I am a Fucking Idiot.

Apologies to my more genteel readers for the title, but unfortunately it is very true.

A few weekends ago I spent a fair whack of time and effort running fence line. I blogged about how I was betting on the fact that fence, while very good was not yet complete and that this would be good enough, as the cows would be satisfied with the lush grass in the new paddock and still come up the hill to be milked.

Let me repeat, I am an idiot and that assumption meant I had two days of hell where I thought my cows might be gone for good.

Wednesday night I had footy and didn't separate Laf out at night. I do this occasionally when I get home late and I'm too tired to take some food up. I usually compensate by going up and beating the calf to the morning milk. When I went up in the morning Laf wasn't at the gate. Again, that's not that unusual as there is good grass down the bottom. I went down the path a bit, calling for them. I could hear some mooing down the bottom but no cows came up. Cursing their recalcitrance I gave up and went to work.

Thursday afternoon I called again but couldn't go too far as I had a guy coming to look at hooking up the top tank to the house so when we lose power we still have a water supply. After he left I went further down as the light faded but still nothing but distant moos. I was starting to get a little worried.

Friday morning I was up early and as soon as there was enough light I was off down the hill, calling and walking every path in the paddock. Not a sound nor sight. I even checked up above our house in a paddock on the hill the neighbour keeps mowed low and that the cows love. Nothing. I was really worried now. I love the cows, they are a massive part of Lantanaland now and a big part of it's plans for the future.

The only positive is that all three were gone, which meant that they'd probably gone wandering together. Considering we have hundreds of acres of thick lantana and bush next to us, it was a small comfort. Friday arfternoon I scooted from work as early as was decently possible bought a new blade for the brush cutter and came up with a plan.

Thanks to the technology of near map I know there is a set of yards and water in behind our place. I planned on going in along the western boundary through to the paddocks beyond and start calling. I stood on the deck planning my route when a flash of monochrome on the green hill across the valley caught my eye. I quickly grabbed the binoculars and sure enough, in the far distance, there was Dolores. I could see a patch of brown that was surely Buster higher up and then Laf wandered into view.

Whew. They were all still alive and together. Now I just had to go and get them. There were cow tracks of sorts on the eastern side of the valley but no real path. Time to fire up the brush cutter and imagine the zombie hordes were invading. It was heavy going down the hill, but as we got down lower the cow paths were heavier and older and once we crossed our back boundary line (which, until then, I had never seen!) we were in beautiful lush knee high grass paddocks. No wonder they weren't coming when I called.

The Wife and The Dog came and joined me as I walked up the far hill as I put the halter on Laf. Where Laf goes, the others follow. I gave the rope a tug. Laf looked at me pityingly. "Have you seen the grass up here?" she seemed to be saying as she budged not an inch.

Luckily The Wife (phd) is much smarter than me and had brought a loaf of bread with her. Laf quickly forgot the grass and followed us home in a stop start way, the other two trailing behind. Only took about three hours.

Saturday saw the brush cutter fueled up and going flat out. Simon, perhaps guilty he had tricked me into coaching two teams this year came down to help. By lunch all the posts were in and we were drenched with sweat. By late afternoon just about all the fence lines were done and a nifty gate to the dam installed. Except the two posts were too far apart and the post driver was up at the house. Damn.

No matter, a few hours on Sunday and the paddock was finished. My boss has a saying, a sale is not a sale till we have the money in the bank. Well a fence is not a fence until the bloody thing is finished.

Something I am not likely to forget in a hurry.

- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Lantanaland

Maximum amount of milk for the minimum of moo.

In my mind I have a list of infrastructure that needs doing at Lantanaland. It's one of those pieces of paper from a loony tunes cartoon that when unrolled, the bottom runs across the floor and out the door. Fencing, gates, cow sheds, garden beds, fix the deck and the floor downstairs, attempt to make the kitchen bigger than a galley from the first fleet, fruit trees, a cheese production room in the laundry, a cellar, a workshed/lair, the list goes on. In my wallet however is a very tiny piece of paper titled, available funds which usually makes me sigh and put it away again.

Take the cows. Some dear mates helped me carve out a paddock last June and a small one in September. Ideally, with enough funds, I would have cut another paddock further down for when those ones had been eaten halfway out. Instead I stretch and wait and use the free fruit and bread I get to supplement their diet. They are healthy, but not fat and it probably means I get less milk.

Recently my lead cow was a bit sick, probably with what the vet called "three day" a mosquito borne virus. When I was walking down the hill to her to give her a bit of food and water in the shade she was hiding in, I realized that while there was some grass still there, it was not enough. I'd extracted about as much as I could. So the trusty brush cutter was dusted off and I strode off down the hill to cut fence lines, slashing and gouging like I was in some Z grade American horror movie.



I did get a pleasant surprise when I finally, after two days work, I tunneled my way down to the dam. It was very full and had much more water and plant life in it than it had when I'd last seen it, two years ago. The following weekend I opened my wallet and purchased about enough gear for 500m of electric fencing, just over $150. This was not enough to completely enclose the paddock, but it turned the cows inwards, stopping them from getting out and onto the tracks that lead back up past the house.


Now if we had money, I would be putting a star picket every five meters, instead of stringing it out as far as I could, using the plastic posts to hold up the wires in between. Hell if I had money I just would have got a bobcat in and terraced the whole hill and regrassed it.


The point is that if we were flush with money we wouldn't have bought Lantanaland. As well as the lack of infrastructure the house is run down, the soil is crap and there is no established fruit trees. That though, is half the fun. It means that I can redo the kitchen in a skeleton of stainless steel and old timber. It means that as the cows roll back the eight foot high grass and smash tunnels into the lantana I get a better feel for the shape of the land, so that when I do get the heavy machinery in I'll be able to direct it, know where I need terracing and paths.

The reward at least this time was immediate. Milk production has more than doubled and I've made large amounts of creamy feta, a soft blue mould, white mould cheese and this morning as I type this I am waiting on curd to set for a soft washed rind. All of which will hopefully lead to me paying back my initial herd sharers so that the cows can start earning some management fees. Maybe then I can be a bit more proactive with my cow infrastructure, more milk, less moo!



- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Lantanaland

Grass Envy

Every day I drive to work I pass a lush green paddock on the left. At the moment the cows are belly deep, munching away with the look that cows get when they know they will probably only have to move four meters in one day. (in fact I can't drive anywhere anymore without looking at ground in terms of grazing. We were at a beautiful windswept grassy hill in northern NSW for a wedding, when The Wife, seeing a faraway look in my eyes, enquired about my thoughts. "be a great bit of grazing for the cows this").

There is a bit of anger as I drive past, because it used to be two paddocks and the other one is now a gated legoland community, complete with matching gardens and roofs. But mostly It is envy, because I have probably ten square meters of top grazing in my two paddocks.

Now that's mostly because until recently the top paddocks had been covered in lantana, the place isn't called Lantanaland just because I have a bit on the driveway and I'd always thought the mix of grass and weed down closer to the dam was even more biased towards the lantana. I was basing that assumption on old data, because I hadn't been down to the dam in two years. When we got the place, QLD was still dry, but by the end of year one the cattle agisting had been removed and the lantana had closed down the paths.

On Australia day, I had to do a bit of fence repair, as the cows had been escaping a bit too much even for my entropic ways so I wandered the fence line to see what was the problem. The fence was easily fixed, a bit of the electric line had escaped it's holder, but the state of the grass was another matter. There was a little there but it would be hard work for the cows. The envy came on tenfold. How many years, I thought, until I have a nice lush paddock.

I have been investigating native grass regeneration so I am doing some good as well as getting the best fit for my climate and soil, but I looked at the rocky soil and despaired. Oh well, time to cut out another paddock.

The trusty brushcutter had been playing up a little, no doubt in rebellion against the 100% humidity we had for a few months. Some new fuel and a bit of coaxing and I was geared up to slash away. I worked myself down the old cow path before turning down the slope towards the dam.

Well, if you'd seen me then, you'd thought I was a teenage girl presented with Justin Bieber clones for her birthday. Grass! Tall lush grass, thick luxuriant grass. There was thick lantana, sure, but the cows could graze here for quite a while without even making a dent.




I slashed away with renewed enthusiasm, until I ran out of petrol. The bull calf, who'd escaped when I'd been fixing the fence, wandered along the conveniently cut path to say hello.



I came back in the afternoon and pushed on, through some truly thick lantana. I tell you, if we have a zombie invasion, give me my brushcutter, a tank of fuel and my harness and let me loose. I'll be death in workboots.

Of course, as can only happen when you are at the bottom of a huge hill, the blade came loose as I was about five meters from the dam. No matter. Saturday I'll return and join that path up with the fence line and run some electric fence and the cows will be in heaven.

Soon I'll be a able to drive to work and look out the window without even a hint of green.

- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Lantanaland

'Ave a go, at making cheese.

I just couldn't help myself.

I've been making a bit of cheese lately, a batch every weekend, since the In Laws donated a old fridge that I could use for aging. Mostly soft brie like cheese, as the turnaround is fairly quick and I'd love to be able to start getting everyone in my Herdshare a bit of product.

Cheese making is one of those things I'm not really cut out for, requiring precise temperatures and timing. I'm a bit, well, a lot more slapdash. I've been good though, only ruining two out of the last three batches, one when I didn't watch the temperature of the water bath I was using. The second was when I left a cheese to dry and went out training. The book was probably meaning European room temperature, because when I came back my lovely soft cheese had collapsed in the heat.

Today I came home and took Laf up to the driveway to have a feed on the much greener and lusher grass there. I get a heap more milk the next morning. I've been tethering her there overnight, which only backfired slightly last weekend when she started bellowing to be milked at 3am. I milked out almost twice as much though. As I was leading her up I noticed she was very full in the udder. The calf hadn't had his afternoon drink. I couldn't tether her out in that condition, she'd bellow all night.

So I milked her out and went down to make some cheese. Trouble is, I'm running a bit low on supplies, I had no brie starter culture or white mould or liquid rennet. I did have my back up junket tablets and a bit of cheddar culture.

So after reading up a bit I decided to ignore all the recipes and try and make a semi hard cheese, with the culture of the milk dominating. The milk was just the right temperature so in went the junket tablets and a touch of culture. I've cut the curd and stirred and broken it all up. I'll drain it, salt it and lightly press it overnight. Then into the fridge to age, then, who knows?

If it doesn't work out, I've got plenty of raw product to work with!


- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Lantanaland

Tassie Tough

They have a term over here, called Tassie Tough. Queenslanders were definitely not Tassie Tough. At least thats what I was being told by a bunch of Tasmanians sitting on a beach at Coles Bay in shorts as I eased into what felt like arctic waters for a swim.

This was our new years trip, visiting the holiday shack of Marj's parents at Freycinet. I stayed in that bloody water for about ten minutes, nine minutes too long before running up to the shack and huddling under a doona and shivering like a teenage schoolgirl watching her first horror movie.





We'd had a leisurely drive up, mostly food related, no surprise there and then a lovely salmon dinner before crashing out. The next day we did a walk to Wineglass Bay. It was what I called a longish walk but well worth it for the stunning views and countryside.




Davy and Marj, being Tassie tough, called it a short stroll and we had barely finished lunch before they were gearing up to go snorkeling for some abalone for dinner. I was knackered but went along for a look. It seems like you can't go anywhere in this place that is not scenic, which The Wife loves. I've pretty much lost control of my good camera.




We had a pretty quiet New Years and I crashed out straight after midnight. For good reason as it turned out cause the next day I woke up with a mutant Tasmanian cold. Definitely NOT Tassie Tough. I pretty much slept all the way home, refusing both caffeine and potatoes, a sure sign that I am truly sick and not having a whinge.

I slept the next day too, putting our Bruny Island adventure back a day. It also means I have a wish list for next trip. Houn Valley, Tasman peninsula, the distillery, other cheese places.....

Dave and Marj have been the most brilliant hosts, Sarah (Dave's sister) has been great company too. This ends the southern part of the trip, tomorrow it's the Cradle Mountain and Chez Flinthart part of the journey.




We'll be back again for sure and I hope soon, great mates, great food and lots to do ensures it. Maybe then I'll be a little more Tassie Tough.

Lantanaland from my iPhone

Two days in Tassie

I knew there was a reason that I'd put on an extra layer of fat in December. Between Xmas parties, my birthday tapas party and Xmas itself I was a little more padded. It was all so I could go for a swim in Tasmania.

The water here in Coles bay is beautiful, crystal clear and inviting and today was a warm day, we got a bit of a sweat up picking cherries this morning on the way up, but I am still shivering under a blanket 20 minutes after getting out. The water is chilly! We are up here for tonight and new years, staying at our mates Marj's family shack. It's a small place nestled into the she oaks a stones throw from that clear cold water.

Food has been a big part of the trip, I've been writing about it at Mother Foccacia here mainly because there is so much to write about. Taste of Tasmania yesterday, fruit picking and an amazing bakery today.

The mates we are staying with in Hobart, Dave and Marj, live in the last few houses on Mt Wellington. After Taste yesterday we went for a look up the top. It had been hot and sunny at the festival and Dave and I were going for a run after, while the girls did a walk so I was in a tshirt and running shorts, a vest and scarf. I froze my arse off! Those few extra hundred meters up make a big difference.

After the run and all the food the fire was lit and we sat round reading, one of the true pleasures of life that QLDrs don't get to experience. So far a great trip and so much more to do, as long as I don't die of hypothermia from my swim.


- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Freycinet Dr,Coles Bay,Australia

Holidays

This time of the year is crazy busy, but considering I am doing this blog on the Flinthart model, as a record for my future kids to read, I have been amazingly lax at chronicling all the stuff on the farm.

For one we have been finally rebuilding the deck, much to regular visitors relief. It has really changed the feel of the house, making it look a bit higher and bigger. Work has ground to a halt, because Queensland seems to be experiencing a spot of rain. I can't remember ever having such a sustained period of wet weather. I love the rain, means more grass for the cows and more growth generally, but we are escaping the big wet for sunnier and warmer climes. Tasmania.

When we get there I will be hanging my head in shame as I screwed up the car booking so now we are reliant on the good will of our great mates Dave and Marj. They are doing a road trip to come and get us and it means my highly anticipated visit to Casa De Flinthart is postponed to the end of the trip.

Oh well, some good food and wine and more food should cure my stupidity. That's if we ever leave Brisbane. The rain seems to me diverting and delaying flights. At this rate the room I just booked will be obsolete.




- Lantanaland from my iPad.

Location:Brisbane airport