Compost

I've never had such a great supply of compost in my life, as we do now. One of the problems with having livestock, is that you end up with dead stock (a saying of my fathers). Our main problem we have is with piglets - mostly being rolled on by the mother. This is one of the reasons that the sheds use sow stalls - they prevent the sow from lying down, let alone rolling on the piglets. On our farm, we don't use any sort of farrowing set up, the sows make a grassy nest and have the babies in this. The babies can then climb under the grass mound for sun and preditor protection and warmth. So when they get rolled on, which would average out as one per litter or maybe less.

Other things we put in the compost are: afterbirth, dead chooks (ones that die of old age), feathers etc from our poultry processing. We layer these with wheel barrow loads of cow manure.

A lovely fresh cow pat - it's best to be really fresh when covering dead animals or feathers etc.

We use pallets as the framework for our bin and once it's full, we put a cover over it and leave it for twelve months. By this time the pile is about half the size and turned into a lovely compost.

Feathers don't really break down completely and you do sometimes find some bones, but that's all good!

Of course, this would be a bit tricky for most people to do. I've never been terribly successful before this in making good quality compost and found that the best way for me to do it was to use worms. I used a compost bin and would through the scraps each day in and some manure and weeds every now and again. The worms would do the work for me and I would just collect it from the bottom of the bin. ANYONE could do this - even in the city (well maybe with out the manure!) Worms will eat just about anything that was once living and there's lots of good stuff you can find on the internet to help you if you need it.

I'd love to hear what other people do to make compost. It's a great way to get rid of scraps if you don't have chooks to eat them, although if you had chooks, the chooks make the compost for you - the ground in their pen is lovely for the garden.

A day in my life

Up at 7am this morning - a little sleep in after my busy weekend.....Breakfast with our little backpacker family - we are down to 4 now, so life is hopefully a little less hectic!

Milk 3 cows - while I'm milking I like to plan out my day, this is a calm (usually) time that I work out what I'm going to feed everyone that day and what office work I need to get done and of course it's all very organised in my mind, that I even think about what garden work I might get done. Ha Ha
Something usually happens to interrupt all my plans!

Two of my milkers

Today I'd just finished milking when Laura came over to say that a pig had farrowed, so I thought I'd better check on her, as she is a sow that we bought out of a shed and I was worried that she may not have known what to do etc! She hadn't made a nest, just had them on the ground under a tree. I removed the afterbirth, and counted 10 healthy happy piglets.

Contented mum - so happy to be out of a shed!

Back to the coldroom to collect the bucket of milk - got Maree to put it away for me so that I could get some bread on. Two loaves of sourdough and one batch of normal bread dough for breadrolls for lunch today.

Out to the garden, to quickly put some compost on my potatoes that I'm growing in spud bags and thought I'd plant some carrot seeds while I was there! The garden is looking lovely, but in need of a drink so sprinkler on - and now I can have smoko!

Office work until lunch time, with a short break to form my dough into rolls and to rise them.

Nap time after lunch - this is a regular break we have. Our helpers are only expected to do a max of 6 hours per day, so we usually have a siesta - although we would have a nap even if we didn't have backpacker helpers! After my nap, I thought that I would get another hour of office work in, but Kim decided that we had to wean some more piglets.......so back outside to do that and numerous other jobs.

Back inside on dark - get dinner ready with the lovely Maree's help. Steak and vegies tonight - it's been a long day. Put the sourdough bread on to cook.

Top is the finished bread, left bottom is my starter and the right bottom is the first rising - nice and bubbly!

Then after dinner I bottled some kombucha. I keep a continuous brew with kombucha, which is so much easier. I always do a second ferment and really love passionfruit, however my passionfruit isn't ready yet, and the passionfruit man wasn't at the markets, so I did ginger tonight (my ginger growers were at the markets this week!). Ginger is probably my second favourite flavour. I also had some kefir to bottle and I always do this with ginger and lime, which is just like a mild ginger beer crossed with lemon squash.

I've got the new tea on the stove top and will put it in in the morning when it's cool. Who wants a scoby, I have heaps! Just comment (if you are in the local area only) and I will bring some to the next markets.

Crab!

Edmund went away this weekend fishing. He didn't catch many fish, but did get a few crabs so it was fresh crab for dinner. Served with fresh salad from my market purchases this weekend and some yummy fresh bread. Edmund made the salad, but I made the dressing - Norma's (Kim's mother) famous French Dressing (lots of garlic, french mustard and lemon juice - delicious with fresh seafood!!!) Didn't think to take a picture until now, so I've only got this one!

We are lucky to have some lovely fresh produce on our doorstep - okay, crabs are a good two hours drive away.....but we are certainly lucky to get them more often than a lot of people do!

Desert was some coconut/pineapple icecream I made the other day and told everyone that it was to be left until I got back after the weekend! We had a pineapple that got frozen and was soft and squishy, so I cooked it and then (after it cooled) mixed it into some coconut milk icecream. I make a raw egg icecream, which is usually, 600ml cream, 2 eggs, vanilla ess, 1/2 cup sugar, mixed and then put into the ice cream churner. This one was a can of coconut milk, 200ml cream etc and after churning, I threw it all into thermie (or a food processor would work) to blitz it with the cooked pineapple. It was very good, so I'll have to do it again!

Then, just because I haven't had a big enough day (markets this weekend in Rocky and Yeppoon, so only got home about 3.30 this afternoon), I decided to cook sausages ready for breakfast tomorrow. My main reason for this is because I want to have a sleep in tomorrow morning. (at least until 7!!!)

By the way, I'm going to try and post every day.....we'll see how I go. If the internet is as slow as it is tonight, I'll probably end up smashing my computer!!!

Gardening Time

I had a great afternoon yesterday in the garden! I bought some seedlings the day before and because I have had so much trouble with my chickens and turkeys, I decided that I wasn't going to plant anything out until I could poultry proof the beds. My lovely son Edmund had the day off work and had promised to help me, so with him and our pommy backpacker helper Charlie, we got a lot done! The boys made the frame work by screwing pvc pipe (the remnants of my chook dome) and then we've weighted the netting down with bricks. They also dug another potato bed. The last one wasn't big enough so we had to dig another one.

I've planted sugar loaf cabbage, wombok cabbage, silverbeet, two types of kale, about 3 lots of lettuce, rocket, snow peas, two lots of tomatoes and some coriander. I planted the snow peas at the base of my existing eggplant. I'm not sure if they are companion plants or not, but I thought it would save me having to put up a trellis - the snowpeas should climb over the eggplant! I've also got some lettuce, warrigal greens, italian parsley and coriander coming up wild in the garden - well where the poultry haven't seen it!

I'm really excited about this covering as it will also protect everything if we do get a frost. It's been known to happen, although the weather would have to get a lot colder for us to get a frost.

The potatoes will be interesting - I planted half of them at the right moon phase, but this second lot are being planted in a leafy planting time. So we'll see what the difference might be. Although the turkeys kept digging up the potatoes in the first lot.

What else do I have in my garden at the moment? I've got pawpaw that aren't doing very well. We will give them a seaweed spray and see if that improves things. The tree is loaded, but just starting to go yellow and we are losing fruit now. I've been picking some of the green ones to use as a vegie - they taste great in a stirfry!

We are just starting to pick oranges - they are very seedy, but make beautiful juice. The tree is quite old - it was a full grown tree in a photo that we have of the house, which was taken in the 60's I think. I've got a small mandarin tree - the fruit is just starting to turn yellow. Both trees would benefit from some colder weather. Our bananas have been fruiting, but the bunches are small and not doing very well. I think I'll have to give them all a good feed of compost! The mango tree is flowering - a bit early yet I would think. I've got pumpkins- ripe ones and some still flowering (did I mention that it's still warm?). I've got some herbs, although not enough and some spring onions. Eggplants will be ready for picking shortly and we are still getting capsicum. The eggplants have been great and hopefully they are virtually perennial - I've had quite a few pickings of them. My garlic is going okay, but should do well now that I've got the poultry away from them! I also have turmeric, which I'll pull soon and process. I've had to buy turmeric lately - first time in about 3 years, so I want to dry a heap of it. I've also got some sweet potato growing and a Ceylon spinach plant that I've managed to save from the chooks!

I'm feeling extremely blessed to have Edmund help me in the garden and to finally have a garden that will be poultry proof! I can't wait until the plants are all growing well. If you haven't already down loaded and listened to it, I was interviewed by Gavin from The greening of Gavin last week and you can listen to it from my DVFR Blog - there's a little gadget thing on the right hand side down a bit. I talk a little bit about my farming and food philosophy and Kim says it's interesting, so please have a listen and tell me what you think.

Beginning of March!

A couple of months ago I stated on this blog that I was going to write a bit more often, that I'd be blogging about preparing healthy food whilst maintaining a busy lifestyle. Well the amount of blogs I've written in my head while milking the cow, gardening,cooking dinner, walking around the pig paddocks or driving in the car is amazing! However none of them made it into the never never world of the internet. Lots of reasons for this, mostly based on time and internet speed!

Tuesdays are busy days for me. We draft pigs for market on a Tuesday and then deliver them to the abattoir on Wednesdays. I need to think about dinner reasonably early, and then it needs to be prepared and put into the oven to cook or something easy that I can cook in a hurry. This is because we load pigs last thing in the afternoon, as we don't get back inside until on dark.

This week I wasn't quite so organised, but I still managed to be inside by 7 and have dinner on the table by 7.30. I had taken pork steaks out of the freezer and then had a little time before loading to think about what to cook with them.  I went for a wander in the garden and found not a lot, but some eggplant, capsicum, chilli, beans and herbs, ohh and some limes. It's been so hot - too hot to grow anything much (and believe me I've been trying - the lady that sells seedlings at the markets makes a killing out of me, because I keep buying them!!!!) It should cool down soon, and then I'm planting....winter is our main growing time here! (more about that in another post!)

This encouraged me to do one of my favourite veggie dishes - BBQ veggies with herb dressing,we've got a BBQ that has three sections. The veggie dish, with added zucchini, squash onion and garlic got cooked in a deep baking dish. Slices of white and sweet potato were fried on the plate (I call these BBQ chips) and the steaks cooked on the grill.

Recipe for my veggie dressing:

Fresh herbs - about a handful, and I usually use parsley, basil and oregano, but because I didn't have oregano and I was going to add lime juice, I substituted mint.

Two cloves garlic - crushed

Splash of Apple cider vinegar or balsamic - I used sweet apple vinegar, which is one that I bought at the Kawana markets while on holidays (it's made at stanthorpe, qld) Either a good lug of olive oil or a big spoon of butter. 

You mix this into the veggies after they have been bbq'd.

N.B. You can use whatever veggies you like, but especially like to do this with Mediterranean veggies.

I didn't take a photo of the cooked product because there were too many insects and we ate in the half dark.

While I was prepping the veggies I also prepared a couple of home grown chickens for brining. I find that if I can brine the chicken before cooking it's a lot tenderer and doesn't dry out too much.  Our chickens are Aussie Game and so are quite gamey and the legs and thighs can be a little tough. I mix quite a bit of salt into some warm water, add cold water and aromatics and then place the chicken in.  I chopped up two limes and added to the brine, but had forgotten them when I took this photo.

Chickens/Roosters

Brine ingredients - add one or two limes or lemons.

Chickens submerged in the brine

After dinner I got my travel food ready!

Planning is essential if you want to prepare your own food. I normally menu plan and this helps a lot. I've fallen off the wagon a bit lately and need to get back into it. Tomorrow I have to make bread, so that means that I need to feed my sourdough starter tonight. I also need to make yogurt. Because I use my own milk I have to pasteurise it and then give it time to cool down and then it takes about six hours in my dehydrator. I do about four to five litres at a time these days, so this is all fiddley and I need to be around the house......hence the need for planning!

Holiday Food

We are nearing the end of a two week holiday on the Sunshine Coast......the end of a great, peaceful, refreshing, quiet time of doing a lot of nothing.

We are lucky enough to have friends that have a great house and pool and who just happened to be holidaying elsewhere, so we have had the opportunity to house sit. For us, that is so much better an option than a "holiday rental" mainly due to the fact that there's a thermomix here!! Ha Ha, seriously though, it's just so much more peaceful and I also thought that it meant that we could eat in or out whenever we felt like it. We've done a bit of both, but more in than out, mainly because I would prefer to spend my money buying really good produce and then having the pleasure of cooking it myself.

We have eaten out a few times and twice we've gone to some pretty swish places, which have had excellent food! Most of the time though, we've just bought top quality ingredients and had fun with that.

We've been eating quite a bit of seafood - the Mooloolaba Fish Market has some of the loveliest seafood and we've discovered Swordfish! It really is a lovely piece of fish - they call them steaks, and they do look a little like tuna. However the flesh is just soft and divine! The only farmed seafood we bought where the oysters, the rest of the seafood was local and wild caught!

We've been to Sunshine Coast Organic Meats at Forest Glen (they stock our pork) and bought a leg of organic lamb - we'll be buying some beef for dinner tomorrow night as we are almost sick of seafood! . Kunara Food store is our favourite place to buy vegetables, dairy and dry goods! There's a fabulous IGA up the road from where we are staying that is tiny but sells lots of gourmet goodies, including Walters Bread. This is fabulous bread that is made locally - sourdough as well as yeasted bread, but the sourdough is proper long fermented bread and is just lovely. Saturday we went to the Kawana Farmers market to get some fresh vegies and to see what else was there.......balsamic vinegar and other vinegars and verjuice made on the Granite Belt, Maleny cheese, a French stall selling baguettes, rabbit rillette and saucison (salami), which became our lunch that day. And turkey from Toowoomba - we bought some turkey sausages to try. There were other meat sellers too, but our favourite one is Kidaman Beef and they weren't there that day. They are our favourite because they sell their own beef (fresh and not frozen) and they have a really great product. They also sell our pork! Home made pickles, pasta, marinated olives.....so much great stuff!!!

One day when we went out for lunch and ate WAY to much!!! I did a simple thermomix tomato soup, which was a great light end to a foodie day! Most lunches we have are comprised of antipasto type stuff with fresh bread and a beer to wash it all down. We bought some lovely salami's made in Brisbane and cheese from further a field from a shop in Maleny! Wow, the choices there are amazing.

It's been a great opportunity for us to take some time out and to see what's happening on the food scene in the big smoke. Not enough grass fed / free range options, but hopefully that will change. I think that there is a change in the air and as a producer, it's exciting to be part of that.

Travel food

One of the biggest challenges in eating real food is when you travel! I cannot eat junk food any more - if I do I just feel sick afterwards. I can occasionally eat a pie but not too often. We usually pack food and snacks like nuts and fruit which is okay for one day, but things take a little more organising if away longer. Our preference is to stay in accommodation that has cooking facilities and we now have a car fridge to keep food cool while travelling. Eating real food takes careful planning anytime, but especially when travelling.

Every week Kim and I go to Biggenden to deliver pigs to the abattoir. This is a 12-13 hour round trip and in this heat we leave at 3am. So the night before I have to organise food for breakfast and lunch and snacks! I usually take Muesli, fruit salad and yoghurt for breakfast and then lunch (which is usually more a brunch) can be anything from leftovers, meat and salad, or eggs and bacon. This morning it was steak, potato, onion and eggs.

Having a camp stove like this makes life a lot easier!

If I'm not prepared, I'm always tempted by quick junk food, and always angry afterwards! The best option for when I'm not prepared is to go to a supermarket and get something. This is a way better idea than eating out of the hot box.

What do you do when travelling? Do you take your own or succumb?