ground cocoa nibs. Do you cook yours in a water bath in the oven, or just at a low heat? Served with thickened and whipped cream with a pinch of icing sugar. All enjoyed except younger son who stayed to be spoilt with maternal Grandma at the home farm in town because the poor blighter has to leave for work at 5.30 am for a dawn start. I wish someone else would make one for me too and clean up after as well . ATM I am general poo-kicker, chief cook, providore and scullery maid as the real bread winner and traditional domestic Goddess in the fam. is working too hard at an off farm job to keep us afloat, you know how dodgy farming and grazing are currently with the run of weird seasons and the knock on effects of the drought. Red Claw laksa and noodles on the menu this evening for a change as I trapped some beauties the day before yesterday, the first harvest since they arrived from someone's dam upstream a few years back. Off to the coalface again as I've just been in for second breakfast, what a ripsnorter of a morning. It's cutting and swabbing this morning followed by a spot of ringbarking to thin some Tallowood volunteers in the tree plant. I just fired the blady grass on the edge of the Euc. forest on a drizzly day a few years back which germinated a gazillion seedlings which I just thin each year to reduce competition and get better sticks of timber and make sort of rows to drive along. I know that I'll be long dead before these are harvested, but I enjoy seeing them grow over the years. The biggest are already about 150 mm through now and even though it has been dry are powering along. Hooroo Guru.
I just do the b&b pudding in the oven ... I put baked custard in a water bath though. Tall blokes sure do get sore backs from working on horses feet : ) Short fella's are much better suited for that job You're much gamer than me opening a cocky gate on horse back - I wouldn't even bother to try! How awesome for you guys that your wife has the skills to work & earn money off property, even if it does put some extra stress on all of you, & even though it gets lonely. Having that extra income can often be the difference between surviving & going under, & it sounds like you do a pretty good job of holding the fort on your own anyway : ) It's a positive thing all round for women to have a career & a life apart from the family & property & house. You can get very lost very easily, & wake up wondering who on earth you are otherwise. I'd tell her not to stay away too long though ... there's usually a queue for blokes who can cook AND shoe a horse ; ) The sun came out yesterday & my elbow decided to behave itself, so I'm tackling a couple of bigger jobs that need doing. Not much fun, but will be better done than undone in the long run : )
You didn't cause me grief ... just made my heart wince with nostalgia is all : / Which bit set me off? In order of longing, that would be: Catching a horse & riding out to check on straying cattle. Checking lambing ewes & calving heifers. You didn't say: "Stealing a cuddle with a lamb", but if I was there I'd have stolen several ; ) Cutting barking & replacing the strainer post. Prowling/Shooting. Hiding in the warm house looking at the frost out on the flat as you steal another 5 minutes & another cuppa before you have to go do it : )
Would you mind terribly if I didn't answer your post on the Dystopia thread? We have a lot in common, & I'd rather smile about that than bicker about our differences. I reckon that's always the way forward, to find your commonalities, & to cherish them. I wish you & yours peace & happiness: ) H
I'll work a deal with you- I'll go fishing, crabbing and skylarking for a month longer while you come and get all the nostalgia cured and I get gout. No queue here Helen, I'm too much of a dinosaur, so my family say, even to the extent that I am a relict/derelict from over a century ago. After all, my favourite childhood books were "Dick Whittington" and "The Swiss family Robinson". Good to see the elbow on the improve. 27 fat Bullocks escaped today from a mountainous paddock, spent the afternoon fanging about on a trail bike and poking holes in hands with barbed wire fixing fences. So much for the cutting and swabbing, any excuse not to do that crappy job. I think I'll go and start packing the fishing gear. Righto about the Dystopia bit, not all that convinced myself. P&H in return Helen.
I'd do it in a heartbeat : ) I miss that stuff like hell. I'm a dinosaur too ... my parents were old when they had me ... they were WW2 era people who both came from farms & valued the old ways. I guess I just learned that at their knee. I've alway been pretty old fashioned in the ways that count : ) I cut loose when I was a teenager, & have walked a lonely & winding path ever since. But underneath the rainbow tie-dye, I'm solid to my soul : ) I also loved The Swiss Family Robinson : ) & Blinky Bill & The Secret Seven & ... have to think of some more : ) But I loved to read, & it was always about adventures of one kind or another : ) Have an awesome trip ... Be safe. Have lots of fun. Come back refreshed & revitalised, & tell us all about it hey? : )
I'm making Pear & Pecan Crumble ... home grown pecans, bought pears. It's in the oven now ... I'll give you a review after I've eaten it : )
I wasn't thinking & I put cinnamon in it : ( I was following the apple crumble recipe ... If I'd been on the ball I would have used ginger instead. Buggar. Hope it's not too bad ...
Well it tasted awesome, but it was a bit of a waste because the cinnamon overpowered the pears & it tasted a lot like apple & pecan crumble. Delicious, but not quite what I was aiming for : /
Pears are a bit like that. I recently made a pear cider for my wife and decided that it would be too dry and added apple juice as well. OK, but can't even taste the pear. I think I can smell your crumble from here. Yum! The cockatoos got all my pecans this season, I was too slow. My father was also a WW2 veteran and returned soldier and Dad was in his early 40's when I came along, He was 50 when my youngest brother was born. I left home at 17 to see the world and am a bit of a family black sheep myself. Uncanny parallels. I don't mind just my own company for a while, but seldom have that luxury. Enjoy gregarious fun as well though. I enjoy sharing stuff like good food, good wine, good books, plants and fruit and veges. Not much fun eating or drinking on your own. Easy to pack for the trip - two pairs of thongs, shorts and a shirt, shady hat, good sunnies, fishing gear, tooth brush and a book to read. I travel really light, everyone else always brings too much baggage, mine can fit in an overnight bag with room to spare. I am long an ex smoker, but still get bad cravings when others light up, the only thing that I miss when around a fire, with a beer in my mit with old mates or when I walk through a crowd at a festival and smell grass smoke. 20 years ago the kit would have included a couple of bags of Champion Ruby or a tin of Port Royal and a lighter. Notice how when you need a light for something now nobody has a match or a lighter? I bet that like us you have a huge library, we have rooms full of them, and in boxes and on tables and on the floor beside the bed and downstairs and semi remembered/forgotten ones loaned to others. ATM I am reading "The Puzzle of Left-Handedness" by Rick Smits, as my wife and younger son are left handed. Interesting reading. Thanks for you wishes re the trip. Bye. Probably should change lanes from here to general chat or elsewhere, got bugger all to td with members systems really. Mega side track.
Frost in the valley tonight , just checked the max-min thermometer in the gully at -2.5 C, crunchy underfoot, +19.7 C here at the orchard and garden, still as can be with stars bright in a crystal clear sky. Not even wearing a jumper. Ewes dropping lambs all over the place, wild dogs howling in the valley. Storm warning on the internet?????? Showers and mist earlier, very Scotland here at the moment. Just finished financials for the year before buggering off to the tropics, I should have spent more money on fencing, food and fibre production, but from where? God I hate tax and tax returns and BAS statements and Council Rates and other bullshit that makes trying to earn an honest quid a pain in the arse. Much easier to be a welfare dependent I'm sure. Sit on my derriere, grow a few veges and a dozen hooter plants and earn the same net income. Why do we bother? Who really gives a flying *uck? This country sucks for food and fibre producers. Any other countries out there with a better appreciation of it's food producers?
Dry, cool weather here like all over the country. This week spent recommissioning old diesel stationary engines and old piston pumps, took a whole day to take the top off an old 6 cylinder Lister stationary engine and un seize, been sitting for 10 years or more. Miraculous old machine started first wind after putting back together. Water to pump from Dams to help a few old trees to survive in this record dry, cool patch. 20 tonnes of oaten hay coming all the way from South Australia, no hay left in Queensland or NSW it seems.$390.00/tonne delivered, arriving Tuesday. The vendor says that He is sending 160 tonnes a day to Queensland at the moment. Cattle prices still up the putty, that is if you can sell them at all, calves hitting the deck with skinny, jaded mothers. Feeding out a tonne of protein and energy licks as week at the moment for the old girls to digest the blady grass on the hills. We are only carrying about 15% of the numbers we were three years ago, so lucky to have offloaded when the money was better. I am not going to rebuild the herd and flock, let them import beef and lamb, this black duck is better off not producing at $3.00/kg for our products. Shore the meat rams today, got a friendly head butt from one for my labours, going to mulch with the wool, not worth baling up as the prices are so rat shit. I know how Terra feels after a day in the shed. After two hours and a gallon of water I am just loosening up and into the swing, not doing too many second cuts or damaging any, the second two hours flying along until lunch, sat still too long and cooled down, After lunch old man syndrome for the first three, then away, wasn't game to stop for arvo tea, just a quick quart pot of cold black tea and an orange. The home straight, only 12 left in the pen, they are so dirty and sandy from the dry weather I have to keep changing cutters and combs, then disaster, a piece of wire in the fleece, bang goes the handpiece and a broken comb, lucky not to get walloped. The last dozen seem to be the heaviest and hardest to position, arching and fighting me just when I'm nearly buggered. Last one down the chute, lay down on the floor, soaking in sweat, filthy, greasy and dehydrated, in the past I would have paid for this demanding work to be done, now nobody wants to work this hard and there are no shearers left within cooey who are not too old and decrepit. When the drought breaks they will go too. Probably sell off the last 100 or so Ewes and lambs as well, pulls at the emotions after breeding up a locally adapted strain over the past 25 years or so. Reality bites. Wild dog attacks from the National park every second or third night now, have to fold the ewes and lambs every night and graze during the day as the dog tucker in the Park has all died off or moved away and the bitches have pups as well at this time of the year. They killed and ate my guardian dog they are so desperate. Losing calves also at the beef breeder block from the abounding National park on the other side of town at 2 or three calves a week, have trapped a few and shot a dozen or so, but can't bait because of the proximity to houses. In the food garden, cabbages, kale, kohl rabi, broccolini and cauliflowers everywhere, broad beans in flower early, last of the snow peas. Plenty of oranges left what the cockatoos leave me. The flying foxes are so hungry because of the dry they have eaten through the banana bags to get the green fruit and eaten all the tamarillo and ripe coffee beans. Yacon tubers are shooting and ready to plant out. Spring is around the corner as the oranges are in bud, the figs and mulberry are ready to burst bud and the jasmine is in full flower. This week is cutting trees and ripping fence posts to replace a boundary fence while the ground is dry and the weather is still cool, usually pare up 50 or so posts before lunch if the going is good, point them up, load and lay them out in the afternoon. Next week planting an experimental hectare of turmeric, horse radish and galangal for a potential fresh herb company contract if they allow me to buy water to use as irrigation from my own dams this year. What a crazy world. Might just have to go fishing again, will earn the same income as busting a gut. Let someone else grow the nation's food for nothing.
I know it's good to vent and I'm glad you can find your outlet here. I'm also glad you don't sugar coat what you slave over to achieve, most people I know plant a few gardens and sit back and enjoy. The real farmers bust their bums every day and I appreciate what you are doing and doubly appreciate that you post your updates here. Sucks about the guardian dog? Dog(s)? Only one? Maremma? Seen a few over this side with the sheep, went and visited a dairy/pastured poultry in Conondale and they were running some too. Here is something to not cheer you up. A pictorial of farms in the hinterland: https://modernfarmer.com/2014/08/hinterlands/
