Felix and Emily broadcast the Farm

It has been a long time between blogs - long enough that Felix and Emily have become obsessed with making video's on my iphone - they know how to work it with much more expertise than I do! As you can see they also spend far too much time at the farm shop and cafe because they can direct people there independently. When particularly bored they will clear tables and charm customers....mostly though they drink hot chocolates milkshakes and ask when they can go home. I don't blame them at all. The cafe seems to go from strength to strength. We have been so lucky with our local chef Rachael McCarthy who comes in and helps us to figure out what to do with all the seasonal ingredients - running a 100mile cafe in Australia is more challenging than we initially realised... longer distances between farms than the UK for a start - however there is so much fantastic produce out there. With books like The Omnivores Dilemma and the latest movie Food Inc we find there are more and more people seeking us out because of the principles on which we run the shop.

On the home front, piglet losses from a crafty fox over Christmas who figured out how to take piglets out of the back of a farrowing sow (sorry if you are having lunch) were enough that at this time of year we are quite low on stock numbers. Luckily we have both decreased fox numbers and now know that as long as they are in the nursery paddock the foxes don't bother. This does mean however that we have had a month's break from both Mudgee and Sydney markets. This has been a nice break on one hand but not great financially for the farm. Our 10 month old calves went off to market and managed to fetch enough money so that the Grey Ladies have now paid for themselves. We have also lost few sheep of late and are not sure why - of course the most hardy sheep that seem to cope with everything are the five old merinos that we bought to train Woody.

Once more after thinking it would never rain again we have had abundant amounts over the last couple of months. The paddocks are sodden and there is so much feed that my horses are enormous. Jazz went to a friend's spelling complex for a bit of Jenny Craig treatment before our last 2 competitions and is now on holidays in the front paddock having managed to come back looking very trim and healthy. She has only just started talking to me again. Here we are at one of the local dressage days.

That is about it really, we are enjoying wood fires and can't believe it is June already. We have started putting our legs for Christmas Hams away already! James has found a possible proscuitto and fermented salami producer and we are trying (and failing) not to get too excited. We finally uploaded the new website www.ormistonfreerange.com.au (have a look) and are venturing into online ordering. The tractor has also died and we are in the market for a new one and we are waiting for Dora and Maggie to have their winter kids - this year I am determined to start making feta again.

Our Evening Walk

Country Living... or not? On our evening stroll around the place this evening we were accompanied by two children wearing ipods who deafly yelled all answers to any questions but insisted on having an outdoor adventure. Tree climbing and horse talking followed and then we gave up and took them home...

School Starts, Letitia the dog pig and others

Finally, as far as Emi was concerned, school started. Emi has settled in with amazing ease. She refuses to wear the pc unisex option shorts/trousers and insists on dresses everyday however we have had her hair cut into a fetching bob since this photo was taken because the battle to put her hair up every day was just getting too much for both of us. The year is flying by with the usual amazing speed. We have been attempting to spend Sunday afternoons/evenings having picnics on the property in a what feels a very colonial ritual - complete with the picnic table and chairs in the back of the ute...all we need is white linen tablecloths to complete the picture.

Letitia joined us after we discovered that we do indeed have a fox problem with our lovely pigs. For a month or two we had been wrongly blaming some of the sows that farrowed in the large field for very small litters. Unfortunately for the fox he got greedy and took an entire litter one night and then almost another entire one quite soon after. Letitia was left with a nasty injury and one other sibling. The other sibling joined another (safer) litter and Teesh came down to the house where dutifully did her 2 hourly feeds around the clock until she was a week old and in the words of Emily "she decided not to die". After a while we became a bit concerned that she was sure she was a dog and so she was put up with Britney and a litter of the same age who adopted her fairly readily. She still comes running up to the fence for her bottles but at least she is getting some pig play rather than having an identity crisis.

Jazz and I are venturing out and about as much as we possibly can... we have joined the local dressage club and will join the shiny and expensive horses whilst we bounce fatly around and attempt to look as though we know exactly what we are doing!

Happy New Year

We are back - after a lovely long (and cold) break. Before we left blogging became absolutely impossible as the Christmas rush meant little sleep and no ability to think outside of cuts of pork and smoked goods. Luckily everything went off without a hitch and all customers were happy. Demand meant that any pig that looked like it was weighing it at over 40kg was sent off and it reminded me of the chant from the movie Babe ("Christmas is carnage"). We are just getting back to production levels now and both had to hit the ground running after getting off the plane pretty much.

Our best Christmas present was obviously the rain, all 6 inches or so of it. Our dams are completely full, as are our water tanks, and in fact the difference between here and Singapore doesn't seem so huge. It is such a huge relief and seemed very strange to leave dry, yellow bare earth and come back to a lawn that was knee high in places.

We are getting ready for both Felix and Emi to go back to school next week and have many plans for the year ahead. It was so lovely in the UK for so many reasons but we loved the many farm shops pigs living as they should out in the fields. I attach a photo which I couldn't resist taking. Have a look at our slideshow of the holiday. I'm off to finish my patriotic Australia Day lamingtons...

Spring Update

It is dry dry dry - however as I type this it appears that the way to encourage rain is to plan something that requires it to absolutely not happen. Felix and James discovered this when they decided to camp on the back paddock during the school holidays. Tomorrow we had booked the sheep in to be shorn. Again this requires them to be completely dry. Despite no forecasted rain it chucked down 10mm in 20 minutes this afternoon...shearing is put off until Sunday.
Jazz is enjoying the green grass on the soak away.
Our olives are growing beautifully - the goats are not in James' good books after getting through the gate and stripping all spring growth off the entire orchard and also eating the 2nd year asparagus crowns that we just really hope will grow back again. They are lucky to be alive..
Meanwhile fencing of the said orchard, back vege garden and house paddock in general is going ahead at a great rate.

Third Dog Sydrome?

It is true what they say, dogs are like children. Felix has been photographed minute by minute but with Emi we stuck to the major milestones. Fergie as our 3rd dog has sadly missed out. I did however get some great mother and daughter shots today as she seems to have got the hang of a) staying and b) searching through the haybales for mice with Coco. My training whistles have arrived from the UK and James has sourced a shotgun that he is most happy with so all he needs now is some rain (fat chance) and it will be like a striding over the English countryside. Apart from her ridiculous name, which we just can't change (despite racking our brains) she is a great little dog. To my great surprise we have a doggy daycare centre which is most excellently run in Mudgee and she just loves to go there - she gets her exercise on the running machine, has a swim in the hydrotherapy pool and generally socialises with the other dogs. Coco is quite happy to have her around and we are all very devoted to her.

Errr... she is staying

The above news probably won't be a surprise to anyone, however in my defence there was a 'complete role reversal whereby I stayed focused and James steadily convinced me that in fact we definitely needed another spaniel. In all honesty there probably wasn't a huge amount of convincing needed, especially after Harry's owner Steve, also owner of the Dad came up to get him with two of his working spaniels. Jessie had her best day ever, and flushed seven rabbits...she is still asleep, James is saving for a shotgun and suddenly the prospect of English style shoots up here are on the cards. We have tried to change Fergie's name but unfortunately it has stuck. Yesterday she spent the day with James in the ute meeting butchers, tyre changers and many others as well as going into pre-school and running about with Emi's classmates. She loves her crate almost as much as Woody.

The horses are shedding their winter coats, I could have woven a rug out of the hair that came of Sparkle during grooming this morning. We are still desperate for rain and too scared to look in the tanks. The shop is doing well, we are off to Sydney markets this weekend and the school holidays start. It never stops around here...