3
March
2009
Two days ago, our newest heifer got tangled up with a broken fence. I keep a rope tied loosely on the creature’s neck so that she can be separated from Coco for milking. The calf managed to get this rope tangled around some #8 wire fencing and a metal standard.
We were on our way out to the coast, so I wasn’t wearing my work pants (with the knife in the back pocket) or boots. I saw that she was stuck and just strolled up there thinking that I’d be able untie the knot to free her quickly.
Well, the knot was a serious mess. I looked at this situation and thought, “Just don’t get between that rope and the standard. Be careful.”
What do you think happened…
As I was undoing the knot, she took off like a shot and the rope snapped tight against my legs, I flew into the air and landed in some position that had both of my legs lashed to the standard, along with a ball of fencing. It was a tangle of legs, #8 wire, rope and blood (my blood). I was yelling uncontrollably because of the pain. This was upsetting the animal even more. She went around me a couple more times, pulling the tangle of fence, legs and rope tighter.
In case you’re wondering, this was a very serious, “OH SHIT!” moment. I couldn’t move, and the crazed animal would eventually wind herself up to the point where she’d be on top of me. She has tried to kick me with both front (yes, front) and hind sets of hooves. No, she REALLY doesn’t like being tethered.
My next thought was:
If she kicks you in the head, you could buy the farm right here, partially tangled in the fence, partially lying in the mud, blood and shit.
Trying to focus through the excruciating pain, I decided to cut her loose. I reached for the knife in my back pocket… That wasn’t in my back pocket because I wasn’t wearing my work pants!
I don’t really know why, but she got tired of pulling on the rope. Maybe she realized that she was actually getting closer to me, by going around and around, which she obviously didn’t like. I managed to get some slack on the rope, which allowed me to crawl away.
I’ve done some stupid things on this property, but this one takes the cake. What makes it even worse is that I saw the potential for trouble and reminded myself to be extra careful. Anyway, the good news is that this incident didn’t involve a trip to the emergency room or worse. The bad news is that, in addition to minor cuts, scrapes and bruises on both hands and my right leg, this is what the back of my left leg looks like right now:
This hurts a lot
To say that I’m walking funny is a bit of understatement. I don’t know if any serious damage has been done to my knee. The whole area is turning black and blue, and I’m having a hard time straightening it out. There’s some swelling, but it’s much less than I thought would be present. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.
I went to the chemist and he suggested a product called NurofenPlus, which is Ibuprofen and codeine. This has cut the throbbing pain way down. He said that if the pain continues to get worse, or if swelling increases, I’d need to go to the hospital.
Anyway, the moral of the story is: Please be careful.
I could have just kept this one quiet. I mean, who really wants to admit doing something stupid? The reason I wrote this post is because you don’t want to be the guy (or girl) who’s tangled up in a fence, screaming at the top of your lungs where nobody can hear you, with life and limb subject the whims of a very strong and stroppy animal. Maybe before doing something silly, you’ll think, “I don’t want to wind up like that jackass on Farmlet.” Maybe you’ll take greater care around your own property as a result of this. I know that I will.
Posted: Cows
15
February
2009
About one year ago, I wrote a list of goals for the Year of the Rat. Now that the year is over, it’s time to review the list. How did we get on?
1. Do “baby yoga” with Owen and have lots of fun. I’m proud to say that we really over-achieved on this goal. As well as having fun yoga time together at home, Owen and I arranged to get together for weekly yoga sessions with a couple of other mums and babies. This has been a lovely way to spend time together and make friends. Owen continues to enjoy some of his “baby yoga” moves, even as he’s becoming more interested in mimicking the “grown-up moves” that I do. He still loves to sit peacefully on my lap or in front of me while I chant Sanskrit prayers.
2. Build a chook house and chook run. I guess we score about 50% on this one. The construction of the chook runs is largely finished. Big thanks are due to my father for his work on this project. After thinking long and hard about plans for a chook house, and assessing our resources and building skills (Let’s face it: Building is not what we are best at.), Kevin has ordered a kitset henhouse. We can’t wait for it to arrive! There’s still quite a lot to do before the chooks can move in, but we are well on the way. We are looking forward to doing some big chook-system documentary posts for Farmlet once the show is up.
3. Install a solar water heater. Not done yet, I’m afraid, but steps have been taken. We have earmarked the funds for this project, and Kevin has been in touch with the vendors about the size of the system and how to install it.
4. We plan that calves and goat kids will be born on the Farmlet this coming spring. We had mixed fortunes on this one, with the bull not staying long enough for Rosie to get in calf. Still, Miss Scarlett Beef-Shanks (Coco’s calf this season) is thriving. We were especially delighted to see Coco deliver a healthy calf after the trouble she had the previous year.
Scarlett Beef-Shanks, about twelve hours old
5. Carrying on from #4: Extend the small goat house and build a milking stand for the goats. A big zero for this! This one just looked like too much to tackle last year. We decided to put off doing this work and breeding the goats for another year.
6. Undertake some cool cheese projects using fresh cow and goat milk.
I think we’ve made a strong start on the cheese. Owen and I attended a fantastic cheese making course back in October. I have already made kefir parmesan, aged kefir cheese, pressed curd, and ricotta. Still to come: cheddar, feta, camembert, and maybe gouda.
Heirloom tomatoes and homemade, raw milk cheese
7. Make delicious meals using meat raised on the Farmlet. Yes!! And I’ve enjoyed sharing recipes for beef liver pate and steak and kidney pie on the Farmlet website.
8. Experiment with grinding and cooking cornmeal, including some from our own corn. Oh, dear! I dropped the ball on this one. I still haven’t even figured out how to fit to corn augur into our grain mill. . .
9. Save seeds from more of our vegetables, herbs, and flowers. We’ve made some good progress on our seed saving. Some of the varieties we are saving include: borlotti beans, black spanish radish, black beauty zucchini, onion, cilantro, selugia bean, soldier poppy, cosmos, calendula, naked oats, pygmy torch amaranth, dill, and land cress. With the fruiting season now upon us, I’m also about to save seed from several varieties of tomato, tomatillo, runner bean, zinnia, and russian giant sunflowers.
10. Continue to battle kikuyu and work on “taming” the house paddock. We hope to work on weed barriers this year, with the aim of reducing the ongoing effort. We have done quite a lot of work on this front, due to the design of the chook runs we are making. We can’t wait to test our new barrier system when we finally get some chooks.
11. Attempt to make some more crusty fermented beverages. I’ve had a go at making a number of different fermented drinks: ginger beer, honey mead, and rosehip-hibiscus soda were all delicious. The last two were made using water kefir grains and honey from our neighbour’s bees. We were hoping to make wine from our grapes last year, as well, but the grape crop was pretty poor and it didn’t happen.
12. Raise some seedlings of “bushman’s toilet paper” to plant out in the garden. Can’t believe this one is still on the “to do” list after all this time. I’ve found a source of seed, so should buy it and get on with the project.
13. Last but not least: I want to write at least one update per week for the Farmlet website! This still seems like an excellent goal to strive for, even though it has seemed so unattainable over the past month or so. I’ll keep trying!
Well, that was the Year of the Rat in review. Overall, I think it was a good year for us here on the Farmlet. Lots of good stuff happened, but it looks like we still have plenty of work left to do in the Year of the Ox, doesn’t it! My next post will be our new list of goals for the Year of the Ox.
Posted: Cows, Energy, Food and Recipes, Garden, Owen
25
December
2008
On Christmas Eve, we had some showers earlier in the day and then a mild, almost fine, afternoon. After the weather cleared, while Becky attended to some business in the kitchen, I carried Owen on my back in the babypack and we toured around the farmlet, checking on the animals and generally enjoying our realm. Owen loves to visit the cows and “Moo” at them. It’s true. He sees the cows and lets out a gleeful, “MOOOOO!” as he points at them.
Now, it’s very easy to break a sweat in steamy Northland during the Summer months, and I’d done just that walking up, down and around the farmlet with Owen (~12KG) on my back. Luckily, the last time we were in town, I decided to stop by the liquor warehouse to see if any “Christmas Cheer” was on special; you know, something which might be useful for mixing up adult refreshing beverages. Would you believe me if told you that there was a big yellow “Special” tag on the large green Tanqueray bottle?
Spirits, especially nice ones, are too expensive for me to make much of a habit of, but the thought of a refreshing gin and tonic on a warm Summer afternoon quickly had me heading to the checkout counter with that iconic green bottle of quadruple distilled tipple.
Sadly, I don’t see us being able to produce anything like this on the Farmlet
I’ve rarely encountered a gin and tonic in a bar or restaurant that measured up to my weird standards for this particular drink. They’re usually made with way to much ice and not enough citrus. Additionally, regular highball glasses are too small for the job. Your taste will almost certainly vary, but I like a really good belt of gin and a strong citrus flavour, coupled with the bitter quinine finish of the tonic water. The pint glass is the way to go on this one.
Farmlet Gin and Tonic:
* Fill a pint glass half way with ice
* Slice about 1/3 of a lemon into thin rounds and squeeze over the ice (throw the skins in if you like)
* Slice half a lime into wedges and squeeze over the ice, run a lime wedge around the top of the glass (throw the skins in if you like)
* Pour gin, covering ice and citrus skins
* Top up with premium tonic water
* Stir well
Farmlet lemons and limes bathing in icy gin and tonic water
Wow, that’s a nice drink. It was so nice, in fact, that I had to try another that evening.
It’s hard to describe, but, somehow, these delicious cocktails seem to heighten the anticipation for the meal ahead. Becky was preparing some of our recently homekilled sausages—these with her herb fill—green beans from the garden, and spuddy mash.
Herb sausage dinner
Ahh, it was a very relaxing and enjoyable Christmas Eve.
Posted: Cows, Food and Recipes, Owen
22
December
2008
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR SOME READERS.
Last week, we slaughtered our eighteen month old heifer, previously known as Henrietta Hamburger (Sucky).
After the difficulty I had with getting the last steer into position for slaughter, I decided that I wouldn’t risk another outcome like that. The slaughtermen are busy and they don’t want to be waiting for people to chase their animals around. I’m convinced that the animals are somehow able to sense death. They normally follow buckets that contain their molasses treats. That is, until I try to lead one of them to the slaughter. I don’t know how they know, but somehow, they know.
When Sucky’s time was up, I decided that I was going to put her, Coco and the new calf down in the driveway overnight. This would make for very easy access when the time came. There’s plenty of grass in the driveway, and I put a water trough in there for them. Sucky was obsessed with Coco’s calf, so I thought that it would just drive her crazy if I separated them.
The next morning, Charlie arrived, ready to do his work. The kill that he’d done that morning, just before he showed up at our place, involved chasing an animal around. He was very pleased to see how I’d sorted things out.
I tried to get Coco and her calf away from Sucky, but they wouldn’t split up. They were trying to stay together. (I was trying to avoid having the other animals around when the shot went off. Apparently, they remember situations like this. So, if you have to do this, don’t let your other animals see it.)
Charlie used a rifle with a scope, so he hung back a bit, maybe five or six metres. He rested the weapon on the gate and took aim. I was expecting the hear the shot right away, but it didn’t come. He was waiting for exactly the right moment. He starting talking to the cows in a low voice, trying to settle them down. And they did settle down. They started to eat grass again.
“Look this way,” he said, over and over. “Come on… Look this way.”
Finally, Sucky turned to looked at him.
BANG!
Charlie delivered a very clean shot.
Since black pudding was on the agenda again, as Charlie drew his knife to bleed the animal, I had the containers ready. We decided to use a small plastic container to “bail” the blood into the larger bucket this time.
With my bucket of heifer blood in hand, I headed back up to the house to deliver it to Becky. (Thanks, by the way, to Becky’s mum, who came out to help with little Owen while his mum and dad went about their business on that busy morning.)
The rest of the job went just like it did with the Herman slaughter.
Here’s what the entrance to the Farmlet looked like that day. A couple of our neighbours drove past… You know you’re living in rural New Zealand when people drive by a scene like this and just give you their usual, customary wave as they go past.
I asked Charlie if he wanted us to mention his contact information on the site, to maybe help him drum up more business.
He said, “Mate, thanks, but I’ve got more business than I can handle. Please don’t recommend me to anyone else.”
In harsh economic times like these, I wonder what other occupations are around where the people involved beg you not to send any more customers their way!?
In a different development, Becky called one of our other homekill meat contacts and ordered a lamb to be slaughtered for sausages. (Christmas is coming AND Becky’s sister is getting married, so we needed to be well stocked for upcoming sausage sizzles! We thought we’d try lamb sausages this time.) Well, our homekill meat man (let’s call him ‘Joe’) called Becky back and said he didn’t really have a suitable sheep to do in just now, “But how about a pig? I’ve got a great big sow that’s ready.”
Becky consulted me and her mum and dad and we all licked our chops at the thought of having a large pigaphant turned into sausages.
The next day, Joe killed that sow and had the carcass hanging up. He called Becky.
“You know that sow… She was huge. You can’t have possibly wanted all of that turned into sausages.”
He wound up selling half of the meat to someone else and we took the other half. I think we wound up with something like 35 kilos of sausages. Becky made several different seasoning fills for them. I think she’s planning on writing about making sausage fill in an upcoming post.
So, that’s our meat situation sorted out for three households (our neighbours with whom we share grazing, Becky’s mum and dad, and us) for the next several months, plus part of the food for a large wedding after party.
Posted: Cows, Fellowship
9
December
2008
This morning, Owen and I went for a walk out to the cow paddock. I wanted to check on Coco. Last night she could hardly waddle up the hill on account of her huge belly and swollen udder. Surely her calf would be born soon.
Scarlett Beef-Shanks, about twelve hours old
When we reached the fence, what a sight met our eyes: A wobbly-legged rust-coloured heifer calf was just finishing her first feed and testing out her feet at Coco’s side. Owen smiled and pointed and said “mmooo.” Coco was mooing in a very maternal way and licking the new calf. Miss Scarlett Beef-Shanks is a healthy, good-sized calf, and she and her mother are both doing very well. This is such a joy to us after all the difficulties of last year when Coco’s calf was born dead.
Feedies
Rosie, Coco and Scarlett Beef-Shanks
Henrietta Hamburger (Coco’s foster calf from last season, due to be put in the freezer next week!) has been making a nuisance of herself with the new calf. She keeps getting between Coco and the calf when the little one is trying to feed. She has also been trying to lick and bunt the calf. Luckily Miss Scarlett Beef-Shanks is strong and determined, and is managing to feed ok despite the interference. Coco doesn’t seem to mind. She has been seen licking Henrietta as the little one feeds!
Posted: Cows
