Eight Acres

Well can you believe that on Dec 19 th I will have been writing this blog for two years now?  And I still have plenty more to write?  This is what I wrote last year  on my first blogoversary, seems like such a long time ago now, but still describes our values.  This time last year I never even suspected that we might buy a larger property and all the new things that have come along with it (although Pete was always looking on real estate websites, I just didn't think we would really actually finally buy something!).  We now have a larger tractor, ploughs, a hay shed, about 50 beautiful Braford cattle, more firewood than we know what to do with and house to build and farm system to design.  There is so much to learn! For December, being the end of the calendar year and my blog anniversary, I’ve decided to write a series of posts about the year/blog in review and plans for next year.   Sometimes I write about things and then I change the ...

Our new Braford bull was delivered to Cheslyn Rise on Saturday morning.  His name is Maus, because he's quiet as a mouse.  So far he has lived up to his name.  He looked a bit worried when he got of the truck and he did a few circles of the yard, but he didn't get agro at us.  Then the girls came over to see him and he got very excited.  The final photo is the face he made when he smelt the cows.  He is six year old and came from a friend who also breeds Brafords, although he's originally from a stud.  Its a bit scary having a bull in the paddock now, so we hope he stays quiet for us!

In November it finally rained again properly.  First 30mL and then another 70mL the next week.  We now have a full dam and tanks at Eight Acres and dams topped up at Cheslyn Rise.  More importantly, everything is GREEN and growing. full dam, didn't think to take "before photo", marked before line in red At Cheslyn Rise we have 6 little baby calves.  We knew some of the cows were pregnant, but were not sure when they were due, so that was a lovely surprise.  We are going to get them a bull in December or January.  By total coincidence it turned out that an acquaintance also kept Brafords and has just got himself a new bull, so is happy to sell us the old one.  According to Joel Salatin, buying an old bull is perfectly good (he's only 6 yrs old, but not 18 months like a new one from a stud sale) as he'll be more mature and settled and still do the same job.  He only has 26 girls to "service" so its not like we have hundreds...

I had this plant in my garden where I'd tossed out some "friendly bug mix" seeds.  I thought it was clover, but it didn't look quite right.  I'd been wondering what it was for over a year when my mum finally pointed out that it looked like lucerne (or alfalfa).  Its so silly that I didn't recognise it, but I'm used to seeing lucerne dried as hay and I'd never really seen the living plant.  Now that really got me thinking because I remembered reading somewhere that lucerne tea is really good because the plant has such deep roots and accumulates lots of minerals, but I didn't want to use any of the hay we buy because you don't really know "where its been" so to speak.  I forget now where I read that, and when you goggle lucerne or alfalfa tea, most of the links are about making tea for your garden rather than for yourself!  (here's one semi-helpful link )  Anyway, I didn't think it would hurt to cut some of the lucerne leaves an...

I've written before about water at our place , but I thought now was a good time to get into more detail after I read a post about the same topic by Frugal Queen .  She was talking about saving town water, but we have a slightly different focus. As you know, we are not on town water or sewage, so we have to manage our water use very carefully.  We have 3 22000 L water tanks that collect water from the roof of our house and our shed, and our waste water drains into a large underground septic tank , which has to be emptied every few years.  We use all our bath and washing machine water on the garden.  We built a system to drain the grey water into a drum under the house and then pump that up to the garden, this would be even better if the garden was downhill from the house and the water could just gravity feed straight to the garden.  Using the grey water on the garden means that we don't fill up the septic tank so quickly, and we always have plenty of...

** Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... I also make neem soap, neem insect repellent and neem salve, all available in my Etsy shop .** A few weeks ago now I was watering the garden just after dark, torch in one hand, hose in the other, when I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes (mozzies).  I could feel them biting me, but there wasn’t much I could do with both hands in use and I really needed to finish watering.  When I came inside I found that I had several bites on each leg between the top of my gumboots and the bottom of my shorts.  These proceeded to itch, swell and annoy me for several days. At this time of year, when the mozzies start biting, as I do have such a terrible reaction to the bites, I usually reach for my bottle of conventional insect repellent, typically containing DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamid...

I was in my local library looking for a permaculture book.  I never expect to find much in my local library, it is a tiny single room and most of it is taken up with fiction.  I usually head straight for the corner with all the chicken and cow books.  They didn't have the permaculture book (requested on inter-library loan instead), but I was very surprised to find Frugavore: How to Grow Organic, Buy Local, Waste Nothing, and Eat Well , by Arabella Forge instead.  I had seen reviews of Frugavore when it was published in 2010, and I kept thinking about buying it, but I have so many books already, I'd never got around to it.  I suppose that's the point of libraries, you can borrow before you buy!  And its great when even a small library occasionally has something interesting to read. I took Frugavore home and read the whole thing in three hours.  Which is not to say that its short, but most of it is recipes, so I was able to skim through and ju...

This is something that has been confusing me lately, so now that I’ve figured it out, I thought I’d tell you about.  For a while now I’ve been wondering how “hybrid” layer hens are made.  And I’d been hearing about using heritage seed rather than hybrid seed.  Then we bought the Braford cattle, a cross between Brahman and Hereford breeds.  So I looked it all up and now I’ll try to explain without getting too far into genetics! Are Brafords pure bred or hybrids or??  First of all, what is a pure breed ? A pure breed is a stock of animals or plants within a species having a distinctive appearance and typically having been developed by deliberate selection.  For example, Hereford cattle are a pure breed of cattle.  Rhode Island Red chickens are a pure breed of chickens. What is a hybrid? A hybrid is an animal or plant whose parents are each of a different pure breed.  Cross-breed and hybrid have the same meaning, just the former is app...

Paralysis ticks (xodes holocyclus ) are native to Australia and are found on the east coast from southern Victoria all the way up to northern QLD, and in the north of Tasmania .  The ticks’ natural hosts are native animals, such as bandicoots, wallabies and koalas, which have developed immunity to the neurotoxin produced by the tick.  Domestic animals, including dogs, cats, sheep, calves and foals, which have not developed immunity to the toxin, are affected by symptoms starting the paralysis of the back legs and progressing to paralysis of the respiratory muscles and finally the heart, resulting in death. poor wee Benny is still recovering from tick paralysis The Australian Paralysis Tick has a 3 host life cycle.  The eggs hatch into larvae, which attach to a host for a few days.  The larvae feed from the host, and then drop off to transform into nymphs, which then attach to another host.  After a few days the nymphs drop off and transform into adult ...

I tried some lovely tea at a cafe recently, it was ginger and rosella.  I bought some of the tea to take home, it was expensive, and when I finished the packet I wondered if I could make my own.... I didn't have any rosella, but I thought I could start with trying to dry the ginger.  I bought some organic ginger from the the Nanango markets and sliced it up really thin.  I spread it out in my dehydrator to dry.  I ran the dehydrator on and off for a couple of days (its very loud, so I don't like to have it on when I'm in the kitchen), until the ginger was crispy dry. At the same time I had a massive bag of lemons from a friend's tree.  I knew that they were organic, so I decided to peel the skins and dry them as well, to add some lemon flavour to me tea.  The ginger/lemon smell in the house was wonderful! A jar of dried ginger and lemon peel I have some rosella seeds now after swapping seeds earlier in the month, so I've planted them and maybe I...