The food garden

It is such a good feeling to be growing food again. Last night Ivy helped me transplant the corn from the seedling pots to the garden bed. She was amazed to hear the seedlings would be producing corn in about 10 to 12 weeks.

There are lots of seedlings coming up in the green house. I have tried to stick with planting the veggies and fruit we actually eat, rather than the things I think we should be eating. So there is watermelon, rock melon, lettuce, butternut pumpkin, cucumber, tom tomatoes, loads of basil, capsicum, egg plant. I am also giving some ALL YEAR broccoli and spinach a go. Plus a few herbs.

Both the orchards are full of fruit and I am still not sure what to do to protect the fruit. The only thing I seem able to look after properly is the figs. We lost all the peaches, I netted them, but the worms got to the fruit, and the fruit was very small. The tree probably needs to be pruned properly. The pear tree is full of fruit and again, I am at a loss about what to do with them. There is also plums and some other variety of stone fruit, which I am unsure of.

It was an amazing mulberry season, every tree in the region was dripping with fruit.

The last flush of lemons are maturing and there are still some oranges and mandarins on the trees. Citrus is easy, although the oranges and mandarins have a rust on them, though it doesn't seem to affect the taste of the fruit.

There are not many nuts on the macadamia tree this year, which is strange as the local commercial industry was predicating a bumper year.

Xavier is also keen to grow some flowers again this year, I will put in the usual marigolds and sunflowers, but I am also interested in finding out more about using flowers for companion planting.

Cow nurse

Brandy is on the mend, but two udders are still stuffed. I have been nursing her for the past few days, massaging her udder, milking out the two udders which are working and giving her injections of antibiotics. The vet came and gave her some anti-inflammatory, a diuretic and some more antibiotics. He said she didn't have a fever which he found amazing. Also, he said the calf was doing fine.

I now know I should have got in and milked her within 12 hours of her giving birth, especially because the calf was not latching on properly. The vet said she was over-sprung- meaning, she produced a massive amount of milk quickly. She was bunged up with milk within 24 hours of giving birth.

I have Brandy and the calf in a paddock next to the house block. Rosie is missing her and keeps bellowing out. Despite the abysmal failure of the house cow, I have not given up on the dream of one day milking our own cow, making cheeses and developing milk-maid arms. I now plan to double my chances. I will have Rosie, now 18 months, and Brandy artificially inseminated in about 5-6 weeks time. Brandy will be at her most fertile 30 to 60 days after giving birth.

There is some chance we will get milk from this cycle. Once the withholding period from the antibiotics is over in two weeks, I will take the calf off over night to see what I can get from a morning milk. Also, my neighbor, Hairy, said they had a cow that dried up from mastitis, but came back on with milk after it was cleared up and the calf was put back on.

The problem with cows

Brandy has mastitis and is only giving milk from two quarters. The other two are tight as drums and the fourth quarter looks a bit red and is dripping a little puss. Thank god for my neighbors who have been helping with her. I went to the vet yesterday and got some drugs which needed to be injected, but the drugs are not really working. So it seems I will have to get Joe the vet out this morning which will cost a lot. The bad news is Brandy will not give milk from the two affected quarters during this cycle, they will have to dry up. The mastitis must be affecting the let down in the other two quarters, the calf is not getting enough milk.

Unfortunately this has furthered the resolve of Bill who thinks the cows are a waste of money and a pain in the arse.

A cow is born

Some time today Brandy went quietly to the top of the paddock and gave birth to a bull calf. All the children and the neighbours trekked to the top of the paddock to meet the calf and congratulate Brandy.

The calf was having trouble latching on and Gilbert, our neighbor, got the teat and stuck it in his mouth. He was still having trouble when we all walked back down the hill, but Gilbert, who grew up on a farm, said he looked pretty healthy and thought he would eventually work it all out. Brandy was being very patient and protective. It is interesting that she chose to birth in the corner of the paddock furthermost from our house .

I must say, I was a bit disappointed to see it was a bull, knowing a bull would be destined for the dinner plate. Nobody wants a half dairy, half beef cow. The children are already begging to keep the calf, and we will for a while, but he will have to go eventually. Bill wants to sell him for beef, but I want to have him slaughtered for our own meat, which Bill will not hear of.

"I can't eat a pet, " he says.

To me it is ridiculous to sell him to the abattoir for very little money, when we could have him slaughtered for a very reasonable fee, for our own table. My final words to Bill were: "When he is fully grown and charging you in the paddock maybe you will change your mind."
"Maybe," he said.

Having said all that, I imagine when the time comes I may not be able to go through with it.

I have been told to wait until the calf does its first poo before milking. Brandy's teats were dripping with milk this afternoon.

BLISS - sourdough

Things are moving ahead in the garden slowly. I now have a lot of seeds in pots, but still have to solve the problem of making the garden totally chook proof. I will transplant the seedlings when they are quite mature, that way any chook which manages to get in will be less likely to dig up the plants.

The real success of the last week was perfecting my sourdough bread. It is a hit with the children too. Ivy said: 'Mum I love your hard stale bread.'

After much indecision about making a starter, I decided to go with a yogurt based one. Here it is:

1 cup of yogurt (with all the good stuff in it)

1 cup of stone ground organic wholemeal flour

1 cup of rainwater

I use homemade yogurt which was originally started with a culture from the Paris Bio dynamic brand of natural yogurt- any yogurt with a live culture will work. Mix ingredients and leave in a bowl covered for three to five days, stirring every day to stop the flour sinking to the bottom. Once it appears frothy and bubbly on top, it is ready to use - mine took three days, but it takes longer in winter.

To bake the bread, remove half the mixture and put it in a mixing bowl. Replenish your starter with 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water- mix in and put in the fridge in a container with a lid. It will keep for six weeks, if you are using it every day you do not need to refrigerate.

Add to the mixture 1 cup of flour, three tea spoons of salt and 1/2 cup of water. Kneed for about five minutes. Add more water to a dry mixture or more flour to a wet mixture, but keep the dough slightly on the wet side. Form into the shape of a loaf and put into a bread tin greased with olive oil. Cut two lines across the top to stop loaf from splitting when it rises. Leave it to rise for half a day, the longer it sits the more sour it will taste. Leaving it overnight is fine too, but will have a stronger taste, which you may prefer. It should double in size. You will know it is done if you press the loaf and it resumes its shape.

Bake slowly in a moderate oven. I have a large fan forced oven. I cook it for about 55 minutes on 160 degrees. If your loaf is soggy in the middle it has been cooked too quickly or in an oven which is too hot, or the size of the loaf was too big. Sourdough is a dense bread and there are limits to what can be achieved without resorting to all those bits and pieces you find in commercially made breads. Once the loaf is baked, wrap it in a tea towel so it does not loose too much moisture from steam.

And on the cow front, we are still awaiting the birth of our new calf. If it is a girl the children want to call it Buttercup, if it is a bull I have suggested Beef.

Brandy, the mother, is being very affectionate and calm. The mucus has increased a lot over the past few days, so I think it must be close. Her udder is full and I have been able to easily milk colostrum from her. Her teats are on the small side, but they work fine. The children are still excited, but are getting a little impatient.

Almost forgot to mention, it rained this week after months of dry. The heavens opened at precisely the same moment the water carter was filling our bone dry tank.

Now the chooks are destroying the garden

Last year it was the cats, now it's the chooks. I have planted out the veggie patch three times and on each occasion the chooks have got in and obliterated everything.

I managed to raise everything from seed this year - last year the cats kept laying in the seed trays and I couldn't figure out why nothing would come up. So, all went well on that front, but when it came time to plant out, the chooks got in and un-planted the lot. The first time it happened I almost cried. The seond time it happened I did cry. The third time I simply went nuts and had a chook been at hand I would have happily trialed my friend, Kirrily's, neck-wringing method. Keeping them out has proved almost impossible.

Bill and I clipped their wings which was quiet a task. We had to catch them and hold them still while all three children screamed,"Don't cut their wings off, please Mummy, don't do it." Anyway, even with clipped wings they can still manage enough lopsided flight to get into the veggie patch.

Bill is now erecting new posts so that we can increase the height of our chicken wire fence. Fingers crossed this will be the solution.

The veggie patch is full of weeds and it has been a bit heartbreaking to see it so over-grown, but I have refused to do anything in there until the chook issue is solved.

I have been working full-time for the past three months. So, it has been a bit difficult to achieve anything. Things are kind of back to normal, although I am still putting in full-time hours at the moment. I am working on our local daily newspaper as a journalist which brings with it very long hours.

The other thing that has happened around here is spring chickens were born a week ago. Nine gorgeous little fluff balls. The children have really enjoyed watching it all. A few eggs were abandoned by the mother hen and inside two of them were almost fully-grown chicks who were trying to peck their way out. We helped them out, but they died.

Bill is feeling a bit overwhelmed by being a full-time house-dad and the amount of work that needs doing around this place. The pressure of me being at work is taking its toll too. I think he would be happy if we sold-up and moved into suburban house with a concrete backyard.

Spring

I am determined to grow most of my produce from seed this year. Last year's efforts were sabotaged by my cats who kept laying in my seed trays. It took me quiet a while to figure out what was happening.
So far so good. Lots of spinach is coming up.
I have a pretty sizable supply of compost too.
I have started a second worm colony. My friend Anna said that the worms get stripes on them when they are breeding up...mine don't. Mind you, at Anna's suggestion I added a layer of wet newspaper to the top of the worm farm, and the worms seem a lot happier. I will keep looking for the stripes.
Keeping the chooks out of the veggie patch is still proving to be difficult..
Looking forward to a good growing season ahead.