Just an update on what is happening on the farm.

We had another calf last week this one was from our angus cow.

This cow has a bit of a history.  Over 5 years ago we were renting not far from where we live now and we were blessed to be able to have a couple of milking cows and pigs and vegetables.  Heather (the cow) required joining, so we sent her across the paddocks to our neighbours who were friends of ours to be served by their bull.  This happened, but Heather stayed there a bit longer than necessary and then we couldn’t find her.  We think our neighbour actually sold her with his own cattle.

Our neigbour found a cow he thought was Heather and returned her to us.  We don’t think this is Heather, there is no way we can milk her and she is a little bit wild.  Maybe it is Heather and she enjoyed her freedom running the pastures with the other wild cows and decided this was the better way to be, who knows.  Anyway she gives us a good meaty calf to butcher and eat.

We have finally weaned the piglets to the joy of their mothers and are now busy fattening them up with all the milk we are getting from the two cows we are milking.  We are going to put a sign up this week announcing them officially for sale.

My husband is getting ready to cut hay in a couple of weeks.  Our crops and grass paddocks haven’t grown as well as we had hoped, the rain sort of ran out in mid August, so instead of heading (harvesting) our crops he will cut it for hay instead.

We usually keep our pigs in a feedlot pen with hay as the bedding. Now we need to dig it all out and spread it and work it in where we are going to grow vegetables.  That’s a job to for this week.

Our chickens are laying really well and we are getting almost 2 doz eggs a day (that’s why I can make such big quiches).  We need to butcher some roosters very soon and I might can them using a “Chicken a la King” recipe.  This is a great recipe and I enjoy just being able to cook some pasta and open the jar and mix it together for tea.

I am trying to finish off pruning my roses and I hope to have this finished this week.  I am running late again with this, but they will still give us a lovely flower show.

We are about a month off starting our aquaponics system where we grow fish and vegetables.  Our fish are arriving at the end of November, so my husband is just testing the water out now with goldfish and so far so good.  We have been researching ways to feed the fish without having to buy in food and it seems we can feed them vegetables and hearts and livers (the meaty parts of offal).  So when we butcher our next beast in a few weeks I will keep some of the innards and mince and freeze them, and label them really well!!!

Life is very exciting here and there is always stuff to do.  There isn’t always the time or the money to do all we want to but we just keep chipping away at it all.

Blessings to you on your farm / homestead, I hope everything is moving along nicely for you all.