James takes empathy to a new level..

Today started out as a normal day - weaning Beccie's piglets, moving the very pregnant Lucy, Rosie and not so pregnant (but supposed to be the most pregnant so not sure what is happening there) Beverley down to the maternity wing. I was out with the kids and James decided that he would do a spot of pig tagging (giving them an ear tag and number) himself. This was cut short as he calmly walked back to the house with blood all over his neck and said he had just 'cut' his ear. I bravely decided to inspect more closely, however after identifying that the metal stake had actually gone through the cartilage at the top of his ear I started seeing spots and had to sit down myself. He drove himself up to the hospital where there wasn't a whole lot they could do except clean it up and give him a tetanus shot. He bravely came back and we continued the ear tagging - this time with me weilding the big pair of pliers that puts the hole in their ear out of necessity whilst James held them as still as possible. I am not sure who squealed the loudest, the pigs about being held, or me every time I punched the hole in their ear... not for the faint hearted (of which I would usually categorise myself however needs must).

This week we have had both pan fried goat and slow roasted goat shoulder. I don't deny that the whole goat saga has been a little stressful for me. I felt very guilty about the little pain in the bum that was Bam Ram. I therefore approached the whole goat eating with great trepidation and so carefully watched Fiona as she ate before me for a hint of goat identification in the meat (which with Fiona would make her run wretching from the table). This was not forthcoming and so whilst I made a bit of a fuss I had to eat my words after eating the goat, as it tasted not too different from lamb. So encouraged am I that I am taking Dora back to a Boer (meat breed) goat for her to be re-joined as the only setback of getting rid of her kids is that she appears to be quickly drying up milk wise.

We again have a full week of sausages - this weekend a Mudgee Food and Wine event in Birkenhead in Sydney, on Thursday a bike-riding event that sees around 1000 bikeriders descending on Mudgee (hopefully feeling desperately in need of a pork sausage) and Friday we have another local wine event at which our sausages and pork belly will be one of a number of options to soak up a bit of alcohol. This week we are bravely moving away from the gourmet sausage and trying hot pork rolls as well....

Happy Easter

Oops, yet another week has gone by and no updates! Last weekend began with selling our sausages at Mudfest (a local small film festival at one of the wineries) AND selling some to a local chef who used it for a grape stomping lunch at yet another winery. It was our first time selling in Mudgee and once again the response was great - all sausages sold and Mudgee free range pork got a mention in the local paper too... The pigs got a reprieve this week as we step back and have a think about how exactly this is all going to run - of course we have pondered endlessly but come up with nothing so are going back to plan A - just keep putting it out there whenever we can. We are aiming for the next Mudgee farmers market to actually start the Ormiston stall so are in the process of finding out about licencing and all the other fun things that go with selling food to the public.

The Good Life continued with our first almost completely self-sufficient meal - roast pork, potatoes, beans, a small sad piece of brocolli and cabbage. The last pigs were almost used up but had the legs left over so we are awaiting a ham and have a freezer full of spare ribs and leg roasts - they join the duck with the little feathers that we can't get rid of and sadly very soon the little buck goat. I am once again wrestling with my concience that is yelling "keep him as a pet" - however I am trying to reassure myself we are doing the responsible thing by having it all done here and not putting him through the trauma of going to market. I will of course be as far away as possible with the kids, while a helpful local is coming up to do the deed. It is a steep learning curve this farm thing. The children of course think he is going to a lovely farm where he will live happily ever after and are comforted by Gracey, the little kid, who would usually have been weaned many weeks ago. I feel she will probably have a bottle a day for the rest of her life because Emi and Felix (and okay...me) find it so rewarding.

After a long wait it is finally starting to become obvious which of our chickens are hens and roosters. Coming up to the feeding shed I was very excited to hear some lusty crowing and ran around the corner eager to see who our first rooster was. Angelina posed proudly on the gatepost and continued to show me her cockadoodledoo for about 15 minutes. She has now been renamed Brad and seems quite unfazed by the fact that he is half the size of the larger ladies - he flaps about importantly and I am told the Isa Browns are quite partial to his charms. I am awaiting the arrival of some more blue egg layers who are actually laying so that I don't make the same mistake twice.

Easter is of course eagerly awaited with great excitement and the counting down of sleeps by Emi and Felix... they will no doubt spend the weekend high as kites on sugar after consuming as much chocolate as humanly possible before 9am tomorrow morning.

We wanted to drop Maggie the new goat off with Elvis the billy for a naughty weekend and hopefully a pregnant outcome, however I forgot the trailer was full of whey and out of action for another week. There had been much excitement around this trip as Elvis' owners have a herd of Shetlands and Minature ponies and pony rides had been mentioned. We went out minus the goat with much anticipation. They both had a lovely time on Ruthie the pregnant Shetland - unlike most of her breed (especially the ones that I remember) she was absolutely delightful. I am holding back hard on the horse thing, however the offer of letting Ruthie come and stay with us for holidays so the kids can have a ride around on her might be the compromise we have been looking for. Felix just wanted to go 'faster, faster' and Emily endlessly sang a tuneless song that seemed to comprise of "I'm riding a horsie, I'm riding a horsie" the whole time....nobody fell off.

Not content with the growing list of work that needs to be done on the place, James has decided that we need both a cellar and an outdoor woodfired oven (legal in a total fire ban or not is the question of the week). I am in the midst of registering Coco's pedigree in Australia and have had to become an official dog breeder in order to register any puppies that she has - Ormiston Woody continues to be both a huge pain and a delight at the same time. He and James have formed a blokey partnership and if not together he can usually be found destroying my garden and barking at anything he can possibly convince himself we need to be protected from.

Our Pigs are lucky but surely it should be normal??

I try to steer away from getting on my high horse about animal welfare..but what else is a blog for if it isn't to express your opinion? Thought it a good opportunity to show anyone interested the latest add campaign against factory farmed pork (which is where all your pork comes from unless it states free range!).

www.pigad.blogspot.com.

Watch if you dare!! The videos are particularly distressing - especially for me when I know what a nice life our herd has..

Ormiston Free Range is open for business...

I had to do it really - pictures from paddock to plate as it were. We have toasted Gloria on many occasions and it feels as if she has had a proper send off - she will always be remembered as the pig that launched the sausage from now on. It is a hot Tuesday afternoon and I think we are really just coming down to earth....even the dogs look exhausted.

The story goes something like this...

The pig eventually arrived at the butchers at about 10.30 on Saturday morning to everyone's intense relief... I went in with James to see the sausages being made with a sweaty brow in case my professional manner was compromised by bursting into tears at the sight of a named pig ending up on the hook - I think James thought this was a possibility as well so he tried very hard to let me stay in the car. Not to be deterred I crept in behind him with eyes averted in case I needed to run out but luckily they had made all 800 sausages and they looked so amazing that we were just terribly excited. The reaction from our lovely butchers also made it all worth while, they were amazed at the consistency of the meat and loved the spice mix that we made up for them.. obviously we let them take some to give us some feedback.

We left them to hang and set but cut off a few to take them home to a waiting audience of willing tasters... the difference in the sausages made from our meat was very evident, they even smelt different when cooking. The spices that overpowered the intensive bland practice sausage meat was perfect with the richer berkshire pork. We decided that I should go along for the day as well and luckily Mum, Fiona and Vanessa were on hand to look after the fort.

Emily must have sensed that I needed a decent night's rest and helpfully woke me at 1.30 on Sunday morning. After this I of course couldn't get to sleep for fear of not hearing the alarm... 3.00 am came around and we were off, both feeling a little sick with nerves and tiredness. The NSW Cellar Door Expo was held in Hyde Park with around 300 wineries from all over NSW - we were in the Mudgee area with another smokehouse, a vension farm, a thai restaurant and a winery restaurant of stalls. I started to feel very nervous for our sausages at this point. I watched the stall from a distance as the doors opened at 11.00 - people wandered past but didn't buy...about 10 minutes of angst followed but by 11.30 we had a queue that didn't go down until 4.30 that afternoon when we sold our last sausage. It really was an amazing experience - we had incredible feedback and lots of requests for which markets in Sydney we would be selling our meat. James managed to drive home that night aided by red bull and jelly babies whilst I lay comatose beside him.

Weigh day took on a whole new meaning yesterday - one of our Berkshires hit the magic number of 70 kilos as did one of the Landrace X girls so they are off today to make up the order for one of the local restaurants and more sausages for Mudfest (a short film festival that attracts about 1,000 people at a local vineyard). They are all very confident in the runs now and go through the scales quite calmly (aided by a handfull of food in the crush which had the unexpected effect of making them unhurried about wanting to leave it). This week we decided they could go home through the walkway by themselves after being weighed but they all refused to leave the stockyards. Dorothy (one of the ginger girls that was handraised) sat at the gate and grabbed it in her mouth shaking it back and forth when we shut her out. On the piglet front we have just lost the second one from our latest litter to some kind of respiratory type infection - despite getting antibiotics, a hot water bottle, fluids and me attempting to stuff a bottle in its mouth most of the night it died this afternoon. It seems very strange that the weakling runts that have been at death's door seemed to live through anything and the strong little fellow that we bought down here deteriorated so quickly...

My goat Maggie (black and white like a Magpie) is getting a little better, I got to observe goat behaviour first hand when they clashed horns and strutted around each other sizing up the opposition. It would have been impressive except Dora is such a rickety old girl that it was like watching a granny beat someone with their handbag. Maggie is still quite flighty but will at least take food from my hand. Gracey is still her demanding self and is enjoying eating her way through my pomegranate tree when I don't watch her closely. She is now with the other kids learning to be a goat.

The website is in progress and you can contact us on james@ormistonfreerange.com.au or georgie@ormistonfreerange.com.au from now on. Sausage recipes gratefully received!

Goat dairy??

Perhaps this post should read "RIP Gloria"but that's a bit morbid isn't it! Actually all initially went to plan...she was unfazed by the load up and the journey and the abattoir was exactly what we wanted -a small business that treated them very humanely and everything was hunky dory. I did think that I may chain myself to the gate and have a last minute change of heart on the whole producing meat thing, but actually I was strangely accepting of it all. Anyway, the butcher was expecting delivery on Thursday to make up our 800 sausages for Sunday's festival. It is Saturday morning as I type this and the pig still hasn't arrived. Thankfully the boss of the abattoir is driving it across this morning and the butchers are going to work overtime to get it done for us. Needless to say yesterday was a little manic. Photos of our first ever stall to follow soon.

On a happier note we have added to the goat dairy with 2 newcomers - Grace, who Felix has decided is just like a new puppy, is a little handraised Melaan (Australian breed of dairy goat) - she actually thinks she is a dog and James carried her home in the car on his lap - much to his absolute disgust. Felix as you can see runs about with her and feeds her the bottle twice a day and is very taken. The second goat is the British Alpine who looks like some kind of African Gazelle. She climbs the wall when I go near her so not sure how that equates to her ever letting me milk her but we will see - lots of carrots.

Winners

Well, it was a proud day for Coco and Felix who entered the Pet Show at the local Mudgee Show today. Competition was TOUGH...amongst the 3 entries in the class there was a guinea pig, a chihuahua and of course Coco. Felix took over the microphone and the conversation around the showground went a little like this:

Commentator: So, what is your name

Felix: Felix Daniel Caspar

C: wow, and what is this little guys name, can he do any tricks then

F: HE can't do any tricks because HE is a girl...

C: Oh, sorry, well can she do any tricks

F: yes, she can roll over

C: can you show us

F: No, only my Mum can get her to do it with a special word

And so it went on. Coco was very good, she took out the prize for 'Most Obedient' although Felix was a little miffed that she didn't also get 'Most Friendly'.

I only wish that I got some entries in for the baked section of the show - some of my special favourites were - best packet baked cake and - best loaf from a breadmaker... James is determined to win both next year. The animal nursery was met with boredom by both kids who said 'we have all of those animals at home, why would I want to see them here', however both went on the Dodgem cars with James to great excitement although Emily looked as though she was going to throw up for a lot of it (as did James towards the end). Sadly we couldn't stay for the ute muster although we were determined to stay and see the first heat of the camel race...

The Girls Move into their new field

Here are the girls in their new 'home'...it is a much bigger field with some maize in it (right) that they made very short work of in the first 24 hours. They are having a lovely time galloping about and generally trashing the new area, meanwhile James is planning to plant a turnip crop in the old paddock to give them something to dig around and eat when it eventually recovers. Meanwhile D day approaches quickly - Gloria is due at the abattoir next Tuesday, true to our usual style we have some slight last minute problems with the politics between the Free Range Pork Farmers Association (Us) and the Australian Pork Limited (intensive) - it appears that there is not much love lost between some members of each and we may not be able to get a number that is necessary to tick the box for the final hurdle when taking them to the abattoir... we have a contingency plan and it is apparently being fought out over the weekend - who would have thought - I am trying not to worry about it because there is a possibility that we may grind to a halt at the final stages but we are thinking POSITIVE.

Final sausage tastings took place with our travelling farmhands making a very welcome comback, and James also tried some of the Mudgee Fine Foods committee members to finalise our thoughts. The banner is being printed and the aprons are too (watch out for our merchandise next). It suddenly occurred to me this week that we are actually going to do this, every weekend, from now on (when I made this point to someone they were astonished that it has taken this long to hit me). I can only assume I have been in denial for my own sanity.