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

Around the Farm.

                     This week I have been laid up at home after my procedure on my

leg...The good news is I got the all clear on my nose

so there will be no botox....which is just as well as I hate needles.

So I have been doing some cooking and fluffing around the house, funny

thing is when your told to stay still for a few days all I want to do is get up and do things.

These are super easy biscuits to make

2 cups almond meal

1 cup rapidura sugar 

2 eggs

bind all together and roll in wet hands so the mixture doesn't stick and

cook in a mod oven for 10-15 mins...

WARNING do eat the mixture before cooked as it tastes soooooo

good there will be none left....

Almond meal is quiet expensive so I buy the almonds and grind them up

in my thermomix.

I also use this mixture as a tart base with apples laid on top sprinkled with

cinnamon and sugar. yummo 

I got these recipes from Tania Hubbards book Gluten free Grain free. 

http://www.glutenfreegrainfree.com.au/gluten-free-blog/

Her recipes are so quick and easy go and check her site out.
I have turned these into jam drops, tarts, choc chip bics, ginger snaps what ever you want.

News Around the Farm.

Chooks

I have 3 new Araucana chooks, these little sweeties lay blue eggs.

Below you can see the difference in the eggs,brown, white and blue, they are a true blue colour aren't they pretty? and yes they taste the same and no the egg is not blue....True I have been asked that!!!

I have found that these girls a very flighty so I have had to keep them in a smaller

pen for now, I'm not sure if it is there nature or they need taming a little more.

My other exciting news is we have had our first lambs slaughtered...

Our first farm fresh meat.

We got both lambs done, there is a lot of roasts and chops some stewing meat as well.

Molly was on hand to help, she sat there the whole time watching me pack the meat up.

The only time she moved was when I put it into the baskets to take down to the freezer..

Other exciting news is next Tuesday I am flying to Melbourne for a few

days with my Mum and Alanah for a girly time.

I have never been to Melbourne so am so excited and looking forward to it.

Now if any one has any tips for where to go while we are there let me know.

 Have a great week end

Mandy

Week end...

How is your weekend going so far?

Friday saw William home from school with a tummy bug when I rang the school there where a few away so something was going around.

As I had made chicken pie for Tea Thursday night I had a nice chicken stock sitting in the fridge.

I made William a nice batch of chicken soup and he liked it!!!

 Meanwhile the chicken pie was left in the oven a little to long.....

Still tasted good though.

Saturday saw me blending up a lot off tomatoes. I decided to try something different this time. As I still have a good stockpile of tomato sauce and pasta sauces in the pantry I thought I would try freezing tomato sauce. All I did was blend up the uncooked tomatoes, basil, oregano and garlic in the thermomix and then put the sauce into stackable containers. My plan is I can then use the mix as base for soup or pasta sauce. At the moment I have plenty of freezer space so this works well.

Saturday evening we lit up the big pile of palm tree waste and had our selves a good ole fashioned bon fire. We had a great night with family and friends.

This morning it was all looking much cleaner.

In this photo below you can see to the right how big the pile was. It was a real eye sore and needed to be cleaned up.

Today I am having a day of nothing which includes a little reading, a little knitting may also be fitted in.

Enjoy your Sunday

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

Sheep, Chickens and Bananas......

Meet 

Helga, Brenda, Origin, and Starlight.

Helga and Brenda are the Mums and Origin (as in State Of Origin as he was born the night of the second game) and Starlight are heading for the freezer very soon.

The poor darlings have been a bit hot though as it has taken the shearer a while to get here.

They were spending a lot of time in the shade and insisted on having hay as it was to hot for them to go out side.

But now they are most happy and are spending all day outside. They don't even come to me now when I go down to feed them.

We also HAD a very handsome ram called Rambo.

But one night while we were on holidays there was some strange going ons in these parts.

Sharing the sheep pen were my beautiful rare bread chickens and 2 roosters 22 in all.

They were very happy, until in one morning Cassie went down to feed the chooks and sheep and there were only 4...Yes 18 gone in one night AND Rambo was dead as well.

What happened???????

I hear you ask, we don't know, there was no injury at all to Rambo and no signs of feathers or disturbance at all. We think foxes took the chickens and may be poor Rambo died of fright.

Once we were home we kept a good eye on the remaining four. But not good enough. 

William feed them one morning and by that afternoon 2 more were gone and poor Rocky the rooster was hanging upside down in the bird netting, this is probably what saved him though.

Rocky was taken back to the old chook pen to be with our last Mumma hen and her two babies.

As you can see he is very happy to be back.

Mumma has trouble keeping these 2 in toe as they like to go under the netting 

to visit Dad.

They have free range around the banana trees and are very happy.

Soooo

any one got any chooks for sale?????

I hve to get some more as it is strange having to buy eggs.

My Bananas are loving it here as well as the chooks.

The ones above were planted in September.

The rest were planted last week.

I have from the back to the front 2 of each.

Pisang Ceylan

Dwarf Ducasse

Goldfinger

Blue Java

Bluggoe

They have all been sent from up North and here in QLD we had to get

a licence from the DPI to be able to plant them.

As you can see they have a bit of catching up to do.

I am looking forward to when we have bananas all year round.

That is why I have planted 5 different types at different times.

I hope I haven't bored you 

to much with my ramblings, may be I should update my blog more

then I wouldn't ramble so much...

Blessings

Mandy

Hello...

Hi All...

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments on my last post. I would love to answer you all back but I am having problems with my email address here on my blog argghhh....It won't let me send any emails back to you...I'll work it out soon I hope.

I wanted to share this great photo my daughter took of the farm where they are growing there herbs. We have coriander and parsley growing at the moment. It smells so nice when they are over there working as the coriander reminds me of Vietnam.

On Saturday night we had a bush dance at the local hall, our 2 Japanese students loved it as it was there first bush dance. You can see them in the photo above, also William he loves to get down and do a little heal and toe action hahah...

Enjoy your week.

Blessings

Mandy

Ramblings....

When I read this post that is what I was doing

Rambling...

My little fruit trees are bearing a wonderful crop, the first one.

They have been in 3 years now and were 2 year old grafts when Greg and I planted them.

We have grapefruit, lemons, mandarins, oranges and lemonades. I have lost a citrus tree to all the rain, this is the sad little tree at the front.

I am going to replace it with an other mandarin tree as that is the children's favorite.

I also have tomatoes coming up everywhere, which is a real bonus. Lots of tomato soup will be on the menu I think.

I have managed to get a lot of pruning done around the yard the last week, despite the cold wind and rain. Still a lot to do yet though, I love the winter pruning. The garden has a bare beauty to it and also I get to see what is under all the shrubs.
Of course there is the planning of what to get to fill in those gaps that are left behind..




Driving around the farm on the week end I found this lonely sunflower, it reminded me of my favorite T.V show when I was a kid..Remember The Flower Pot Men... Mr Weeeeeeeed, Bill and Ben flower pot men.. Now that,s in my head I will probably being singing it to myself all day.
Hmmm maybe I could make some flowerpot men for the vege garden????

I am going in late to work today as I need to catch up on some washing and house work. Work is going well, even though it has taken me 18months to get the office in some kind of order. It is really hard when working there and trying to catch up on years of paper work..But come the 1st July every thing will be running smoothly....

But for now I had better get that washing on the line.

Blessings to all

and a special hello to Deb and my other friends and fellow bloggers in New Zealand

Mandy