Growing up on a farm. With promite sandwiches.

There are definitely positives and negatives for a young boy growing up on a farm. The flip side of all this space to grow into is that there are always jobs to do. The cow hadn't come up for a few days. I don't worry too much because she usually has the calf on her, but I needed milk. So into the backpack The Boy went and we went looking. Gourmet dinners and playing would have to wait.

Dolores calf had wandered off with Laf, who is outside my place on the 100 acres next door with its lush kikuyu grass. That meant Dolores was really full as I hadn't milked her this morning. She needed to be milked, while mastitis is much less of an issue for me as I hand milk with a stripping action, it is not good for her to sit there all night with really full udders. And if I don't take the milk her production will drop and Laf isn't even pregnant yet. The last thing I need is my cow drying off.

That meant The Boy got a promite sandwich for dinner and a ride down to the milking bales. He sat next to me in the backpack and quite happily ate and looked at the chooks, who were cleaning up the pollard crumbs Dolores was dropping. I finished up, released Dolores from the head crush and moved her bucket into her night pen. As she backed out she spotted a promite smeared face and it must have smelled good because she started to lick The Boy clean. He wasn't fazed until I yelled to shoo the cow off which is when he decided that it was all a bit much and he'd like a cuddle please.

Not many kids would come home, walk down a hill and lead a cow back on a leash, then watch their dad hand milk and have the cow clean up their dinner with her tongue!

Seeing the future in the present. Fruit tree edition.

Sometimes you need to see what something might become to get inspiration to keep going. Fruit trees take time to show the reward and for someone like me, who knows bugger all about gardening, there are many pitfalls and problems that can occur to get in the way. But you plant and do your best because once they are established they are a gold mine, especially for a keen cook. It is why I recently recommended to a twitter mate to add value of potential tree change properties that contains a decent orchard. You can spend a lot of money on fruit waiting for those trees to become bearing.

Today though, I got a glimpse into the future of what may be. On a small day trip up to Mt Tambourine, ironically to try and buy some cheap fruit trees, we pulled over down the road from the school and waited for The Boy to wake up. I got out for a wander and in the property we had parked next to there was this amazing trellised kiwi fruit. The whole orchard was maybe 50m long and 20m wide and had maybe 30 trees in it, but there would have been thousands of kiwi fruit there.

The vines themselves looked amazing, thick bristling canes weaving amongst the wires of the trellis. I immediately could see what a garden entrance to the orchard would look like with big thick beams holding up kiwi fruit vines, enticing you into a world of fruit.

It got me thinking about the orchard and what it needs, in terms of fruit that I will use or do use. I probably could do with two more lemons, but one mandarine, grapefruit and orange should be enough. I am trying to sprout every avocado seed that I get, as we go through lots of them and would eat more if we had them growing. I am going to get a pine nut tree for sure, we use lots and lots of them. More pears, The Boy has gone through more pears than I can count in his short life. Bananas we have in boom and bust cycles. One fruit that has caught my eye is the Grumichama. It is supposed to be the sub tropical version of the cherry. Ever since eating off the cherry trees in Tasmania I have been longing for them. It is definitely worth a punt. Apples of course need to go in. Those are probably the main ones.

Maybe I should start a kick starter style project, buy a fruit tree and get a box of seasonal fruit a month once the orchard is going. Damn, I forgot grapes, gotta have them as well....hmm I'm off to research and dream of mature fruit trees and a productive orchard.

Growing what I need

After much trial and error and contributions to The Boys swear jar, I finally seem to have the rotating chook pens cow proof. So it's time to make this little patch of Lantanaland productive.

One of my endless problems is the fascination with the interesting and odd when it comes to plants. I need to ignore that and grow carrots, zucchini, onions, snow peas, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, silverbeet, ginger, chillies, potatoes and garlic. The problem is that I have grown only two of these in a way you would class successful over the years.

Still, I figure that this is my best chance yet, the hose reaches the garden beds, it is well fenced, well fertilised and I have to walk past it every day to milk the cows. This is very important as I usually remember to water about a week later than is needed. We shall see how we go. Advice welcome.

Serious Cheese

I have been hand milking cows for over three years now. I make a soft creamy feta that is as good as any I can buy. I've made brie that is better than any I have ever bought. I've also thrown away some soft cheese, but really, only the successes matter, right? But if you want be to be a real cheese head, not one of those people that just mess around with soft cheese and yoghurt, if you want to do some hard cheese, you need a cheese press

I have a very clever mate who works in steel who has helped me out with a few things round the farm over the years. Miiiitch ( you have to say his name like a hotted up hatch accelerating hard, then changing gears ) and I worked up a design ages ago, with two different size barrels, a 20kg spring and a draining board, it was to the deluxe of home cheese presses. Miiiitch had worked out all the little problems and with Dolores giving a good 7L+ every day I was keen to give it a try.

In some ways the making of hard cheese is easier than soft cheese. You can be a bit more vigorous with it as a smaller curd size is desirable. However there is all the turning, wiping and waiting. Oh yes the waiting. Even the smallest wait is two to three months.

The first cheese I tried is one I'm hoping will be our staple hard cheese. Similar to a supermarket cheese it will be only aged a few months and be good for toasted sandwiches, grated cheese and snacks for The Boy. We go through a bit of cheddar, or what the supermarkets call cheddar at Lantanaland so it will be a good thing to supply our own. The next cheese is one that I use bucket loads of. Parmesan. We eat a risotto once a week here and I'm always using it. So laying down a few kilos of that seems like a smart thing to do. Tomorrow I am going to try a firm blue that is aged for just a month. I love blue cheese and a month is an acceptable time to wait to see how badly I stuffed up or lucked out. That's the beautiful thing about cheese, even a rank amateur like me can sometimes pull out a magic cheese.

You can't have a good cheese without a cool fromage label and I thought to honor Miiitch I'd design a label around him. Miiiitch loves the summer dance festivals so he can get his shirt off, sunnies on and show off his wicked abs. So I decided to name all Lantanaland's hard cheeses the Shirts Off Cheese, with the label to match. Hope you like it mate.

Sleeping grass

Lantanaland has woken up. After months of baking heat that dried off grass that was already too short, last weekend we got rain, in flood proportions. We always get flooded in here, the bridge down the hill, despite being 6M above the little stream that is normally the Albert River usually goes under once a year. This year it really went under, the river went up 10M, transformed into this brown wide beast. I'm never that worried, as long as we don't lose power I always have milk and bread (I buy flour in 20kg bags) and there is usually eggs and something in the freezer. It'd have to be a good couple of weeks before we went hungry.

The rain was like a match thrown by a bogan on a car doused in petrol. It has come roaring out of the ground. The small paddock above the house is fenced because its too much of a slope to get the ride on mower in there, so the cows get to do the work. It is higher than belly high on Dolores already and the difference is startling. 9L in a late milking this morning and the cream content has shot up. She is even happier than I am to see the green grass.

The big wet and wind did do some damage and make me consider some things. The bales were slapped together when I first got the cows and have had a selection of tarp covers over the years. The latest one had a bamboo frame and had been doing a sterling job until the wind shattered the bamboo and tore the tarp to shreds. The bales are also in a bit of hollow that gets very boggy with a big bit of rain. Rather than just fix them up, it might be time to build a proper milking shed, with yards that has a through line so I can milk more than one cow if I need to. A lot of my farm design happens this way, slowly learning the lessons from the mistakes I've made then refining my design. Adding in skills like welding also make a difference to your thinking, because you can work in different materials and design different bits.

So at the moment I have no cows on the main block. Laf and her calf are trapped in the neighbours yard, ready for a small bit of attitude adjustment for the calf and a Contiki Cruise for Laf. (A short journey, followed by sex with a stranger). It's good to let that's grass get a bit of recovery. Dolores will shuffle between the three small paddocks I have round the house. The fruit trees are thriving. Nothing has broken into my veg patch and destroyed it, this week anyway. All in all, it's just so damn uplifting to see a bit of green around the place.

The rain is here!

It's been an interesting summer, one that is forcing me to think about the plans for Lantanaland and how I manage the land. As I sit here and listen to the squalls pass through and drop their precious load over the farm, I can almost hear the soil let out a huge sigh of relief. It's been dry, very dry. Yet only two years ago we were all shovelling mud after some of the worst flooding to hit SEQLD. Australia hey!

The biggest costs have been water and feed. We had to buy three lots of water this season. The most we have ever bought before is one. Normally by now I'd be mowing the house lawn every week. The mower hasn't been touched in over a month. Half the grass seed we planted hasn't even sprouted and the rest is struggling. Laf has been let out on to the neighbours better pasture. All these costs have a flow on effect. I really wanted to get a digital fault finder this year so I could find and fix the breaks in the electric fence. If Laf gets out she will find and eat the whole barrel of pollard or the bales of hay. But the money for that have gone to water and feed. And this is running a hobby farm on a tiny scale, imagine the scale of those decisions on a real farm. A dry year might mean you can't buy a machine that makes you more efficient and makes you more money.

The one thing I have finally worked out is my chook runs. Originally I just put up the mesh fences thinking the cows would see them as a barrier. If they have tasty chook grain or soft juicy arrowroot they don't see them at all. So a period of trial and error has ensured as I test ways I can keep them out. Now I have electric down one side and bamboo rails along the top, bolted into star pickets on the other side. Along with my new gate and some bamboo protection for the plants on the inside I am confident to start planting again.

It is the perfect time to get a few things in while the rain falls and with Laf the destroyer out in the neighbours paddock I put in a lime, some rhubarb,, snow peas, wormwood and purple asparagus. I also planted cucumber, corn, rocket and beans from seed. It is day two of this constant rain, while I hope that no one suffers flood damage, this is perfect rain, constant and not too heavy. The type of rain that soaks in and fills up my nice clay soil like a huge storage tank. Lantanaland might finally start growing some grass.

I'm interested in seeing what the rain does to the fruit trees. I reckon that tank watering doesn't have the same effect as good rain. I've nursed them through the dry, so hopefully they will establish themselves a bit more now the wet season has arrived. I'd already side dressed them with some muck from the bales so now they should thrive. The cow bales with their bamboo and tarp shelter have not fared well in the strong winds, one of the bamboo struts snapped under the strain.

It really is time to redo the bales properly, do a bit of a more secure milking shed. Something a bit more solid with a nice raised floor and a proper roof. Be good to store all the feed out of the weather where the cows couldn't raid it as well. Another job on the long long list. Not for today though. Today I'm going to sit and listen to the rain, soaking in to ground, making the grass grow, filling the dam, bringing life back to Lantanaland.

Projects and a half arsed Lantanaland year in review.

I'm a guy that needs projects. Half formed ideas swirling around in my mind, theories on how I can improve Lantanaland and make use of the land that we have. Some of these never become more than pipe dreams. Some, like my rotating chook pens, get done and then done again when you come home from the family Xmas to find the cows have eaten your vegetable patch for their Xmas dinner. But the dreaming and thinking of projects yet to be keeps you interested while you do yet another day of fencing or shovelling cow shit around fruit trees.

All in all it's been a pretty good year on the farm. I haven't killed too many fruit trees and The Boy and I have enjoyed the afternoon potter around the farm, watering and feeding. It has been a bad year for rain, almost none in spring and early summer at all and most of the big storms have passed us by. The reserve tank is still empty. Which didn't help yesterday when I needed some gravity fed water when the power went out. Despite the cows destroying the two chook pens, that system is working pretty well. The finger limes have sprouted, the first time in seven years that I haven't killed one. I am so keen to have some of these fruit, many great cooking opportunities.

The cows have had a productive year, two calves, one planned and one unplanned and both within a week, exactly what you don't want as a smallholder. They kindly helped with my fitness and The Boy's knowledge of the surrounding area when they escaped into the surrounding hills. I spent two weeks traipsing up and down hills with a loaf of bread calling fruitlessly into the lantana. I wouldn't be surprised if The Boy's first words aren't 'here girls, up you come' or 'where are you, you #%*+*% cows'. I've made a heap of cheese and kept the herd share in reasonable supply, the ones I can get to anyway. Soon I'll have to get the boy calf cut and send Laf off for a romantic retreat. I have a bit of a project planned for the yards as well now I have the welder, so that the cows can go straight through and I can milk two cows if I want. Of course the real project for the cows is the hand pumped milker, which I know exists, there are some in India, but I need to hook up with a friendly engineer who can help me build one.

The chickens have kicked back into gear, I hatched out some fertile eggs from the wonderful Kath and there are guinea fowl and duck eggs in the incubator. I have some geese coming. With the welder I can now build pens as I need them, a very handy thing. I should have some roosters to eat in the autumn. Having your own eggs and milk and cheese means that a tasty meal is not that hard to rustle up if you are too lazy to go to the shops on the way home. Just keep a chorizo and bacon on hand at all time. Or some cold smoked salmon.

It's been a bit of quiet year in the kitchen, I've done a few little things like make my own harissa and a few preserves. I really enjoyed getting a good crop of guavas, they are a weed at Lantanaland and making some jam and the most awesome relish. After five years of ignoring them I'm now eyeing off the developing fruit for some good relish this year. In preparation I've planted about ten different types of chilli which if I can keep the cows away from them should give some nice preserve options.

The less said about fencing the better.

However, for the first time Lantanaland is fully fenced and my awesome neighbour Jamie will come back in the new year and cut a road up the hill and rip out some more lantana with the dozer. If I can afford it, I might even get a bit of terracing in. The grass seed on the open ground has taken nicely and my slow pasture improvement keeps rolling on. Doubt we will have the resources to do pigs this year, that remains another one of those things that keeps you going for another year.

My project in my head, just percolating away is mulberry brandy. I've been thinking, when I get the other three mulberry trees going (cows love them, they pushed into one of the chook pens to eat one), I am going to have a lot of fruit. I already make an awesome syrup that I store and mix through yoghurt as a fantastic snack but what about some wine. Distill it, stick in a barrel and see what happens? Brandy is a really useful cooking ingredient if nothing else, but the thought of lucking out and making a really nice drink is appealing to my suck it and see ethic. Lantanaland is a bit that way, I do some planning, but I listen to the land, it tells me what works and what doesn't, when I've got a hole in the snake proof chook pen and when a fence is down. There is a few other things on the boil for next year which hopefully comes through but to all those that came down and helped or had a feed, many thanks and ill see you next year.