Growing Our Own Meat..................

What a wonderful sunny week end we have been having here.

I have been doing lots of pruning and planting in the garden, but

today I thought I would show you some of the animals we have here and give you

a break from gardening posts.

These animals are for food, yes we still name them and treat them as pets but we know that

they will end up on the table. This is all new to us,  we have had our first lamb

this winter and have been enjoying it. Yes it does taste better and we know exactly what we are eating.

We have our two pigs that are growing well but get shy when ever I go to

take there photos....Bruce wants to make a smoke house and experiment with smoking

when we slaughter them. This is exciting to us and we are reading all we can about smoking, we don't know any one that has done this before so if any one out there has any tips that would be good.

It won't be long and we will be able to slaughter our first cow from those heard, meanwhile they are

doing a good job eating all the grass before summer gets here and the threat of fires.

We have our chickens that we are getting lots of eggs from each day.

Our new addition is meat chickens 21 of them....We love chicken and it is so expensive to buy free range organic chicken. We got our organic grain from Heritage seeds out at Pittsworth.

Costing will work out at $6 per chook now that is half what I pay and the chook will be twice the size.

We don't need to worry about fish as my friend

runs a fish farm 7 mins away so fresh fish is close. I do enjoy 

ocean fish and will still buy Salmon when I can.

Next on the list is turkey for Christmas, and I would like some geese to keep in the 

food forest to keep the insects down. I don't like the taste of duck so I don't think we will be getting any of them even though if I could buy some Indian Runners I would

because they are a beautiful animal.

What do you have in the way of home grown meat???

It's taken me a long time to get this far and I am enjoying our farm so much and 

all that we can grow here, knowing every thing is free of ALL chemicals and sprays and 

all feed that we supplement is organic.

Enjoy your week end

Mandy

A Spend Free Week and Around the Farm........

We have some new members of the food chain here.

Finally we have new chickens after all our rare bread ones were taken in the new year.

Why so long to get some? I really,really wanted rare bread ones again,but they are soooooo expensive.

So I decided to just get any chooks I could for now and slowly buy my rare bread ones 

a few at a time....For now though I am getting eggs again and I am happy.

Meet Martha (black) and Penny (brown)

These lovely girls are saddle back pigs, and they are so pretty and tame. Now we now that they will end up on the table

and every one says I shouldn't name them, but happy animals are what we are about and William and I can't be down  playing with them saying "Hey you" now can we.

As soon as the animals see me they all come running for there food. We have 2 sheep ready for 

slaughter, Starlight and Origin...We still haven't got a new ram after the chicken and sheep disaster at Christmas. I think I will have to buy some new lambs in spring for next year until our ram arrives.

 I was like the Pipe Piper of cows they weren't letting me get away with out something to eat, they followed me all the way to the gate and then bellowed at me. I am looking forward to the time they will be ready to eat as well, for now though we get our meet from a local organic farmer.
Next on the list in meat chickens, but that won't be until after winter, this time next year we will be very close to producing most of our food here on the farm.

This week I am challenging myself to a 

No Spend Week....

It is Thursday and I'm doing well, the cat is now eating weet-bix and almond milk as I have run out of cat food!!!!!

I am cleaning out the fridge and pantry and making some interesting meals.

I have a few things still in the vege garden that we are eating, won't belong before all the crops are ready to harvest.

We do have to go to Stanthorpe this week end for William to play soccer. We are taking the 

caravan and staying at the free site there, food I will take with me from home.

Well that's the plan.....I'll let you know how that goes!!!

It is interesting having a spend free week as I'm seeing that I tend to go to the shops

when I run out of something instead of making do with what I have..

Has any one else tried to to have a week with out spending money?

I would love to hear how you went....

Blessing to all

Mandy

Living a simple life......

Every day I give thanks that I can now stay at home and look

after my family...

To have the time to cook good wholesome meals that my family enjoy.

To be able to potter in my green house raising seeds,

taking cuttings for friends and family.

 To plant those seedlings in the vege garden and then harvest them for meals.

Yes I am enjoying living my simple yet fulfilling life. Life is defiantly being lived at a slower pace here, one 

that I know this family is enjoying.

We are all kept busy working on and around our farm though.

Bruce and the boys have been very busy building fences to keep the new cattle in.

We now have 4 different paddocks to keep the cattle and sheep in.

I love walking out the back to see happy cattle grazing and all that fire danger being eaten down.

New fruit trees have also been fenced off, I have planted more mangoes, citrus and a Pomegranate, this will be my new food forest and eventually the chooks will be moved out here.

I still do the  bookwork for our business, and sometimes blogging..haah

But when I'm finished doing bookwork I can walk outside and pick some fruit, or do some gardening.

Yes my life is Simple happy and yet very busy.

There are now so many blogs out there that share there lives as they live a more simple fulfilling life.

I think more and more people are trying to reclaim there lives by getting back to the basics..

What do you think???

Mandy

Be Back Monday

I have been up in the Dairy scrap booking and came down to find this........
Some one left the gate open and the cows were just starting to come out to the green grass, but it was all good as Guss the cow goose was making sure that they were behaving.
Glad I came out when I did as they were all on there way to the gate, how they new it was open I don't know..





The gardens are looking so lovely out the front with the mulch on and a good water they have just taken of.
We never got any rain yesterday, just false hopes. We will need some soon as the grass in the paddocks is starting to dry off.


I am of to Roma tomorrow with the 4 youngest children, we are going to see Jessica our eldest daughter. Jess moved out to Roma in July and we haven't been out to see her place yet.
She has been home a few times though.. Hubby isn't coming as we have 2 fellows away on holidays so he is having to work weekends as well. Chloe will be home to look after him though so they will have a good time together just the 2 of them.

I will be back on Monday after-noon. It takes about 4 hours to drive to Roma, but we will take our time as Jess doesn't finish work till 4 o'clock.






The dry creek bed is coming along nicely, I am really excited about this project as we have taken an ugly part of the garden and are making a real feature out of it. I have plenty of plants potted up waiting to go into this area.

We have had a great first week of the school holidays, haven't done much, every-one has been happy just to be home relaxing and doing their own thing, all looking forward to seeing big sister though......

Be back after the week-end. hope you all have a great week-end....

Mandy

Lots Of Photos

What a wonderfull week-end we had, busy yet at the same time relaxing. Both boys had soccer on at the same time on Saturday so we were home by 10.30.a.m So the rest of the day was spent in the sewing room. I didn't even have to think about tea as we all went out for Chloes' birthday. 40 of us I don't think they new what hit them. Chloes' group of friends are so lovely they all finnished grade 12 last year and still keep in contact.They are all well behaved, I love this group of young people they know who they are and what they want in life. Most of these friendships wil last a life time.

Sunday after-noon we went out to celebrate the safe arrivale of Neila Lee our neighbors new baby, here she is wearing the little botties I made her.

The rest of the day was spent sewing and unpicking, sewing and unpicking, at least I had a nice sunny spot to do all that unpicking in. I finnly got my vest made and I love it. It is the first thing I have made my-self in over 10 years( explains the unpicking) Only it is WAY to big so I am going to have to take it in at the seams, won't be to hard.

I also got some scrap booking done on the week-end I got all the photos in I just have to embellish the pages and write on them. This year I have set my-self a goal to get all the photos into albums, this is no easy task understand as I have 20 years of photos to sort through!!!!!!!!!!!!1

But I have made a start and that is often the hardest thing for me.

I am having a cupcake phase at the moment. I tend to have a few, phases that is not cupcakes! Don't you just love these pin cushions. I got the pattern from an on-line shop at www.angles cometoplay.com.au They have some really great things.I think every-one will be getting pin cushions for Christmas this year....

While I was busy doing all this crafting and drinking cups of coffee the men folk were out working. Well some one has to I suppose(ha,ha) We have 10 new little calves and 8 of them are males so the boys had to put rings on them.We always have more bulls then heifer's I wonder if this means any-thing in the cow world. My husband loves his cows and is very proud of them we have 38 with all the new babies so we will be sending some of to the sales soon.

I know there are alot of photos this post but I couldn't decide which ones to use sooooooooo I used all of them.

Mandy