November madness!

This is a November catch up! Where did the month go? We've been a little busy.... So I'm going to show you some of our highlights. By the way, using a camera to keep track of your year is such a great tool. It's a good reminder of what you've achieved. So here goes...

Farmers are busy around the district. Hay is being cut and turned into silage (green plastic balls) and hay bales. 

We have two new babies on the farm! The first, Buzz, was born on the 3rd of November. His mum is Thursday, the young heifer we bought three years ago. Buzz is her third calf. She's become a good little mum. Why Buzz? Well, it was the same day Frans caught a swarm of bees. It was all systems go this day! Our menagerie was increasing by the thousands!

Only a few hours old and already an inquisitive little bloke. 

Thursday giving Buzz a face wipe while big sister Misty looks on.

The bee man suiting up! Frans got stung twice in one day. Not much fun.  

You can see the swarm of bees hanging from the branch of an apple tree. The bees are very slow and heavy with honey, so they're not too aggressive. 

Job done. The hive was moved later once all the bees settled into their new box. We are hoping to get honey this year. The past two years we've had very little. The hot summer of 2012 set the honey production back as the bees were more focussed on keeping their hives cool. 

And a week later we welcomed another calf. This time to Eileen, the boss cow. She's a cute little thing with a white face. Her name is Lucky. Named by Sara.  

Here she is minutes after being born. Big sister Georgina is keeping close watch!

November is a fabulous month in the garden. It is so colourful and the summer crops start making an appearance. Strawberries ripened early. Usually we begin picking towards the end of November, but we started the first week.  

My favourite garden treat... broad beans! They are so good raw served with fresh bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  

In fact, they're so good that Simon Stewart, the talented chef at Bespoke Harvest, has been raiding our veggie garden for his degustation menu. He made this lovely summer salad plate with 'Gerangamete Greens' (that's us!) goats cheese and prosciutto. 

A basket of fresh greens makes its way over to the restaurant every week. Simon's sugar cured trout with our garden fennel is sublime. Seasonal, local produce at its best!

November is also the month when all the Irises are blooming. Granny Pat planted these when she was here earlier this year. They are simply divine! 

The days have been balmy. Butterflies and bees everywhere! 

My favourite flowers in the garden are the Peonies. They bloom for such a short time. The roses just keep on going. 

We had our first booking for our cabin half way through the month. We still needed to create the path around the outside to comply with fire rating standards. So we bought a concrete mixer (orange is my favourite colour by the way!) and started shovelling stones, sand and cement. This is a SLOW process. 

By the time Frans got to the end of the first side, he'd worked out his process and we were speeding up! 

It was back breaking!  

This is my addition to the path. 

Frans left his hand prints on the Otway Fields walk of fame!

The inside of the cabin was ready to go. I think I might book myself into this place! It is so peaceful, quiet and relaxing. 

There are books to read, DVD's to watch if you choose or music to listen to.  

And the view isn't half bad either. 

Breakfast provisions include a loaf of home baked bread, freshly squeezed juice, farm preserves, fresh eggs from our chooks and local bacon.  

We're preparing veggie beds for new summer crops. Here Frans is applying what we learned in India with a technique called 'Double Digging'. The advantage is that less water is needed and the vegetables can be planted closer together as their roots go deeper. 

At a spade or fork depth a generous layer of compost is applied. This encourages good soil health. 

As usual, some jobs have to be taken care of that were not on the 'to do' list! Our dishwasher died. A first world problem indeed! Let's just say that Frans is a good bloke to have around. Multi talented when it comes to fixing stuff, even if it requires colourful language to complete the task! 

It's not all work and no play on the farm. We do stop to enjoy the view with friends! 

And just when we thought we'd be landscaping this week, the garlic decided it was ready for harvesting! So our schedule is shuffled again. We're quietly excited about this harvest. The quality of the bulbs are good so far. 

If you ever wonder why Australian, organically grown garlic is expensive, I'll tell you why. The soil is prepared before planting by adding lots of good organic matter in the form of composted cow and chook poo. Then the beds are smoothed and tidied for the planting to begin. Each clove is then planted by hand into the rich soil. During the growing season the beds are constantly weeded. When it comes time to harvesting, each bulb is carefully lifted by hand. They bulbs are bundled and labelled and hung to dry for two weeks. After they have dried, they get cleaned and plaited. At no stage will any chemicals be used on the garlic. Imported garlic is sprayed with a cocktail of chemicals to prevent sprouting and to bleach it white. The health benefits of eating garlic are negated completely! 

We're super pleased the harvest is ready earlier. Why? It's cooler! And there are less flies. Our lovely neighbour Lorraine helped us sort garlic the first day.  

Now that's what we call decent bulbs! These will be kept for seed for next year.  

I have to show you a spectacular sunrise we had one morning this month. This is the view from our kitchen. If you're in the cabin, you'll be looking straight at the pink sky! Frans took this photo.

And to finish off, we celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary last night. It was a hot afternoon pulling up garlic. Frans decided to call it a day at 6pm. He dug around the back of the cupboard for our 'special' 25th anniversary champagne glasses we bought in Venice (gosh, that was 4 years ago!) and cracked a bottle of lovely St Leonards bubbles. 

Ah, this is indeed the 'Good Life'.

Till next time...

Stay safe.

Farm Meat Pt 1

 It's rather confronting to slaughter an animal that you have witnessed being born, fed and raised yourself. It's been said not to name your animals, so we don't. However, we still have to identify them. So our first calf, born in on a cold, wet September day in 2012, we christened Sunday. He was born on a Sunday, so it seemed logical at the time to call him as such. After all, if Nicole and Keith can name their offspring after a day in the week, so could we! And we'd named his Mum Thursday. So let's not break with tradition! Little Sunday grew into a lovely handsome steer. Yes, we tied his balls off a few days after his birth. It's just what you do if you don't want a ranting bull running around in your paddock. We always knew we were going to slaughter him for our meat. He's lived a good life. Frans fed him on blistering cold days when the icy winds howled through the Cyprus Pines. The hay was juicy and the paddocks too wet to bother with. Sunday always came running when he saw the boss forking out hay. As Summer came along, he grazed with his mum and fellow siblings on the fresh green grass at the bottom of the paddock. When Frans mowed the grass along the fence, he was always there to munch on the clippings. Being a grass fed steer is a good life. There's freedom to roam around the farm, drink at the dam and rest under the shade of the trees. No dry earthed feed lots, cramped with other screaming cattle.

A newly born calf... Sunday. What a wild ride he gave us. He was a 'forceps' baby. His first few weeks were tenuous as he grappled with the cold winter rain and winds. His first time mum, Thursday, did her best. She soon got the hang of being a mum.

And then in a blink of an eye, it's a year and 4 months since the day Sunday was born. At this age, the meat on a steer is good. So with a deep breath, Frans called the slaughter man and made a date.

On the morning of the home kill, Frans moved all the cattle through the yard and separated Sunday from the rest. He was calm and not distressed at all. The key is to keep any stress from the animal as this translates into tough meat. Our butcher is careful, clean and has an attitude towards the animals that he has to slaughter that is commendable. He's not hurried. He takes his time to keep the beast calm. When the moment of death comes, it's quick and deliberate. I still find the transformation from 'farm animal that I love' to 'meat' amazing. One moment the beast standing in front of you is one you have a connection with, and the next you're observing the carcass and all connection has been severed. I have to remind myself that the reason we're doing this is so we have control of our food chain. We know exactly what our animals are feeding on, how they're being treated and how they're being processed. Although the process of killing one of your own animals brings a tear to your eye, (yes it did!), we're pleased that we can be a part of the cycle that provides us with our food, and with it, we are able to respect the animals that allow us this privilege. 

The tools of the trade. A bucket full of essentials... Knives, ropes and sharpening steels. The metal frame is used to balance the carcass while the skinning gets done.

Heavy machinery is required too! The beast weighs around 450kgs. Too heavy to manoeuvre easily. Frans borrowed our neighbour's tractor to help with the lifting.

The beast is moved away from the cattle yard and into our paddock for the slaughtering. 

Once moved by tractor, the skinning begins. Our butcher and his off sider work quickly and efficiently. 

These fellas are well practised. They know what they're doing. 

As the skin gets cut away, it's time to lift the carcass up.

Back breaking work! 

The first delicacy that is handed over after the kill is the ox tail. I'm planning a feast of Ox Tail and Dumplings. Just like my Mum used to make! The second delicacy was the cheeks. I've been trawling the Internet for the best recipes. Long, slow cooking is required for this rare treat.

Not long and the skin is off. Next it's the cutting away of the guts and the rest of the smelly bits. A wheelbarrow is a handy tool. It's not only useful for gardening!

A clean cut is what is required. We don't want any piercings of any tubes or other bits!

Mission accomplished. The guts are removed neatly and cleanly.

When calculating the size of the beast, it's generally worked out on 'dressed weight'. This means that the skin, head, feet and guts are removed. What's left is the useable part of the beast.

We are left with a cleaned animal. Next is the quartering.

The carcass is cut into four big hunks.

It's a lovely cool day. No flies about. This is good!

When we slaughtered our first beast a year ago, we hung it for 5 days. This time, we're going to hang it for 21 days. The idea is that the meat will become more tender as the muscle fibres break down. The cool room is supplied by our butcher. The challenge is to keep the temperature between 2 and 4 degrees on the hot days when we've had 43 degrees!

Hefting the beef into the cooler is heavy work!

Four quarters.... these will feed us for a good part of a year.

And there you have it... Approximately 250kgs of beef. We'll get steaks, osso bucco, mince, sausages and roasts. 

Stay tuned for part 2. The cutting up!

Wayward calves......

In the heat we've turned off our electric fences to prevent any sparks or fires. Of course this is just an invitation to our young calves to go wandering! Barbed wire makes no difference. Here's our youngest, Misty, breaking back trough the fence!

Frans and I headed down to our furtherest fence line to repair the break. First he did some weeding! Gorse and Scottish Thistle had to be removed.

Walking around the paddock is hazardous. The pug holes from the cattle are big and deep. Twisting an ankle is easy!

Fencing fixed. 

One day last week, when it was cooler, I toddled off to Port Campbell with Granny Pat. We had lunch near the water. What a view!

We took a slow drive home via the Great Ocean Rd, and stopped to say 'hello' to  one of the Apostles.

Till next time... have a cool week. Drink plenty of fluids!