Construction and Destruction

Well it has been a busy week on the farm.  We have settled into a bit of a pattern with the apples, it is irrigation time now and after we do some more thinning (removing surplus fruit so the remaining fruit can get big) there won’t be much to do on them until harvest in April.  The fruit we have been focused on is looking pretty good, and we think we will pick some extra throughout the orchard.

We have been using the extra time to work on a number of building projects.  The first pig shelter I built wasn’t a success, being too small for Tinks or Peter Pan, they just lay around outside it (I really did forget how big these two were), so I took some outside inspiration and knocked up a couple of “mark 2” pig shelters.  These are much bigger and will hopefully do a much better job.  The mark 1 will still be good for weaners and smaller pigs.  The new ones are in place in the new paddocks, as we just today separated them for Tinkerbell’s farrowing.

Not big enough!

New design...

Fully tractor mobile

A happy fit!

We also built a “mark 2” mineral trough for the cows, complete with lawnmower wheels for easy, one person, moving.  Following the success of this I then retrofitted the mark 1 sheep mineral trough with wheels as well.

Quite proud of this one, and the cows seem to like it too!

The other side of the week has been destruction.  One of the arms that holds the 3 point hitch on the back of the tractor (the hitch we need for using all of our implements and as a result doing things like watering our animals) broke off.  I was lucky to see it before there was any damage done to the slasher I was carrying with the tractor at the time.  I managed to scrounge a replacement to do the job while we waited for a new one.

In addition, when running our irrigation pump I noticed some water coming out of a valve, then a lot of water.  After an extensive digging operation I found the leak, a join in the PVC that must have come loose, so a clamp is required there too.

I dug a hole, and this one's filling with water.

The final element of destruction has come from the sheep.  The neighbour’s sheep that we were given had spent the last four years in the orchard ring-barking trees.  We tried to put them on a program of minerals so they wouldn’t need to do it, however they have shown no interest in the minerals (even when mixed with some of the normally-addictive-sheep-pellets) and have continued to absolutely smash the trees in any area we put them in.  The Wiltshires we bought are absolutely fine, and this has led us to the conclusion that the new mob consists of an unreformable bunch of reprobates.  We are going to have to sell them, gumtree here we come.

Yesterday was a blast from the past, going back over to Fat Pig Farm to help Matthew and Sadie prep for their upcoming series of farm picnics.  As it always seems when we visit, we came home with 10 litres of their delicious milk from their Guernsey and (new!) Fresian cows.  Cheese making time!

Matthew and Sadie's Clarissa has lovely piglets!

The coming week we are doing our day course for our firearms licences, plus Cor’s parents and uncle Robert arrive for a visit, which promises to be exciting.  Can’t wait to have them here and show them what we are doing, and spoil them with some of Tassie’s amazing produce.  The roadside stalls are now out in force, with rich cherries, juicy peaches, sweet nectarines, tart apricots, tasty tayberries, and bursting blueberries all for sale at ridiculously cheap prices.  It is an amazing time of year, we may even do a preserving session or two so stay tuned for pics.

Until next time, enjoy your good life!

This girl has eggs, so fingers crossed we get more Muscovys!

Tinks fooling around.

The nature of compromise

Cor and I consider ourselves to be reasonable exponents of eating well, that is, eating animals and vegetables and fruit that have been produced with a high level of care and consequently, a high level of flavour.  But we compromise.  Everyone does it, and on a recent road trip I was given cause to consider the drivers of compromise, staring down at the decidedly non free-range bacon and egg sandwich from a roadside café that was to be my breakfast.

We get a lot of lecturing.  People telling us we should eat organic, free range, biodynamic, RSPCA inspected, local, sustainably caught, responsibly farmed, the list is endless.

But all too often these lecturers don’t try to understand or respect why people compromise when it comes to their food.  As far as they are concerned, there is no excuse for not eating food that falls into the aforementioned categories.  Or if they do look for a reason, it is all too often blamed on the big food retailers, for stopping the march of the citizenry towards better food.  Actually, the first time I have really seen compromise even acknowledged was in this great Milkwood post: http://milkwood.net/2013/12/23/the-ethics-of-almost/#comment-22982.

The reasons we compromise, as I see them, are threefold.  I believe they are:

1.       Time

2.       Information

3.       Money

Time

So you are, like us, on a roadtrip, looking for a quick breakfast on the go.  You don’t have time to seek out the one backstreet café in town that serves locally made bacon on their sandwiches.

Or you have a couple of kids, you and your other half leave for work at 7am and get home at 7pm, eat, put the kids to bed, steal a couple of private moments in front of TV before falling asleep.  And weekends are no better, ferrying kids around to sporting or social engagements.  When are you supposed to have the time to seek out this wonderful food you are being told you should be feeding your kids?  If it isn’t packaged in flashing lights at the supermarket when you do the Saturday afternoon shopping trip, it doesn’t make the pantry or even the trolley.

Of course, like everything, this driver is one of choice.  You could spend your weeknight spare time tracking down these producers, or restaurants, or markets, but sometimes you would rather spend the time decompressing, or if you are the road, driving on (I personally love it when we “make good time”).

Start out with some herbs like we did....

Information

This one is related to the time driver, because it takes time to understand our food.  The way things are these days, with an endless stream of jingo-istic food phrases thrust at us, it takes time to follow each of them through to what they actually mean.  Organic?  When it comes to meat that doesn’t mean free range, just that it has been given feed grown with organic chemicals (though there are some approved non-organic ones too).  Free range?  That just means given access to an outside run, not necessarily for the whole life of the animal nor one that allows the animal to scratch, or root around, or do what it does naturally.  Most citizens don’t know this stuff.  The simple information they have been provided is: organic/etc = good & expensive; everything else = not so good & cheaper.  Hell, even people who sell organic stuff don’t know that an organic certification actually allows the use of chemicals and some drugs, nor how dangerous some 100% organic chemicals can be.

So if you don’t have the time to research all these things, you aren’t going to be informed.  And labelling, contrary to what the demagogues think, is not the be all and end all answer.  Labelling will never explain fully where a product comes from, the conditions it was grown or raised in, and whether the grower is receiving a fair price for the product.

Solving the information problem takes time, and I know that there are lots of people out there trying to help in this regard.  But I will make two easy suggestions for those not sure where to make a start.  The first is to borrow or buy a copy of the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  It is incredibly compelling while being very informative (think Bill Bryson), and goes a long way to explaining how food is produced in modern America, and many of the techniques that have been adopted elsewhere.

The second suggestion is to buy go back to buying your meat from the butcher.  It isn’t any more expensive than the supermarkets (unless you want it to be) and when you are looking in that glass case at those pork chops, you can ask the simple question “where did those chops come from?”  The butcher won’t be offended by your impertinence, he will relish the chance to share some of his knowledge of his supply line.  Whether it is from commercially farmed (confinement) large white pigs, or free range Berkshires, or something else entirely, you will have in a few seconds increased the amount of information you have about your food, and taken a valuable first step towards knowing your food.

The other important element of information comes to flavour.  Not knowing that certain types of produce taste better, and thinking that “a tomato is a tomato and a chicken is a chicken” is the one of the greatest information obstacles that we must overcome.

Money

I left this one for last, because it seems to be the most sensitive one.  The fact is that yes, food that is produced in a caring manner, and that gives a good return to the farmer usually costs more.  But, and here, is a big but, it doesn’t have to.  That’s right, it really doesn’t have to.

Sure, if you don’t have the time to make the effort or the information on where to go, and you want to buy your high quality food from the supermarket, yes it will always cost more.  However if you do your homework, and change your buying habits, you can get it for the same price as you would pay for the food you normally buy.

You find that person in your area with their own free-range chooks, you won’t pay $6.35 a dozen you will pay $4-$5.  You find a few people with a similar outlook, and you can buy a side of beef, cut up, for $8 a kilo.  There is no way the supermarket is going to beat that price.  Same thing works with pork.  Sure, you have to stock your deep freezer, and order in advance, and do some running about, but this comes back to the time consideration.  Find the market gardener in your area, maybe at your local farmers’ market (if you have one).  Buy a week’s worth of veges from them and then compare it to your normal bill.  Pleasant surprise almost guaranteed.

Overcoming the Drivers

So those are my thoughts on the compromises we make.  I will finish this post by charging my fellow food-lovers with a challenge.  When next you find yourself saddling up the high horse (as I too often do, I admit it) get down for a minute and think about which of these compromise drivers you can help your audience to overcome.  The more we all pull together to do this, the closer we will get to what I believe will be a “tipping point” in our society’s relationship with food, and restore the relationship between the citizen consumer and the farmer.  I am going to try and do my part, want to give me a hand?

...and end up making your own sausages!

What sort of underwear does a farmer wear?

This post is a bit of homage to Tim Budd’s blog at testedtodestruction.blogspot.com where he reviews gear that he uses fell running and hiking about in the Peak District of England.

I thought it would be interesting to review the gear I use every day.  Interesting for me, I can’t say what other people will think, but then a bit of holiday fun never hurt, so here goes…

Arc’teryx Theta AR Jacket ($630)

OK, now I know I have lost you.  What orchardist seriously wears a $600 jacket?  This one, for starters.  Hang in there, let me explain.  I was a climber, skier and hiker long before I was a farmer and having this jacket since becoming one has been brilliant.  Paired with an Icebreaker shirt and a holey Icebreaker 260 pullover (if anyone knows why merino shirts develop random holes send me an email, I really want to know) I have been toasty warm in all but the coldest work conditions.  When it gets really cool I add a Polartec vest to the mix.  The underarm zips allow me to release a bit of heat if I have to chase the sheep in the rain, and the pockets are big enough for a couple pairs of work gloves (I will get to those), while the inner pocket is great for keeping my phone dry.  I haven’t found a use for the sleeve ski pass pocket yet, but I’m sure I will.  Most importantly, despite copping a beating from blackberries, barbed wire fences, branches and lots of sharp edges, it looks as good as new.  I know I could buy 3 jackets for the money that will last just as long, but would they be as good and as versatile?  I doubt it.  All I know is I am glad I had this before we got the farm, and I am stoked to have it now.

Sealskinz Sporting Gloves (£50)

Most of the time I like to use the rubber-gripped work gloves that you can buy for $5 a pair in the hardware shop, mainly because I know they won’t last, and I am not wearing them for warmth.  The Sealskinz come out when it is cold and wet.  With an index finger and thumb that fold back for finding your keys, or picking up screws, or any finicky jobs, these save you pulling them off and putting them back on.  The leather palm is good and hard wearing, and only a little bit of water occasionally gets through where the index finger folds back.  The nose-friendly fabric on the thumb proved great when the wind comes up and your nose is running (not the nicest but there you have it, reality, not some ideal).  I simply can’t recommend them highly enough.

I am trying to destroy them, but no luck yet

Mountain Equipment Stretchlite Guide Pants (£70)

Another hangover from my climbing days, these are the only item of Mountain Equipment gear I have.  They were recommended by Tim and have proved great on the farm.  Not waterproof, but warm and pretty water resistant, plus when they get wet they also dry quickly.  The stretchiness that is aimed at climbers has made scrambling under and over fences, onto tractors, and through bush easy as pie.  They have a leg zip pocket and zip expandable calves which help when putting them into wellies/gumboots.  The only real downside is they don’t have belt loops, so I have to carry my Leatherman in my pocket instead of on my belt.  They are a bit warm when it gets over 20 degrees but then I go to cotton drill trousers anyway.

They also aren’t chainsaw-proof, but they slowed it down enough to save my leg!

Under Armour Boxerjock briefs ($35)

What?  Underwear?  Well you wouldn’t know it from his blog, but besides buying and destroying outdoor gear and fell running, Tim (together with Rob) also has ongoing obsession with finding the best pair of space-fabric travel underwear money can buy.  Well I think I have found them.  And yes, it is relevant on the farm, because you never know when a bull might be coming at you flat out.  When that happens, you need to know you have some nice underwear on in case the ambulance officer is good looking.

In all (sort of) seriousness, I travelled for 18 months with just 4 pairs of these (washing them of course!!), doing everything from climbing to diving to hiking and farmwork, in both hot and cold conditions.  They have been great for everything, and dry overnight when washed, keeping them on a quick rotation.  Unlike cotton boxers or briefs, or even previously owned Nike Combat compression shorts, they haven’t shown a single sign of wear.  No loose threads, no pilling, no wear patches.  Brilliant!  Since arriving back in Australia I have bought another pair.  My other Under Armour stuff has done pretty well, including my cap (which I can always seem to wash grease out of somehow), but the boxers have been standout performers.

Yes, this is me modelling my Under Armour (no not really but did you really expect a photo of that??)

Mongrel SP Zipsiders Boots ($140)

As roundly castigated as I have been for not supporting Tasmanian boot-maker Blundstone, I have to say that I support whoever makes the best gear, not just where they are based, and for me the new Australian company Mongrel are making the best boots around right now.

The fact is that Blundstone’s elastic-sided boots don’t provide any ankle support.  After a friend was laid up for months with a broken ankle after walking across a cow paddock, and having weak ankles myself from old basketball and football injuries, I decided to go with the Mongrel’s steel cap zip-sided boots.  The zips allow you to get them on and off quickly but the laces allow you to get it tight around the ankle.

They are simply one of the most comfortable work boots I have ever worn.  They don’t leak water until completely soaked and have good grip in the mud.  They also aren’t too heavy.  When it is too wet for these I go to the Blundstone wellies/gumboots which have also been great.

The steel caps get cold in winter when left outside, making for cold toes when starting out in the morning, but this can be combated effectively with a pair of steel cap socks with the extra insulation in the toes.  I have dropped an apple bin on my foot and thanked my stars for steel caps!

They don’t have such a pronounced heel like Blundstones, which makes tractor work a little harder (pushing the clutch on the tractor with the heel is easier), but modern tractors don’t have a clutch like Dad’s old John Deere 2010 so that doesn’t worry me much.

The light colour fabric has kept its colour, while the leather has darkened, leading to the boots taking on an odd two-tone colour, but I don’t mind paying that price for the best boots I have ever worn.

Yes, I was standing in my socks getting wet feet to take this picture

Special Gear Mentions:

Stihl MS170 Mini-Boss chainsaw ($399)

Well apart from the damage I nearly did to my leg with it, this chainsaw has been brilliant.  It punches well above its weight and can drop big trees, but is light enough to handle pruning with one hand.  It isn't the biggest, manliest chainsaw going, but it is truly outstandingly versatile value that is a steal for four hundred bucks.

 It absolutely demolished this rogue silver wattle

Leatherman Wingman ($50)

Always in the pocket, able to open the razor-sharp blade with one hand, with handy pliers, screwdrivers and the rest of the usual gadgets.  No tweezers though which is what always put me off getting one, but when my pocket knife was taken off me by airport security in Brisbane, I took the plunge.  All I can say is the one handed opening is bloody good, and it is cheaper than most other multi-tools.  It even fits in my old pocket knife belt case.

Conclusion

So there you have it, the gear I use.  Not “true” Tassie farmer style (where is the flannel, the Akubra hat?), but then we all take our baggage with us into whatever new life we choose, and I am no exception.  Hope to see you down on Our Mates’ Farm, whatever sort of underwear you choose to wear!

Wearing all the gear with a young Bob vying for attention

Old MacDonald's Farm.... in progress.

So as usual when we update our blog, lots has been happening.  However, to avoid boring you, there are two ways to read today’s blog.  Actually, there are always two ways to read it.  You can skim the pictures and get a general picture of what we have been up to and a recent day in our lives, or you can read the boring prose.  I know which one I would do if I were you…. but then maybe you haven’t had your monthly dose of “farming life” and need to top up!

So we have been busy fitting into Geeveston life.  We have had sushi at the famous Masaaki’s (who it turns out used to live in the house we are renting), we have made friends with our neighbours and the people behind the wonderful Geeveston Roadhouse, James and Samara, we went to a charity bingo night at the local services club (which I have joined) for young Will, watched a woodchopping championship, and went to the Cygnet release of Matthew Evan’s latest book.

Sadie and I submitted the egg petition to Parliament.  The response from the politicians was all very placatory, however the draft legislation that has since been released is nothing short of nonsense.  I guess it will take a pelting of rotten eggs to wake these pencil pushers up, so stay tuned for my next blog post from prison.

On the farm front when last we spoke we had 14 Wiltshire horn sheep.  Well Matthew put us in touch with a lady who was giving away 8 Wiltshires, including a ram.  Comedy ensued getting them in the trailer, however lucky for us there was no camera crew around.  They settled in quickly and we thought we were all done on the sheep front.  Until we spoke to our neighbour.  He has been grazing his 55 sheep in our orchard for the past few years and we thought that after we took it over he would simply send them to the saleyard and keep a few as “lawnmowers”.  Instead his response was to offer them all to us!  The price?  All he wants is for us to give him a couple lambs every Christmas.  Not a bad deal, but now we have 22 Wilties, 55 mixed breed sheep, and Bob, who probably can’t believe the amount of company he has now.  Do you like how I said that?  Almost as if we didn’t spend the morning with 5 people running about the orchard like idiots trying the herd the 55 into the same paddock as the Wilties, and failing.  The job is done now (with lots of pratfalls and swearing), we will have a few of them butchered this week so we will have a fully stocked freezer come Christmas.

In a vain effort to get our grass growth under control, we also got 5 cows.  Despite our hankering for hairy Highland cows, Matthew and Sadie had 5 pregnant “lowline” Angus cows that they wanted to move on as part of their ambition to move towards a more dairy-focused herd, and that made the decision-making process easy for us.  As an added bonus they are trained to electric wire for strip grazing and they now have settled into a routine of daily morning moves to a fresh salad bar.

One of the cows flew over the fence the first night, we still don't know how...

But the new animals don’t stop there!!  We have also agreed to be the retirement site of choice for a couple of Matthew and Sadie’s old Wessex Saddleback pigs, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.  We hope to get a litter or two from them while they spend their later years exploring and rooting up part of the old orchard.  They have already caught the imagination of both the neighbours and the local kids, as pigs are wont to do.

We also bought 5 Muscovy ducks from a friend up the highway, 4 girls and a drake.  They have settled on our dam and are coming up every morning for their grain breakfast.  To add to our little chick flock we also bought half a dozen Plymouth Rock chicks from Ross on Bruny Island, taking us up to 11 little cheepers who now running about a little fenced area at the farm.

And finally, we are now open for WWoOFers of our own!  We have joined WWoOF and are hoping to have an extra couple pairs of hands helping us out and sharing our great food as soon as we can.  Want to volunteer?  Your room is ready, step this way…

Luxury indeed!

OK, now that that is all over, here is a recent day in our life on Our Mates’ Farm.

Open up the chicken house

Walk the dog

Feed the pigs

Feed the ducks

Check on the vegetable garden

Top up the water for the cows

Hook up new electric fence

Move the ladies onto the new salad bar

Brushcut a line for sheep electric mesh

Move them in

 

Phew, time for a cuppa and morning tea

Some of Cor's home-baked treats

 

Back to work: fixing irrigation, cleaning off water shoots and thinning some apples

But we do get some time to go fishing occasionally!

Until you arrive to take possession of our guest room, stay tuned for more of the Good Life!

Our Mates' Environmental Challenges

When you buy a farm, you aren't just buying the land.  You are also buying into the environmental stewardship (or otherwise) of all the previous owners.  We kind of knew this, but it wasn't until we did some digging about in those cluttered sheds, and had a really good poke around the corners of the property, that the scale of the challenges we now face became apparent.  It is certainly a good reminder that our own stewardship will be judged by the standards of our children, not our own.

5 apple bins of rubbish and counting.... someone obviously lost the directions to the dump.

Lots of stuff that we won't be needing.  Ever.  One of them even reads: Contains boron, kills bees.  I mean seriously, how messed up is that?

Got some metal to get rid of?  Just chuck it in the fire and it.... oh wait, no, it's still there.  Shit.  Should we try and burn it again?

The foundations of an old building, ripped up and piled up together where it can disappear into the grass.  Why?  Who the hell knows?

Hail to the peeps!

Hi all, Coreen here.  We’ve been a bit remiss at keeping you all up-to-date.  Sorry about that.  It really has been getting exponentially busier in our lives as we came closer to completion and then finally completed the purchase of Our Mates’ Farm.  Not just with the (extra)ordinary business of buying a farm, but we’ve been through a learning curve with our increasing livestock, our social media identity is spreading, and Matt has officially come out as a “Geeveston orchardist”.

We experienced a circle of life loop at the farm.  From having to fish out a poor drowned wallaby from the lake and burying it, to releasing a possum formerly resident in the house roofspace, to little chicks hatching out in the incubator to some pretty excited clucking by us (yes, we were clucking), to the trauma of finding one of them dead in the brooder box later that night.

  

 Education never ends, there’s always something new to learn, whether it’s great advice from a neighbour and mentor, or a more formal course we’ve signed up for.  I went to a three workshop series run by Sprout Tasmania on marketing & social media which was great, lots to think about for our own business and having met some really passionate, savvy people.  Matt had a hot time at his Intro to Welding course run by LINC Tasmania, which covered both theory and some practical welding experience.  He was disappointed that the all-day practical course was cancelled the following weekend, but will try and follow it up at a later date.

So that was Cor’s contribution to our blog – she is now off to make cheese!

We have been busily preparing our apples for our first crop.  We purchased a second hand sprayer and have been spraying approximately 3 hectares (out of our 18) with organic chemicals to reduce the incidence of powdery mildew and apple scab or black spot.  It is important to us to use organic materials, even if we aren’t necessarily certified as such.  We want every visitor to our farm to be able to walk into every corner and see nothing that would make them unhappy to buy our produce.  Using organic chemicals still requires safety gear, but they don’t make me worry about going sterile from their use!

The sprayer at work.  Check out that grass eh?

Now you all know we have Bob the lamb, and Princess the dog, but we have been making plans for more animals.  We have bought 14 purebred Wiltshire Horn sheep.  The grass is growing so fast now that on a quiet sunny day you can almost hear it, and in some places there is a danger of losing the dog, even though she is growing like a weed herself.  So we need something to get it down, and the first solution out of the gate are some sheep that we hope to strip graze with mobile electric fences.  Next step: cows!

Some of the Wiltshire horn sheep we bought.  They are lost in the grass!

The eggs also hatched in the incubator.  We started with two dozen eggs, and only had nine hatch.  Unfortunately we lost a couple in the first couple of days, and two seem to have leg issues from the incubation.  The room the incubator was in really fluctuated in temperature a lot and this seems to have affected both our success rate and the chicks themselves.  That said, we now appear to have five healthy little chicks, and two in need of physio.  Construction on their home begins soon….

The survivors!

When a physio and an OT came to visit, we put them work correcting chick gait with rubber bands....

We have had our first house guests!  Cor’s brother flew in for a night’s stay during a conference in Hobart, and I took my Belgian cousins for a four day whirlwind tour of the East coast of Tassie before coming back here for a night.  Kudos to Cor for walking to the farm in this time (35 minutes) and doing so much while I was away.  We also had Rod and Karen pop in for a day of recuperation post the Cradle Mountain track.  Lucky for them it was raining so we didn’t put them to (real) work.  Instead as a physio and OT they were perfect candidates to implement our corrective procedure for our splay-legged chicks!

Casey and I at 6 in the morning before I drove him back to Hobart for his breakfast meeting!

Mia and Luc at Port Arthur

Mia and Luc at Wineglass Bay (such a goofy shot - I had to share it!)

Us and Rod (see chick physio photo for Karen!)

In addition to working our own farm, I have been carefully crafting more “work” for myself.  You see, in a moment of frustration I started a petition regarding the new egg-stamping rules that are coming for Tasmania.  We want to sell eggs at the farmgate of our new farm and these proposed rules were going to make it uneconomic to do so.  There have been newspaper articles (in which they call me a “Geeveston Orchardist”!!), radio interviews, and 7,000 signatures so far.  I have to say that I am a bit uncomfortable as an “activist”.  They were always the most boring people at a party, just a little too earnest for my liking, and normally given a wide berth.  It would seem that I have now joined their ranks but I will at least try to talk about something else!  We are due to present the petition this week so if you want to sign up or share it (and haven’t already), it is here: https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/bryan-green-minister-for-primary-industries-and-water-exempt-small-egg-producers-from-the-new-egg-regulations

So that is my long-winded explanation as to why we haven’t been posting much.  Hope it wasn’t too boring, there has been lots to catch up on!  Until we next time, if we haven't seen you we miss you all, and hope to see you down on Our Mates’ Farm.

I know, exhausting right?

Big step, our first animals!

Since the last post we have been very busy, doing all the things that you do when are buying a farm at the end of the month.  Like pruning on these beautiful, changeable Spring days.

But we have also been doing some other things, like working for Matthew and Sadie at Fat Pig Farm, and attending Matthew's excellent book launch, complete with scrumptious food put on by Michelle and a great BBQ at Nick's place afterwards.  As you would expect, these guys know how to eat (and drink) well.  Such a great event, and a privilege to share in it.

But it has now been dwarfed by an even bigger event in the life of Our Mates' Farm.  Our first animals.

We have 2 dozen chicken eggs in an incubator, and some duck eggs about to go into an incubator of their own, but they won't hatch until the end of the month so it isn't them....

Regular followers of this blog will know about Bob, the bottle lamb we looked after while farmsitting for friends in Cygnet, and Duane and Joan brought him over today, to be our second animal.

But the first?  This beautiful girl:

We have named her Princess.  We had a whole bunch of names from myth and fable ready for her.  Names like Freya, and Sif, hell, even Xena (Warrior Princess).  But instead we end up just naming her Princess, because that what she is, a gorgeous, affectionate, calm little princess.  She is a Maremma sheepdog, and anyone who knows this breed knows that we have let ourselves in for quite a lot, but that if we look after her right, in a little while she will be looking after our farm, and all the animals that are to come.

We owe Julz and Shane from Backfatters a lot for bringing up such a wonderful puppy, plus my Mum and Dad for their help getting her to us.  We just love her to bits.

Introducing Princess and Bob to the farm, and doing some lead training.

She is a farm dog alright, sleeping under the tractor while it is being worked on!

On the home front we have been trying to become as self sufficient as we can, so have lots of cuttings of herbs from Mandy, bought our first citrus trees, Cor has successfully made yoghurt and cheese from Elsie's milk, as well as baked her first loaf of bread, and we are eating mushrooms growing on compost in the garage (and no, they aren't the "funny" kind).  It is brilliant and all happening very fast.

So for now we roll on, getting things ready to takeover the place for ourselves, enjoying great food, and trying our best to get it going.  All for Our Mates' Farm.

Taking the tractor for a drive - that brought some memories back!