Cabin Fever!

Well, at last! We are finally getting a move on with fixing up the old loggers hut. After waiting for building permits for what seemed forever, we're getting stuck into the nitty gritty of getting this little cabin spruced up to what will hopefully be a very comfortable little Bed and Breakfast cabin.

Frans got stuck into removing the side planks and poured the concrete pads in the stump holes. We were very lucky to have our young mate Michael come down from Melbourne to help us with the first stage of the build.We met Michael when he was a little kid, and now he's a strapping big builder!

Before any serious work could begin, some of the tree branches of this old gum had to be removed. Carefully. While Frans was busy with the prep work, I went into town on a mission to buy nails for a nail gun (very specific requirements given!) and a few bits and pieces that would be needed for the weekend. 

Saturday morning rolled around and Michael arrived bright and early with his Mum, my good friend Lynnie. Of course nothing is ever perfect, and the nails I'd bought the previous day were no good. They simply crumpled as they were being shot into the timber. Tools were downed and the boys went to town to get another box. Lynnie and I retired to the kitchen where we labeled jams and bagged up Anzac Biscuits. A while later the workers returned with the correct equipment! 

Michael and Nala set out the string lines.

Lynnie decided it was boring just holding the timber, she'd rather do some serious work!

Is this the mark?

 Not satisfied with a little drop saw action, this amazing woman had no hesitation in blitzing the frame with a nail gun!

Frans and our good friend John mixed up concrete to pour around the stumps. The first part of the job was almost complete.

By mid afternoon the frame for the ensuite was up!

Now for the next step.... Putting up the frame. Stay tuned!

COWS...

Then, Frans got sick. He had struggled through the day in getting the first stage of the cabin done. He then took to his bed. For a number of days. This meant I had to wear the 'Farmer Frans' hat for a few days while he recovered. Morning and evenings he feeds his cows. I can see why he loves them. They all have individual personalities. I wasn't sure if they'd come up to the feeding spot if I called them. But they did. It feels so corny standing at the fence calling 'come on Eileen'! Yes, the cow with the mean look in her eye below is called Eileen. (Sara's name pic). We've had a little rain and although the paddock looks green, there really isn't a lot of grass for the animals to eat. It's easy to throw some hay over the fence and let the cows eat where you drop it. Usually Frans rakes the hay up close to the fence to stop the cows standing in the good stuff or pooping in their breakfast. I've done this too on quite a few occasions, but one morning I got a little side tracked and I leaned against the front fence and the rake touched the electric wire. I can try and describe what it feels like to have a crack of electricity fire through your body. The first realisation that something odd has happened is a jolt you feel deep in your gut and the crack you hear as your flesh makes contact with the national grid! A sharp sting rushes through the hand holding the metal rake while the leg touching the fence feels like it has just been touched with a branding iron. The spot burns for a while! Second problem is the rake has been dropped on the other side of the fence. How do I get it back without walking all the way around the fence line. I use a garden fork and CAREFULLY lift the handle and slip the rake through the gap between the electric wire and the fence. Ok. Breath. Come on cows! Breakfast is ready!

Eileen is a real cow. She's the boss. And she let's poor Thursday know it. She pushes her away from the hay and often stands parallel to the fence so that Thursday can't get close to the feed. More action with the rake is required to shove Eileen to her end of the fence!

Thursday does have one advantage over the big old cow. She's young. And faster! When I call them, Thursday bolts up to the fence from waaayyy down the end of the paddock. She gets in first. Take that Eileen!

GARDEN JOBS

This was my task today. Clear out this garden bed. Remove the spent dill. Pull out the exhausted zucchini plants and remove all the carrots, eggplant and gem squash left after the Autumn harvest. The morning was cool. Well, more than cool. COLD. 

As I work my way down the bed, I dig up rogue potatoes. I don't plant them. They just pop up everywhere around the garden. It does drive me a little nuts! But the upside is that they all add to the food haul for the day.

Carrots of all sizes, shapes and colours are pulled from the ground.

Almost done. Rain threatens and I grab the sunflowers I've cut and go and hang them up under the outside shed.

Not a bad collection. Corn, potatoes, carrots, zucchini, gem squash, eggplant and dill.

Sunflowers hung upside down to dry. Some of seeds will be saved for growing again next season and the rest will go to the chooks. They have given us a summer of bright colour and the bees have danced around the heads taking pollen back to the hives. The dill is also hung to dry. I'll gather the seeds for the kitchen and to plant again.

Time to call it a day. The weather is rolling in...

I fill the wheelbarrow up as much as I can so I only need to make one trip to the compost heap!

We'll be at the Lions Market in Colac this coming Sunday. Come and say 'hello' if you're around.

Have a great weekend!

Olive Trees taste good, so does rabbit!

 One morning last week, I looked out of the window and spotted our neighbour's sheep in what I thought was his paddock. I could see the new baby lambs and went out to take a photograph. As I got closer, I saw they were actually on OUR side of the fence! (must need new glasses!) AND they were happily nibbling on the newly planted olive trees. Frans and I chased them back to the other side. They didn't even notice the electric fence! Our grass and trees are obviously better as they have visited a number of times over the past few days. We have also noticed that the trees have been gnawed along the stems. Rabbits! Tell tale droppings have confirmed that we have too many nightly visitors that are helping themselves to our trees. I've since wrapped strips off cut up feed sacks around the stems to hopefully stop the damage.

These little babies are twins. They play and jump around the paddock. So lovely to watch.

So back to the rabbits...

Well, two of them are going to be pie!

Frans has learned to skin and gut a rabbit in quick time. They get left to hang overnight and then I get the job of cutting it up. No point in being squeamish! It's food. Delicious, low food miles, and free! And don't worry, those t.towels are not for kitchen use!

I jointed the carcasses, and layered them between baking paper and popped them in a zip lock bag (my favourite kitchen helper!) There was 2.5kgs of meat. This will provide us with a family feast when we next have an big group of visitors!

We're coming to the end of our Summer and Autumn veggies. I pulled up a big basket of beetroot this week. We had a delicious vegetable lasagne with home grown veggies and home made ricotta cheese. 

My brother Lionel visited us for a night (quick visit!) and I shoved a big fat free range chook into the wood oven. The stove has been burning 24/7 for a couple of weeks. Many pails of wood will be hauled into the kitchen in the next few months. There's something about the warmth in the kitchen that a wood stove pumps out. It says 'home'!

One of the last chores for the season is seed gathering. I'm drying dill seeds in these packets. I pick the drying flowers, bunch a few together and put them 'face down' into a brown paper bag. I leave them for a couple of weeks then make myself a cup of tea and sit outside in the sun and wriggle all the little dried seeds from the flower heads. I will use the seeds to grow more dill next spring, but even better, I have a big spice jar full of these aromatic seeds. They are delicious sprinkled in a potato salad, fish or in a salad dressing. 

The sunflowers are also coming to the end of their splendour. I've cut the heads off the stalks and will dry them. Then it will be another cup of tea in the sun activity... breaking the seeds apart. Some will go into seed bags for next season, and the rest will be given to the chooks. They LOVE the seeds!

There are so many different varieties and sizes of sunflowers! This is a BIG one. Can't remember the name, but the stalk grows to over 2m!

In between working in the yard or the kitchen, I'm madly working on Sara and Stephen's wedding quilt. It's not going to be finished on the day, but I'm hoping the top will be done. I am making it all by hand. I started off doing all the hexagons myself. Since I began, I've had a few helpers which has been great. There are a few local friends who are adding their workmanship to the quilt, as well as my Brisbane friend Michelle Steel who made a huge pile of these little babies! I lay all the completed 'blocks' out on the tables at the Saturday Birregurra Sewing day. It has grown since this pic was taken. I have a few more to go.... 

A close up of the blocks. Sara chose the fabrics. I love the retro feel the quilt is taking on. Here you can see where she played with the fabrics and also some ideas of what the finished quilt will look like! 

And so it seems that no week is complete without a little tractor action! We bought some hay last week and our good neighbour Graham moved it to where we wanted it. 

And you can see Frans directing the traffic here.... And you see that pole just to  the right? Well it is no longer there! Didn't need it anyway Frans said....

And a beautiful sight as I say goodbye this week...

We had visitors a few days ago. Three magnificent peacocks. Well, one peacock and his two hens. They wandered away from Graham's place and found that our shed roof was a cool place to view the world from. An hour or so with 4 people  chasing them around our yard, we finally got them back where they belonged. 

Have a great week!

Autumn is here at last!

I love our old shed. It sits facing the little valley in front of our farm, pointing towards the rising sun. If I had my way, I'd renovate it to within an inch of its rustic shed life and create a wonderful gathering space, complete with big open fire, reading gallery or library and a spare room for guests. But sadly, it is old. Very old. It has too many holes in the roof and walls, and it would take too many dollars to fix. That's what Frans tells me anyway! So now we use it for storing stuff. Oh, and for parties! Not too many rolls of hay fit in it, but Frans likes to keep it dry. The only problem with keeping the hay in the old shed, is that it has to be moved to where the cows feast. And that takes a little effort!

Usually it is my job to help Frans roll the bales, but when there are visitors about, well, they get into the action too! Here is Frans and his Brother-in-law Chris getting a serious arm workout! The bale gets rolled down the driveway, pushed and pulled to turn right past the house and Frans' workshop/shed, through the back gate, past the chook house and washing line and finally to the shelter of the Cypress Pines. There is usually a fair amount of stopping to point the bale in the right direction! Pushing it along the driveway is fine. It's when we get the bale into the chook and duck area that it becomes exciting. The bale squishes over duck and chook poo, and by the time we finally launch the bale with a fair amount of heaving into its spot, our hands are usually covered in muck. Gloves are wonderful inventions. We just have to remember to use them!

Depending on how energetic Farmer Frans feels on any given day, he either feeds his girls and one boy across the fence (my preferred method as I like to keep a barrier of sorts between me and any enthusiastic hungry cows!) or wheels a few burrow loads of hay into the paddock. The advantage of feeding them in the paddock is that the seeds from the hay get spread about and hopefully grow into new grass. That's assuming we get any rain! 

Feeding the cows is not a chore at all. They come when they are called. It's fascinating to observe them as they munch away on the feed. They have a particular standing order. Big old Eileen on the far right is the queen cow. She's a bit stroppy. Young Thursday on the far left usually likes to stay right out of the old girl's way. The two babies usually act as separators between the two black mothers. This morning when I was feeding the girls, I was amused to see the neighbour's white cow standing on the other side of the fence looking longingly at the hay I was lobbing over the electric fence. And the chickens love feeding time too. They peck at the seeds and scratch around. The cows aren't bothered by them at all. 

This past summer I've left the poly tunnel to its own devices. Consequently there were self seeded tomato plants that reached right up to the top of the domed roof. It was jungle like! I decided I would clean it out and get it prepped to grow some winter veggies in it. But before I start, I've opened the door and let the ducks and chickens in to clean it up for me. It's been a couple of weeks now and we've gone from an overgrown jungle to this! There's no mistaking that chooks and ducks will eat anything if you let them. They have saved me a huge amount of work and at the same time have left their droppings on the beds. I will turn the beds over, dig in all that wonderful nitrogen and leave the beds for a couple of weeks before I start planting.

Speaking of things fowl... below is a photo I took this morning of our baby ducks that hatched 7 weeks ago. They have grown so quickly! They are eating Frans out of house and home so they will be going to the market in the next couple of weeks. We will despatch two or three for our own freezer and sell the rest. They are lovely to observe. They eat snails and slugs. BUT... they stink! They poop everywhere and are make an awful mess. Anyone want a duck?!

In between cooking up a storm in the kitchen, preserving our summer harvest, I've managed to sow some seeds for winter and next spring. Here are some radishes and mixed salad leaves. It's great to be able to duck down to the veggie patch in the afternoon to pick dinner supplies. Food miles at their shortest! 

Some of the winter veg I've planted. I've never grown Warrigal Greens. They're apparently a lot like spinach. I love turnips, so have planted quite a few rows! Nadine Abensur in her book The Crank's Bible has a fabulous recipe for 'stoved roots'. It is one of our favourite winter mid week meals.  

We know it is Autumn as the quinces are ready! They are a strange fruit. Knobbly and furry. Very tart! However, cooked up and made into a smooth jam or a darker paste, they make any cheese platter come to life! 

I made a huge batch of Quince Jam this week. I picked the last of the zucchinis and made more bread and butter pickles. 

Last week I mentioned that we are now selling our products on Farmhouse Direct. We have had a great response. Below are some of the orders I packed during the week!  

 I'll leave you this week with a photograph of the magnificent ornamental grape vine that grows on the North East corner of our house. It does a wonderful job of giving the house shade during the hot summer, and soon the leaves will fall. We'll then have the winter sun streaming through the lounge room windows, warming the room. We'll prune the vine around July and I'll use the pruned canes to make baskets and wreaths. What a useful plant!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Big Boys Toys!

Where have the past three weeks gone? We've been flat out. 

We have some exciting news!

You can now find our preserves and other exciting creations at:

Farmhouse Direct is an on line farmers market, open 24/7. It showcases some of the country's best produce. For us the challenge has always been how to reach a broader market. We believe we will be able to share our preserves with customers around the country. I've spent the past week uploading data and Frans has been taking photos of our products. 

Check out our page HERE:

Please feel free to share our Farmhouse Direct link! www.farmhousedirect.com.au/otwayfields

We've also set up a Facebook page for Otway Fields. You can follow our crazy adventures on a more casual basis. Plus, you get to make comments on what we're doing! We'll share what we're growing, cooking, making and farm life in general.

We have been busy with a number of projects. The work on the cabin is in limbo as we wait for a few more details to be confirmed. In the mean time Frans and our neighbour Graham moved the old water tank to a new resting place at the back of the house. The moving of a tank is chicken feed when you have a bit of rope, a plank and some good old fashioned common sense. First the tank was lashed onto the forks of the tractor.

Frans then guided Graham through the yard, past the new shed, through the gate (watch the post!) and on past the chook house. 

It would probably have been a good idea to take the washing off the line before the tractor and tank kicked up a cloud of dust as they bumped past! 

The photo above shows a part of the back yard, or if you want to be fancy, the orchard. The ground is bone dry. The chickens scratch around and make lovely holes anywhere they can. Frans has a plan brewing where he's going to make a mobile chicken tractor to follow the cows around the paddock. It's something we've been talking about for a while. Hopefully by Spring we'll have a new chook system in place. The backyard can then be 'prettied up' and we won't get  frustrated with the holes the chickens make!

As you may know, we planted our first garlic crop last year. We want to plant more this season. To do this we needed to dig another garlic bed. So Graham to the rescue. (What a dream neighbour he is!) He came over with his trusty old tractor and harrowed a big long bed for us. We carefully worked out the siting of the bed. Had to be East/West. A bit of squinting into the sun, and we all agreed on the direction the bed had to be. 

This little job took about 20 minutes. If we had done it ourselves it would have taken a week! 

Below Frans is pacing out the bed. 30m long by 3 meters wide. 

Graham then drove his tractor back to his place, swapped the bits at the business end of the tractor and came back to create two nice raised beds.  

All that was left was for Frans to flatten, neaten and make holes in the tops and for me to follow with a hose. We sprinkled some chook poo onto the beds and we've been watering the beds every few days to get some good biology happening in the soil. We'll be ready to plant in a few more weeks. 

And just beside the new garlic bed we've planted another 9 olive trees. In time they'll provide a break between our fence and our the neighbours. 

One of the things we've learned since we came to live in the country, is that good pasture doesn't just happen. Farmers are scientists, biologists and eco specialists when it comes to their land. Feeding cows so they can be milked is a huge endeavour. Not only do the cows need feeding, but so does the soil. With the correct inputs! We had our soil tested and we decided we will add a good dose of lime to our paddocks this year. So early on Monday morning, the co-op man in his big shiny piece of farm equipment turned up to spray lime dust all over the farm. 

He took off in a cloud of choking dust and headed down to the far corner of the farm.

He spread the lime all around and headed back for the top gate. Ah, notice the wood pile on the right of the picture? Well, we're just waiting for the fire season to come to an official end and we'll be having another 'opera in the paddock' evening.  

A rather tight squeeze and the big spreader made it back out of the gate.

We're hoping the weather will give us a bit of rain to allow the lime to soak into the ground. In the mean time, Frans is still feeding his cows twice a day by hand. They love him!  

We've had very little rain over summer. It's been the driest summer since records began for our area. This is the channel that usually funnels water into our dam.  

And we've come to the end of our apple season! We have picked buckets full! This year we're storing a few boxes. We wrapped the good apples individually and packed them in apple boxes we got from the supermarket. We'll store them in the shed. They will keep for a good few months. This will enable us to keep using our own organically grown produce in some of our preserves. 

Our Worcestershire Sauce is made from these apples! It is delicious! If you've never tried home made W. Sauce, then you must give it a go. You'll be converted. It took Frans 26 years to be convinced that this stuff is great on fried eggs and toast. Now he has it all the time!

The sign of a good home made Worcestershire Sauce is a good layer of sediment resting at the bottom of the bottle. 

I've been picking cucumbers every few days. There are only so many we can eat, so I've been pickling the rest. Sweet pickles, and Dill pickles. I'm looking forward to trying them out after their one month rest in the pickling brine! 

Now this has been a very long post! That's what happens when I don't put something up for a couple of weeks! My apologies!

I'll leave you with a photo of the newest farm additions. We have acquired 9 baby chicks. They came from Melbourne where they were hatched by incubator at a kindi. The children got to see the magic of chicks hatching, and we got to keep the chicks! We're hoping that some of these will be roosters.... (that way we can add some free range chook to the freezer!) 

Have a very happy week!