Hello and welcome.

I thought it was time for a catch up with what we have been doing...

We have been busy having a good clean up in the sheds. It is a good place to stay dry and warm yet still be productive. This area I have cleaned up to make into a studio for myself. A beautiful sunny spot looking out to the vege garden. I have put the till in here to remind me of the days it was our shop..

The succulents are loving the sun and dry from the rain as well.

I do share the space with William but I am not going to show you that side..It is his hobby room as well and his hobby is gel guns...say no more he is a boy...

After all that cleaning we deceided we better have a garage sale, we had that last weekend.

I still had so much left from the shop....Yarn O my so much yarn, any way 

now we have nice clean sheds..

Such a great entertaining area with our size family. 

Still hard to believe this was our shop, and yes I do still miss it, but times change and move on.

Even with the cold weather there is new life on the farm,

We have twins Dick and Dora

Bruce thought they were great names hahaha

We lost 1 lamb due to the cold while we were out at Cassie's which is such a shame and so sad.

 We have so much happening in the vege garden as well.

Our first tomatoes are coming along nicely...

 

Zucchinis have kept us going all winter, along with the carrots and beetroot.

Despite the winds and frosts and cold the vege garden has done so well...

I will have to do a post just on the vege garden next time...

Until then

Keep warm

Blessings

Mandy

ABusy Week end

Hello All

yes I am still here.....It is a busy time coming up to the end of the year.

This week saw Emma, Bruce's youngest graduate

year 12. 

This is Robbie's last week and then Will finishes primary school the week after. 

Then Christmas Holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been busy making lots of soy candle, soy melts, soap and lots of other goodies.

Boy my kitchen has been a production line but sure does smell good.

 Saturday saw me have my first market stall for many years.

Our local hall at Stockyard has started having weekly markets until Christmas.

I had a great morning and did well, sold lots of soap, candles and dishcloths.

Sunday saw us get our newest member of the family.

Her name is Zena and she has  stolen my heart. Zena thinks she is a dog

and sleeps at the back door through the day.

We also got our new chooks on Sunday, I will show you them later in the week.

Monday Mum and I went to the Bush Christmas display in Toowoomba.

I loved this window below and really want to make something similar to this.

I also loved the Christmas tree next to it.

Now I'm off to read what you all got up too on the 

week end.

Blessings

Mandy

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

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