Old Wood

Sometimes you just lucky with the people you become friends with. I've made two or three through the blogosphere that I would call real mates and communicate with even if the Internet ceased to exist. But the net makes joining of the minds like that easy. The real fun is when it happens through an old school interaction, like being neighbours.

When we moved to Lantanaland the first people we met was Eric and Di, the people who lived across the street. We didn't have that much in common at first, other than music. Eric has about 20 000 vinyl records of all different styles. He just loves music (my old hip hop buddies would go nuts). But he's not into technology at all, can't even save a called number into his phone and he is a fair bit older, different generations and all that. We would have the occasional chat and beer as we got to know each other, he has a great sense of humor and being a chippy, he did a few odd jobs round the house that were beyond my skills.

We got to friendly enough that when we decided that a 20 degree slope on one side of the deck probably wasn't that flash, we asked if he'd do the work of rebuilding it. You just have to look at his house to know eric isn't just a run of the mill builder. Hes a craftsman and like me he gets bored doing things the conventional way. He agreed and we did the work mostly on weekends so that I could be the laborer. Over that time I learnt a few things about building and discovered that we share a deep love for hardwood timber and in particular, recycled timber.

The stuff that gets put into landfill today is criminal, especially from old commercial buildings. Back in the day they built with timber that good craftsmen today would cry tears of joy to get their hands on. We wanted nice wide top rails so that we could take advantage of the fantastic view and enjoy our breakfast on the new deck. To buy new, in hardwood, would be way above our budget, but Eric got a call from a mate who was demolishing an old Nissan dealership. They had some great big slabs of timber that were going to be hacked up with a chainsaw and dumped. Eric rescued them and we ripped all the nails out and today I was sanding the lovely old wood back, exposing the saw marks that the mill probably made 50 or 60 years ago. It made me so happy to see the age, the character and knowing that it wasn't in some tip.

So Lantanaland has given me another gift, a friendship I probably never would have had, one that's grown through working together, building something, for us and the family to come.

The Stupid Tax

I have this thing I call the Stupid Tax. When I was younger and getting into tech and gadgets I would quite often be fooled by the marketing and the concept and purchase on impulse. On arrival I'd find that the product, design and engineering didn't match the concept and marketing and so I payed the Stupid Tax for it, money wasted. Or I'll lose or break or misplace something that had plenty of life in it and I'll mutter to myself as I buy the replacement, that's $39 Stupid Tax right there Beeso.


This morning I had to fly to Rockhampton for a funeral, an up and back trip in a day. I was sure I had double and triple checked the date, one of my pet fears about travel but had somehow managed to book in November not October. I went up to the Virgin help desk, hoping, praying that they knew what the stupid tax was and were prepared for me to pay a hefty hit of it to get there.

Turns out Virgin Australia have tax exemptions for incredibly stupid acts and the very kindly swapped my flights at no charge, at which point my heart started beating again. These days I do my due diligence on anything I purchase and very rarely have to pay the Stupid Tax and I'm incredibly annoyed when I do pay it but today I would have gladly paid it to be there for my Grandmother and Mum.

Virgin will get my business from now on and based on form, I'll be paying them some Stupid Tax sometime in the future.

- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:On a plane to Rocky, luckily.

Sacrificing 7 virgins did the trick*

Those of you that have a interest in my small dairy herd and cheese making attempts will know of my problems with butter. I've tried many, many times with no success, had a whole heap of advice from twitter (cheese makers and butter people on twitter are amazingly helpful). I was going to borrow the sherman tank of food processors off a mate of mine, The Snackqueen, but thought I'd give it another go this morning. Well sacrificing 7 virgins* seemed to do the trick because I finally achieved butter.

I cultured the cream with a bit of natural yoghurt, sat it on the bench during the day then chilled it overnight. Within a few minutes of beating I could tell it was different, the cream was thickening! It took a fair bit more to get the butter to separate out and the stem blender was pretty warm by then but I had butter.

I really need to get the mixer going so that i don't have to stand over it for half an hour but there is no stopping me now, hopefully soon Lantanaland will have a stockpile of homemade butter in the freezer.

*no actual virgins sacrificed. Couldn't find any at Beenleigh Woolies.

Raw deal

This morning I had a whole bunch of twitter links about the fate of raw milk cheese and the slow food movements fight to protect the diversity of our cheese types. As the world grows smaller and more and more traditional cheeses are lost I think that raw milk cheese is worth fighting a bit for.

The fact is, that a small minority will want or seek out raw milk cheese if it was legal in Australia. There is no way FSNZA would just let cheese makers go at it, it would be regulated and tested within an inch of it's life, which means it would be more expensive. But we should have the choice.

Consider this. I'd only have to walk or drive for 5 minutes to buy something that is guaranteed, proven, peer reviewed, without a doubt to kill you, cigarettes, yet no government or government department would dare dream of banning them.

The links are here,here and here. Most people will keep buying the standard brie at woolies and I'll keep making my completely random, raw milk cheese at home. But it'd be nice, if you wanted to try the cheese in my world, you could.

Made by someone who knows what they are doing of course.


- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Footy training

Watching Grass Grow (warning contains actual description of grass and other things growing)

Queensland doesn't really have a authentic winter. One morning here and there wearing a jumper to milk the cows does not a winter make. What does happen is the grass stops growing. What looked like more than enough feed down the bottom paddock disappeared far quicker than I liked and in the last month the cows have lost a fair bit of condition, despite the hay and fruit they get every day.

So the arrival of spring, the feeling of it, not the date, was very welcome. A few early storms and a bit of warm weather and the green started to peek through. The cows have bashed down a lot of the lantana and as the years go on I'll get better and more pasture but I'm also going to do a bit of improvement over the summer on the feed situation. I already have a nice start on the clover in the home paddock, which is beloved by both cows and bees.

While the grass is getting green, there is still not enough of it, especially for the jerseys who had really thinned off. So I fenced off a little treat paddock up behind the house, along the road. It's a real problem up there, a few rock retaining walls and a slope too steep for the ride on mower. Even the hand mower is difficult because you feel like you are sliding off the slope. It is right near my neighbors too, so I take them up in the morning and back at night so they avoid the "hungry/need to be milked cow alarm clock".

They really appreciate it too. Yesterday, after taking them back to their paddock, I was giving Laf a brush off and checking for ticks. After checking her over I went to do the same for Dolores. Laf quickly pushed her off and rubbed her head on me like an affectionate 300+ kg house cat. Cows can be so cool.

It seems like the spring feeling has brought on a flurry of work. Trees trimmed, cheese made, paths exposed, fencing (always bloody fencing), holes dug for shipping container foundations, fruit trees planted (fig, more passionfruit and kiwifruit), ducks moved down to the chook pen and bath installed, bees checked, more bloody fencing and gates installed and a bit of light lantana removal for something different.

Today's fencing was brought about by the suspicion that Candy the dexter cow is not that far off from calving, so I wanted her in the home paddock where I can keep an eye on her. The problem being the fruit trees I have in and around in that paddock. Nothing a few star pickets couldn't fix. The top paddock has a nice bit of grass and clover too which she will appreciate and I'll up her minerals in some pollard every morning.

I'm hoping that I can import this nifty hand milker from India that I discovered. I've rung them and besides a crappy line, shipping and getting them to understand why I want one I'm hopeful that when I am milling a few cows it will make things a bit easier. I doubt I'll be able to hand milk 20L a day on my schedule.



All in all I'm reasonably happy with the farm progress. Just have to get the shipping container in and sorted before the baby comes is the big one I guess. Plant more fruit trees and keep them going. The mulberry is not far off and I'm looking forward to smoothy breakfast season. I made 2L of yoghurt today for that very purpose.

Other than that, I'm going to sit back and watch the grass grow, because for someone who owns dairy cows, there is nothing more exciting.


Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Lantanaland

Pit crew

I have two things occupying my brain matter at the moment. Both of them are quite reflective. The first of course is the birth of junior Beeso. The other is my first real head coaching job, coaching an A grade club side in the top Brisbane touch competition. But here's the thing, I'm a bit of a doer and the mind space of both these things is a bit like being pit crew for an F1 team. You are important, even vital, but you're not driving the car.

Last week at the midwife meeting I was struck by how little there is I can do other than move furniture around, keep the house clean and stay very, very calm. I'm loving the process so far, aided by the fact The Wife is doing this the cliched football way, one week at a time, not looking to much to the finals. It's meant I can just roll along, enjoying the discoveries as they come, like the 20 week scan and finding out the sex of the baby.

The footy thing I can drive a little bit more, but as I found out Friday night, as much as I train them, work on teams and game plans and positions and tactics, I can't actually run out there and change things. I've always been a player, only recently started coaching through a rep assistants job and Friday was a big wake up call. I spent hours after lying in the dark, trying to figure out how to do things better.

When I go on my road runs, I spend the long boring minutes thinking away about football and babies and tactics and cuddles and sub rotations and wondering how old a kid has to be before it can milk a cow.

The important things pit crew have to think about.

- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Lantanaland

Nothing on the Weekend

I had nothing on this weekend. It started off well, a few beers with some mates (for me) to celebrate finding out the sex of my new little farmhand. (it's a boy and I'll write a bit more about that later). Slept in Saturday with the weekend gloriously unencumbered by any appointments, social outings or coaching.

Of course this is Lantanaland and that means the list of things I have to do is as long as a 14 year old girls phone bill. I started off with a coffee, everything should start with a coffee then a little light fencing with the cows. They are not really up to Olympic standard but it was enough to get the sweat going. This paddock is the small one and it had one gap that looked like it was an impenetrable bank of eight foot high lantana. There is a little (native?) pea that was growing over it and they soon smashed that down to a size where they could munch the pea. On the other side of that was a stand of bananas and I might as well have gone to a fashionable club in Sydney and yelled 'free cocaine for everyone' considering the stampede into the garden. So the cows went back into the big paddock till I had fixed the fence.

This is the last of the grass I have in the paddocks. The other two are eaten out and I don't think I'll get time to do the last big one, which has a much higher lantana to grass mix anyway. The good news is that when this rainy season comes there is a LOT more open land and I'll do a bit of pasture improvement with some green manures over summer as well, so I should get a lot further next winter.

In the afternoon I decided to tear the carpet up, as you do after a good lunch. Underneath was lovely floorboards painted green with white and yellow splashed everywhere. Interesting. We haven't decided what to do, but I'm glad we are shot of that carpet.

Sunday I slept in until the cows bellowing got too insistent to ignore. Laf was in the dry paddock watching the others eat the nice grass and wasn't happy. I was waiting for my chippy neighbour to come over and give me some advice on where my new shipping container was going to live. He was off buying several hundred records, so I planted out two mulberry cuttings and gave them a little electric fence enclosure. Mulberries are supposed to be great for a cows health and I love them in smoothies, so I'm trying to propagate them in all the paddocks. I did some citrus pruning, planted a finger lime, chopped out a few weed trees and prepped for some new vegetable beds.

When Eric came over, we completely changed the plan, deciding to run the container east/west and bury half of it into the hill, which I'm very happy about. The only problem was the end we wanted to start at was covered in a nice thicket of farmers friends and lantana. What a surprise! Eric went home to his many projects and I went got out Zombie Defense Tool Number 1 (the brush cutter). I gave the blades a quick sharpen and went at it with abandon. That done we did some quick and dirty measurements to see how much fill and digging there would need to be done and called it a day.

Ahh yes, a nice quiet relaxing weekend.


- Lantanaland from my iPad

Location:Lantanaland