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

Buying Organic.....

Do you?????

There is alot of debate around about buying organic produce..
Today I had to take Alanah to T.A.F.E and the Organic Food Market is just near there so I thought I would drop in. Growing my own produce it doesn't bother me that the fruit is not picture perfect like the supermarkets are. It is the price that I do a double take on..For the items above I paid $18.05 for... $4.25 for the milk, now this I thought was O.k it is in a glass bottle that I can reuse unlike the plastic ones, also the milk is local. $6.32 for the Hommus, I thought that was a bit dear as it isn't even organic and I can get it half the price at Aldi. The tiny little cucumber was$3.07 hmmmm makes me long for the ones I grow. $2.06 for the capsicum, I thought that a fair price. I buy all my fruit and veg from the markets, they may not be organic but they are local and alot cheaper. With such a large family I think I will continue to buy my f&v from the markets. I will be going back to the shop for my milk, and also a good look around to compare grocery item prices.
Do you buy organic? or buy local? which do you think is the most important....To me I think local, I want to support my community to keep it going, so I will put local before organic and if I can get both , even better....Better still will be to go out and be able to get every-thing from my back yard !!Let me know what are your thoughts on this... Now for something far from organic......Last nights desert yummmmm. Custard, jelly and fruit , this is about all Greg's tummy can handle. The children don't mind as thy are getting desert something we have never worried about before. Greg is doing O.K he is constantly in pain though which is horrible for him. Also he can't really eat any-thing but fruit. We are just taking one day at a time.


Till next time
Mandy.........