Blue Eggs and Ham

To the left is a picture of Angelina - so called because she walks a bit like a ballet dancer (as in Angelina Ballerina). She is a bit special because she will apparently lay blue eggs, well eggs with blue shells. We are all very excited, although I am not sure if you can see from the photo but she has quite a lot of growing to do before any eggs will appear. On the chicken front it seems that all the chickens bought for $3 at the local market have in fact turned out to be hens, and with perhaps one possible rooster in the younger batch. James and I are in disagreement as I don't think we can eat them now they are hens as they are useful egg providers. Hopefully they will provide us with lots of chicks that can then fill up the freezer - he thinks I am just putting off the inevitable wherever possible...

Dora's cheese has turned out really very well - everyone that tasted it did so with a slightly skeptical look on their face, myself included, however we are all amazed at how lovely it is (once again, not too goaty). I won't take too many photos of food, however I am quite proud of my first jars so thought it should be recorded for posterity before I am swearing over the fact I have a cupboard full of the stuff and everyone is sick of it. Next challenge..fetta... actually no, the challenge is making what I have again without the cheesemaker here to be honest so lets see how I go. I am also attempting to get serious about the vegetable gardening and can be found with my head in books with titles like 'Companion Planting' and 'The Organic Gardener' muttering things like 'perennials' and feeling quite impressed with myself. I suspect I may find it harder than I think once the garden experts leave on their travels but luckily they have gone to great efforts to make sure they will be available on-line for consultations.

We have a launch date for Ormiston Free Range, with James agreeing to provide sausages to the Sydney Cellar Door Expo or some such thing. The date is for the start of March, which means 2 of our youngsters need to be ready for that, followed by the Mudgee Film Festival shortly after. We took delivery of business cards and signs yesterday... once again we have jumped in the deep end - our to do list is headed 'find sausage recipes' if that gives you any idea of just how organised we are...

Beccie brings the piglet count to 62

Once again it has been another week since I have braved the computer without a crisis happening in the middle and now finally can give you a catch up. First and foremost of course is that for the past 3 weeks Beccie has been threatening to give birth to her litter. We were concluding that she was enjoying abundant food and having the bed all to herself so much that she was actually just very fat and there were no babies at all. This morning she proved us all wrong by presenting us with 11 piglets, all very strong and healthy looking and fighting noisily over teat placement. She had her head in a bucket of food and looked mildly alarmed at the thought of going back in the pen with them (who wouldn't) but eventually managed to lie down and feed them without squashing anybody...

Woody continues to recover and after spending the weekend with his brother and a friendly golden retriever called Charlie is hopefully on the road to not mistrusting every large dog that decides to say hello to him. He spends much of his day trying to round up Coco who doesn't understand at all. We are waiting for an influx of local dogs as she is in season and as nobody castrates anything over here I am pretty sure that we are going to have a lot of farm dogs attempting to climb the fence and have their way with her. The thought of cattle dog X springer puppies doesn't really appeal to me so I am going to buy a large padlock for the gate and hope that it is sufficient.

Dora continues to give me over a litre of milk a day, not always happily but being a goat she can't really kick me in the same way as a cow so I just ignore her threats. I was lucky enough to be shown the cheese making process on Saturday by a local cheesemaker who kindly allowed me to ask many stupid questions and didn't mind at all. At the moment under our very professional cheese press (4 tin cans on top of a saucer) is our first Saint Maure goats cheese. The fridge is building up with the next batch of frozen milk and I think my next goal is to make fetta, which will keep for a long time and I can add to the growing number of jars in the cupboard. Initially in the cheese making process I asked John, the cheese maker, how I could tell if Dora's milk was any good. He looked at me slightly strangely and then said that I must taste it. I will be honest and admit that my initial response to this was supressing a strong reflex to gag however he and James both tasted it and declared it excellent so I felt I must. Very skeptically I took some off the spoon and surprisingly, it was very good and not at all 'goaty' (the trick apparently is getting it cold quickly). I am now pondering perhaps getting another doe and having a good excuse for my milkmaid arms.

Archie can be seen above living happily with his giant brothers and sisters and not growing at all. He still weighs 2 kilos despite our best efforts. Its not all bad though, he continues to provide much amusement to anyone visiting the farm as he is still incredibly tame and will happily attempt to take a chunk out of your foot if he mistakes it for a teat and you are silly enough to go up to the paddock in flip flops.

Woody nearly meets his maker..

It has been a while since I last wrote, of course this week is one in which we have lots of news, however little time in which to update everyone. Firstly this may have to be short because I decided today to use the strimmer (or whipper snipper as it is called here). Either I am a total wimp (very possible) or men are much stronger than women, no matter what the feminists say. I got halfway down the driveway and the arm holding the stupid thing up was so sore I was completely unable to make it do anything. Slight hyperchondria arose but a few minutes later and it started to respond, suffice to say that James finished it off for me. I will go back to making jam I think...which brings me nicely to our plum tree down the back. Vanessa has taken up running of an evening, something which we are all deeply impressed by considering that the weather is so hot that eating a meal seems to bring us all out in a sweat at the effort. On her way around the place she has discovered both wild plum trees and a fig tree loaded with fruit. Much picking has ensued by all and sundry and whilst I really wanted to make jam in my trusty breadmaker, James insisted it was to be done on the stove in the proper way. Six jars of jam and a very dirty floor later (where I forgot about it and it boiled over pretty much a quarter of the kitchen) my jam was done. As it won't set for me I have now turned it into plum sauce and am pretending that was what was intended all along (for the crispy duck that we will no doubt eat in abundance if we can ever bring ourselves to turn our lovely ducks into meat as planned) .

We also took delivery of our first 500 litres of whey from the local cheese producer. The idea is that we will supplement the growers with it, it will save us some feed costs, is supposed to improve the meat and is a waste product for them so best of all is free. The pigs took one look and initially decided that they preferred their windfall peaches provided by Susie on her nearby farm. Luckily 24 hours later they happily lap it up (as evidenced above) and it seems to be working really well.

Archie was sent back to mum and siblings as promised. Initially I was a bit worried about Andrea, however she adopted him back beautifully. At a quarter of the size of his brothers and sisters he has no hope of getting a look in on the milk side of things, however he is eating solids and I still go up and give him some milk each day. He is proving very popular with farm visitors of all ages as he is so tiny and friendly and runs straight out of the paddock to greet whoever is around and will give him some attention. I am thinking he is worth keeping for the comedic value. The rest of the time he sleeps with the other babies and you can usually see his tiny little face sticking out of a pile of piglets.

I have left it till last and won't dwell on it much - but poor Woody was in town with the farm vets (i.e Fiona and James), myself and two friends, Maddie and Nina, staying the weekend. We had been to the markets and Woody and Coco were behaving beautifully. We were just discussing aggressive behaviour in dogs when Woody's sleep was rudely interrupted by a 50 kilos mastiff/great dane that did it's very best to kill him. Whilst under the table asleep it came over (we thought to sniff him or have a look) and picked him up by the neck. All hell broke loose, I decided he was most certainly dead and am fairly certain was just noisily rocking in a corner, Fiona attempted to kick the dog off him and has been unable to use her foot since the day it happened, our friend Maddie has a large bruise on her hand from punching it and James got off lightly with scraped knees as he knelt on the floor and wrestled with the head end to get him out. This almost worked and then it grabbed Woody by the back end. I am sure it was all over relatively quickly but it felt like a long time. James was close to work and ran the pup up - I was pretty much carried up there by Maddie. There is a happy ending to all of this because on arriving into the clinic where we were sure that terrible news awaited we found Woody on the table, looking quite shocked but wagging his tail as if to say 'what the bloody hell just happened to me?'. To our disbelief he seems to be absolutely fine, apart from a puncture wound which was stitched on his rump, which you can see in the photo above if you look quite hard. Some intravenous diazepam seems to have had a memory blocking effect and so far (fingers crossed) he is not showing any terrible side effects behaviourally or physically. In contrast, Coco is quite jittery and I am pretty sure that it is her that will develop some sort of neuroses as a consequence.

To end on a happier note I am madly milking away every morning with Dora who mostly complies. I am getting about a litre a day, and I can't lie today I was truly excited as I managed to milk her with two hands instead of just one. I am pretty sure that this is quite sad and I really should get out more...

Home from Sydney to a spider infestation

Back from our break in Sydney - despite only being here for 3 months we both seem to have turned into country bumkins and spent much time commenting on the traffic, planes going overhead and noisy neighbours... Woody thoroughly enjoyed himself and became a slightly scruffy city dog - latte's on Balmain High Street, the Fish Markets and Fox Studios were all on his to do list and he was mobbed by many people to the point at which if we walked past someone in the street he would immediately sit down and expect to be fussed over... We did the usual - drove over the Harbour Bridge without meaning to, held up the toll booth because we didn't have enough money (luckily not inciting road rage in the queue of cars behind us), lots of shopping and got to catch up with friends and family. On return it seems that everything has grown, except Archie who remains stubbornly determined to grow out but not up. He is about to go up with Mum today but he is still not much bigger than a week old piglet. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile the weather is really very hot - it is 9.30 in the morning and I can hear the cicadas outside. Whether this is a contributory factor I know not, however we seem to be overrun with spiders - yesterday Fiona and Vanessa found one that I believe had I seen it I may have packed my bags and run away. Last night we had 2 crawl across the carpet whilst watching tv, one in the toilet, I got up to let the dogs out and counted 3 in my half awake state but just to show you how much better I am at coping I left them where they were and went back to bed. I am talking about really quite large huntsmans of the type I had nightmares about encountering when we came back here. I am used to watching very carefully when picking up clothes from the floor, banging wellies and opening cupboard doors (after one fell at my feet when doing the latter). This doesn't mean that I enjoy it and every time I see one I tend to at least, swear, and at worst yell and scream that I can't take it any more and demand that we get a pest exterminator in. My point is, in the UK prior to leaving I was seriously considering going to a hypnotherapist or cognitive behaviour therapist to conquer my fear of spiders - I can't believe I am coping. I haven't told James about the cockroaches that keep scuttling along the floor, I am saving that for when the spiders get too much because I think the sight of one would have him on the phone to Rentokil immediately.

Weaning Number 3

I am happy to announce that this morning's weaning went so smoothly it has left me with a slight feeling of disquiet - our laneway system between paddocks seem to be working well and it may be that these two are just our fattest and greediest sows and when faced with the choice of children or food forget they ever had babies in the first place. I am a little disappointed that my 3 handraised youngsters no longer even recognise me and bark and run away in much the same way as all the others - Dale disgraced himself by having to be lifted over the fence legs first because he was one of two that refused to go out the gate. Meanwhile Archie is in mourning as the family, including my sister, left yesterday. The kids are feeling the loss as well, however we are going to try and go to Sydney some time in the next couple of weeks.... it has just occurred to me that we haven't sat at a traffic light since August (Mudgee is a town of roundabouts) and that just doesn't seem right.

James' ferret has been christened Jessie - we have a farmyard of animals now almost exclusively named after Toy Story characters, as you can see our attempt at the Good Life has not extended to chucking in the television. We did attempt this at the beginning, primarily because ours blew up before we left, however after a month we went into the local electronic store to get something else and 15 minutes later found our children lying on their stomachs with heads in hands entranced in the middle of the tv section. Worried that this would happen when they went to people's houses we decided to scrap the idea and promptly bought one. Anyway, after a day of numerous trips to the hardware store and much hammering and noise coming from the shed, James presented her with a ferrett palace. She loves it so much we haven't seen her for 24 hours but we can hear her rustling about in it. All hopes of a rabbit free property are now resting on her little shoulders, however she is actually quite sweet and follows James around when he lets her out for a run. Despite my earlier misgivings I am not sure that she wont end up sleeping in front of the fire with the dogs on a winter evening - James assures me however that she will continue to have her unique odour - or as the kids say 'yuk, she stinks' - so maybe not. Happy New Year to everyone.

Christmas Greetings

Well, I can hardly believe that Christmas is over - Emily had a tantrum this morning because there was no advent calendar - the explanation of which she wasn't happy about as I think she thought that chocolate before breakfast was a routine that should obviously continue indefinitely. Not only did we have a lovely day, but so did the animals - fundamentally because they are all still alive. A couple of days before Christmas the ducks obviously got wind of James' appraising looks as they went about their daily business. They took to the dam and refused to come out no matter how much food was shaken or stones were thrown in (to shoo them out). We have had buckets of rain over the last week - so much that I discovered yesterday we in fact have a dam on this property I didn't know existed. The rain meant that there was not only a rushing river at the back of the property but also an overflow from each dam to the next, the ducks utilised this well and swam from one dam to another, somehow evading the foxes and there wasn't a lot we could do about it. From Christmas Day onward however they came back to the shed and have been behaving ever since?? Archie the sickly piglet has been adopted and nursed to health by my lovely sister, who he faithfully follows around and screams at when he wants a feed. As you can see he has happily joined the Ormiston dog pack and I have no idea how I am going to introduce him back into pig society.

Today James is the proud owner of .... a ferrett. I think my baby animal tolerance is actually perhaps nearing its limit. We have such a bad rabbit problem (I guess like all Aussie properties) that the local department of agriculture have advised gassing/poison/traps. We don't like the idea of any of those - poison oats may be found by pigs & dogs, traps are too horrible as is gassing. The solution therefore seems to lie in Coco, James, a gun and his new as yet unnamed ferrett. I am wondering how long it will be before we are known as the 'crazy Pom and his wife up on the hill'.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas too and are looking forward to the New Year. Merry Christmas!

Piglets and Puppies

Excitement is reaching fever pitch here as Christmas becomes closer - at playgroup on Thursday the local police drove up with sirens wailing and one of the local policeman had obviously been made to dress as Santa as punishment for some misdemenour or other at work. Despite having no beard and looking fairly unconvincing to most of the kids (they mobbed him like a pack of dogs) Felix was completely speechless and sat staring up at him waiting for his present with a look of amazement on his face. Emily was similiary affected and couldn't believe that Santa was able to get a police escort. Within a couple of minutes Felix however had turned his attention to the other policeman and somehow had them showing him their batons and handcuffs and running alongside the policecar with its lights flashing.

Today Archie, the handraised piglet above seems to be fighting fit - everytime I say this and think about putting him back with his mother however he has one of his turns and tries to die so I am not sure which way it is going to go. Woody is doing very well and yesterday almost got trampled by both the goats and one of the sows. Like a true farm dog he was then tied to the wheelbarrow with a piece of bailing twine when I had to go into the paddocks which he thought was completely unacceptable. He then decided to show me how helpful he could be by helping to bring in the geese, much to my disbelief. I expected it to be a couple of months before seeing any herding type behaviour unless he really is part dingo and is actually showing the signs of a ruthless and efficient hunter (with my behaviourists hat on I could draw many similarities but will spare you from it so fear not). However, he locked on to the geese and crept up next to them and was a great help, he then chased the chickens into their run - something which usually has me running and swearing and promising the errant chicken that he is the one that will end up in the pot if he doesn't do what I say. Overcome with the fun of it all he then ran into the middle of them scattering chickens everywhere and ate their food - so I guess an 8/10 all up. A trip up the street yesterday and the post office completed his education and I couldn't wake him for about 2 hours afterwards.

We are off to see some Wiltshire Horned Sheep today - which one of the locals who is far more knowledgeable than us has told us not to touch with a barge pole as they are worse to keep in than goats. The attraction is no shearing/crutching/mulesing, however I am not sure if the escaping thing levels the scales and we should maybe get a more traditional breed (or none at all?). James and Fiona are going to plough the bottom field and plant rather a lot of garlic which apparently is a surefire money making idea as it is very hard to find local garlic... I will be sure to post photos.

Woody is eating a chair so I guess I had better go to sort that out and the kookaburras are laughing at me so I guess I can take that as a sign to finish.