A walk down some hills.

After the disappointment of Candy the Dexter giving me only a few litres of milk a day, the 5-7L that Dolores was giving up was causing me great pleasure. Feta had been made, yoghurt and brie planned and the cheese press plans back in full effect. Not all was rosy though. Laf was losing weight, very, very quickly. The calf was taking so much she was burning more energy than she could produce. Simply, she wasn't getting enough food. I upped her hay, but the fenced paddocks just didn't have enough. There was no choice but to let her out into my untended paddock and by extension the neighbours as well. Not that they mind but there is a lot of space for a cow to wander, and all hilly.

For a week things were going fine, the girls would wander down in the afternoon and be put away for the night and Laf quickly gained back the weight she had lost and was no longer looking like Skeletor's pet cow. On Wednesday night I went straight to training from work and didn't get home till nine. They hadn't wandered down the hill and the next morning I was gone before there was enough light to call them in. The next afternoon my mum and dad were here so when they didn't show up I wasn't that fazed, they were probably down the hill and I could go and get them on Friday.

On Friday some old friends from the inner city living days dropped in. They had come down my way to buy a tractor, naturally. They were keen to see a bit more of Lantanaland so we went cow searching. Every other time they have wondered off they stay down on a great bit of grass near Jamie's yards, just behind my back fence. Off we trekked, but at the end, no cows. I was a little more worried, but again was thinking that they were just up the next hill near Jamie's sheds. We didn't have time to go further so I left it for Saturday.

Saturday was double Di party day. It was my neighbours 50th and they were having a street party as well as my mother in laws birthday as well, which we celebrating at night. In between kid wrangling, beers, cake making and beers, I armed myself with the machete and some bread to coax the girls back and ran off down the hill. I went through the back gate and off up the other hill, calling for the girls, plenty of cows but none with big white patches and lots of milk. I even followed the cow path that goes along the right hand side of valley home, in case they were up on the grass there. Nada, no cows. That meant they'd gone....over the other side of the mountain. I'd never gone that way before and had no idea what I'd find. Lantana was a pretty safe bet. The plan was to gear up after breakfast and go looking.

At Di's party I'd mentioned to Cliff, the old guy who had owned our whole street originally that I'd lost the cows. Just as I was getting ready to go, protected for ten foot high lantana, he came over to tell me that they were at the back fence of a farm down the other side and he'd give us a lift down so we could walk them back. The little buggers followed me and my bread quite readily back up the steep climb to Cliffs, then round the hill to Lantanaland. I locked Dolores up for a quick afternoon milk and fed them both lots, just to remind them that they didn't need to walk quite as far for a feed next time.

Lantanaland has achieved.....butter.

Ok so it's not winning an Olympic gold medal or landing a souped up Toyota Hilux on the surface on mars but in the history of Lantanaland dairying, it ranks up there with the best Brie I have made.

The book that really kicked me into thinking about living this life was 'A Year of Slow Food', by David and Gerda Foster. Brutally honest about the pros and cons of running a small holding, it nevertheless talked about butter as an annoying by product of owning a dairy cow, of having to dump it to reclaim freezer space, trawling through recipe books for butter heavy recipes and making tons of shortbread.

Now anyone who has eaten my food knows that I am a butter freak. Margarine does not cross my threshold and is viewed in the same category that Campbell Newman is at the headquarters of the public sector union. The day i made my first hollandaise is celebrated every year. So the thought of endless mountains of butter was a touch appealing. The first cow I milked was disappointing, I tried every different way possible, I consulted with dairy people on twitter, I prayed to the milk gods but I could not make butter.

The second cow I milked was not much better, as she never let me milk her out, always saving some for the calf. (for non dairy peeps, the cream is all at the end of milking, so if you just get the top bit, it is pretty much skim milk). Now however, my favorite cow, Dolores is in the milking bale. Placid and adoring, Dolores sits there quite happily till I milk her out. And cream? The first time I milked her I think there was more cream than milk! I couldn't ask for better raw product.

The final piece of the puzzle might be the blender I bought for making The Boy's meals. It hasn't been used at all for that, the stem blender has worked fine but it killed it making the butter. Yesterday I skimmed the cream off tastetrekkers milk and my bottle, placed it in a jar with a scoop of yoghurt and let it culture for a day. Then back in the fridge to chill and the into the blender. Immediately I could tell it was working, I could hear the motor working as the cream thickened then see the butterfat separate from the milk. I was left with about 300g of butter and a bottle of buttermilk, which means pancakes for breakfast Saturday.

The sense of pride was palpable. I had finally cracked the butter code. But what to celebrate with? Eggs benedict, smothered in hollandaise? Simple boiled spuds smothered in butter? Some brioche? I think I'll just make them all!

Catch up

It has been a long time since I've written anything about Lantanaland, not from lack of interesting things, more the opposite. Mostly the time has been going to The Boy. At seven and a bit months he is good fun, lots of cheeky smiles and little milestones. However the momentum for this blog came from the fantastic Mr Flinthart, who writes his as a rambling record for his kids to read one day if they want. History is important and stuff has been happening and thoughts have been percolating that need to be recorded if I am to provide even an incomplete picture of how the farm grew up around us.

Curtis has not just been sitting around playing with his toys. He is quite used to being strapped in and coming to feed the cows and the chooks, water the fruit trees and do the other many small jobs that need doing around the farm. He has even spent a few afternoons in the backpack while I have been fencing. Fencing! How it haunts my nights and causes gnashing of the teeth. More about that a bit later.

The big changes have been the addition and subtraction of the cows. I had to sell Candy, the dexter. Lovely as she was, especially in the milking bales, I could never convince her to give up all her milk without using the calf. The cows are not pets and I haven't made cheese or yoghurt for the herd share since I started milking. Feed is also scarce, and I can't warrant buying feed for a cow giving 2L a day. I also have more mouths to feed. Both Laf and Dolores have calved. Laf had a little bull calf, somewhat surprising as I didn't know she was even in calf and she did so before Dolores! Dolores eventually followed up with a little girl a week later. So I have enough cows at the moment.

Despite having two cows I could be milking I'm getting none. This is because of cash and optimism. I tried to do a day pen for the chooks in electric fencing because I can't afford the mesh for a big run at the moment. It didn't work and a side issue was in all the fiddling round I also rendered the fence I use to separate the calf off at night impotent. So I haven't milked Laf yet because the calf has beaten me to her every morning. You'd think getting up at 430am would be early enough but no, no milk for us. Dolores is in quarantine, having had a shot of antibiotic to clear up some post birth swelling.

I am looking forward to milking Dolores. She is so tame that I swears he has a bit of Golden Retriever in her, she even lets the other calves have a drink. The latest fencing is a small yard around the bales. Of course $1000 and some proper yard fence panels would solve the problem in ten minutes. Mostly I love being innovative and making something out of scarce resources, but right now I want 6L of milk a day and some cheese.

One positive is letting the chooks out to irregularly range has seen an upturn in egg production. Chooks that get a big range have better tasting eggs as well and eggs means some of my favourite foods, aolli, fresh pasta and boiled eggs. The other big sucess has been homemade harissa, using my little ornamental chillies and tomatoes semi dried in the oven then cold smoked in the washing machine smoker. Fantastic depth of tastiness and I can't wait till I have my own yoghurt again.

The next big thing is going to be a decent summer veg production. I really do suck at vegetable growing, but I want enough tomatoes this year to do some bottling and freezing and smoking. Also I'm keen to supply most of the houses fresh greens. We will see, but right now I have to go and check on an electric fence, again.

Content creation

One of the common bits of myth is that tablet computers can't do content creation. We went on holidays last week and I had a really cool picture of The Boy and one of our mates little girl. I wanted to do something with it so I busted out the app Comic Life.

At the same time I wanted to do a shirt with a picture of The Boy on it for my best mate who is going overseas for six months. He really is an uncle to The Boy, Ryno comes round twice a week for dinner and Curtis just lights up when he walks in. I had so much fun with the first comic I decided to do a comic for the shirt instead of a picture.

Simple Things

It's surprising to me how much enjoyment I get out of simple things. Eating fruit off the tree is always a good one. I don't eat massive amounts of fruit as a rule but I can't help myself if I go past a fruit tree with ripe fruit on it. Might be why I've been planting so many lately, have another 4 to go in this weekend.

The Boy gives me a lot of simple pleasure. Normally when I come home he is a bit restless, wanting constant changes of activity to keep him amused. Lately he has been passing through that into a beautiful ten minutes of so of calm, where he'll just suddenly rest his head on my shoulder and have a quiet cuddle before his bath. It is just fantastic.

I get a lot of simple pleasures out of my cooking, sometimes out of the most basic tasks. I cooked The Wife some salmon tonight as a break from the steak mountain and instead of a hollandaise I did a poached egg on top. I have poached a few eggs, but have never got that classic poached egg, a lovely ball of white holding the rich yolk. I've tried it so many times and never got it right.

I have no idea what I did tonight, maybe the water was at just the right simmer but both came together perfectly. I've been sitting here all night thinking about it. It made the meal just a bit more enjoyable there have been few things that has given me as much pleasure cooking as those eggs.

A good bloke

I've written before about my next door (sort of) neighbour, Jamie, who took Buster the bull away and was going to turn him into lovely steaks for me, in return for some of my sausage making knowledge. Sounded like a sweet deal to me and Buster was shipped off the Jamie's home farm, where he got to eat better grass than Lantanaland ever had in his final days. Then I got a call,
"hey John I haven't forgotten you but I've been thinking about that bull, I think we might kill something a bit better tasting and I'll do something else with the bull. Is that ok?"

Of course I jumped at it. Jamie being Jamie it was a few more weeks before he rang to say they'd knocked over a cow and would hang it for a while before butchering it up. Sure enough I got a call on tuesday to say I was on for that afternoon. They'd break the body in the morning and we would make snags after work. I dropped in on the way to work and checked out the quarters, lovely dark meat with a great capping of fat. Once I got in I pre soaked some natural casings and put on some stock to put in the beef snags.

When I got there in the afternoon I was pretty excited. This is four year old beef, on great grass and the snags should have fantastic flavour. I was going to do three, a plain beef snag, but unlike any you would get at a supermarket or most butchers, a smoked chorizo and a cooked salami. The area we were working in was just a farm shed, a steel table, an old mincer and cold room and some tubs. I got straight to work on the beef, hand mixing the meal and stock through the mince and running it through the fine plate again. Then the chorizo and the salami. Unfortunately I forgot to grab some chillies off the bush in the morning so it will be a mild salami.

We were all ready to go and I had had a look at the old modified water sausage filler they had bolted to the wall because they had taken the bottom and legs off for the modifications. We were just standing around waiting for Jamie to 'bring the tractor in'. Jamie had told me that he used the tractor to power the filler but I wasn't sure what he meant. I soon found out! The tractor was backed up and hooked up to the hydraulics. The filler was operated by someone lifting the hydraulics up and down in the cab. Interesting. I threaded the casings onto the nozzle, an old beaten up piece of copper water piping joined on to the filler with a modified irrigation valve. MacGyver would've had a look at this thing and exclaimed "steady on"!

A bit of fiddling around to get the o rings to fit in, not easy when your controller is sitting up in a tractor cab, we loaded the beef snags in and started off. My god, I've never had sausages come out that quickly, it was more cannon than filler. I tried to get the rhythm of it but busted the casing a heap of times. I then filled out some chorizo and some cooked mettwurst salami that I took into work the next day and smoked in the commercial smokehouse at work.

My share is a fair whack of beef. How they dealt with this in the days before refrigeration is a marvel. Jamie is a real old school farmer type bloke, just happy to help and have a go at something. We are bloody lucky to be sharing a boundary with him.

Postscript. Last night we had the first steaks out of the batch. My god they were good. Some stroganoff tomorrow I think, fresh pasta and homekill beef. Heaven.

Lantanaland, the good and the not so good.

Things have been busy around Lantanaland, as you would expect with a four month old and some things on the farm have been going good and some not so good but lots being done. The good stuff of course starts with The Boy. We had a lovely mothers day, woke up at 530am, gave The Mum a cup of coffee and her present and sent her back to bed (the present she really wanted). I rugged The Boy up and went and walked the farm, said hi to the chooks and cows, told Candy I'd be back to milk her in a bit, much to her displeasure. It was fantastic.

The other thing that has been quite pleasing is the beginning of the fruit orchard. I have planted (and killed) a few trees since we got here but a while ago we decided to plant out the slope between the house and the road as a little orchard. It is too steep to mow with the ride on, I let the cows clean it up for me but it is just a wasted bit of grass really and the trees that are on it now are either dead or straggly.

This time I have actually used some of my permaculture training in the planning. The area is what would be classed as zone 1 in permaculture, close to the house. In Beeso speak, zone 1 means somewhere you walk past enough every week that you'll remember to bloody well water the fruit trees. This is important as I have killed a few by forgetting to water them after I have them established. To be fair, I've also killed some with overwatering, there is no end to my talents.

So I have started on the steepest part, closest to the road. The soil is crappy, shaley stuff, so I cut shelves in the slope and planted the trees in some car tires I had. The mix I used was out of the chook pen. I have a little prison system going in the chook pen at the moment. The pen is not massive, big enough but too small to maintain any forage so I have been pulling out great big bins of weeds and tossing them in. The last time mum came to visit the weeds were 50cm deep. They happily pick and scratch and dig at them until they have broken down into a lovely rich soil. That's what I used to plant my fruit trees in.

All around the trees I have some chip mulch that I buy from the tree lopper guys. On the high side I planted comfrey. Comfrey is like a super plant in permaculture, great for chooks and cows, accelerates the breakdown of compost and the worms love it. What I wanted it for was its taproot. Putting it on the high side it will send down a incredibly strong taproot. When it rains the water will follow the path that root has made rather than just running down the slope and over the soil. It should give the soils a much higher moisture content. Comfrey also pulls up nutrients and trace elements from deep below the root system of the fruit tree, then you just tear the leaves off and drop them under the tree to rot down and enrich the soil.

On the low side, I planted a little retaining wall of lemongrass. Once established it will create a mini terrace that keeps the mulch and water in. I will finish off my transplanting some pintos peanut there in the wet season once I have my starter patch well established.

So far I have put in a nashi pear, a ruby grapefruit and a finger lime. A mate of ours, Jess, put me onto cheap fruit trees at the Powerhouse markets, so I'll be making a trip up there once the chooks have made me some more potting mix. I'd like to establish all the fruit I know I'll eat first, so some oranges, apples, mandarins, avocado and pear will be on the list. I already had some others in in other places so fingers crossed I can keep these alive and thriving.

The not so good news is the cow and the making of cheese. I was really hopeful of largish amounts of milk out of Candy but she is too good a mum. She is keeping most of her milk up for the calf. No amount of massage, warm water or coaxing will convince her to let it down. Letting the calf on to her for a bit works, but she then bolts the bales and feeds the calf. This is where my bales are really letting me down, no head crush, and no real way to keep her still after the calf has had a suck.

When the calf is in the next paddock she is a great little milker, trots on in to her feed and stands dead still while I milk her. It's only when the calf is close she turns into a cow that lists The Great Escape as her favourite movie. I was really hoping to be cranking out the cheese for the Herdshare by now, but alas I am only getting enough for our milk, a bit of milk for the herdshare and the occasional batch of feta.

Still, it beats buying home brand milk at woolies!