Sunday 29 November 2015

Hand over the hamper or the hatchback gets it

This is a place of shared living.  We share so many of our spaces here with the animal world.  This little wallaby sat in a public car park not far from a sign that read 'don't feed the wildlife'.  They know we come with food and we like to share.  Why scrounge for food when there's a perfectly good food hamper with enough to go round.  Hand over the scones you scumbags. Previously I shared only my bed and attention with our two housebound family members of the dog and cat variety but now this list has grown.  A family of starlings have moved into the chimney in our bedroom.  The 6am flapping of wings and feeding of noisy chicks wakes us most mornings.  I'm hoping this is not the generation that decides to enjoy the comforts of home for too long.  Our backyard is shared with a community of chickens including devoted roosters, hens and chicks of all ages.  No sooner is a pile of earth pitched with a fork then they're all in for the picking and dividing of snails from dirt.  Good work my friends.  On a mild night we share a roof with a Cossack dancing possum and the birds who insist on roosting inside the back shed remain regardless of Minnie our farm cat who watches with much interest.  The white duck with the lame leg still comes for the odd sleep over when the prospect of a long limp back to the dam seems too much.  And everyday I put out the supply of water bowls for the troops as cat, dog, chickens and ducks all share the same bowls to drink. A still morning brings the green parrots who zip across the trees sounding like a squeezed rubber duckie and you can hear the magpie babies demanding food until a parent shoves something down their throats until they are quiet.  Food and shelter for all.  And very cheap rent.

Friday 27 November 2015

What do we want...green grass. When do we want it...now!

Wind and no rain.  Dead grass and roses that look like they've been microwaved.  Welcome to drought.  It's heartbreaking to see bluey grey thunderous clouds stalking the outskirts of my town only to downpour on everyone else.  The gales blowing this week have managed to lift shed roofs and split some vulnerable trees whilst I watched the BBQ move itself sideways across the courtyard with gas bottle in tow.  When we arrived this time last year we were challenged with weekly mowing and pictures of green everywhere. Now our veggie patch turns out celery stalks that bow to me as I walk past.  The cruel gusts tossed my baby nectarines around the driveway like they were on a roller coaster that came off the rails. No fun at this fair. And then we've sat inside and looked at the darkness of the wood fire saying gee, remember those cold nights only to light it up again today to think gee, remember those warm nights.  A windy month like a full moon sends Max skidding across the lino with a kink in his tail on the run from, well nothing really.  The chooks still manage to trek through the garden with feathers blowing backwards as if under a hair dryer.  My attempts to not resemble them fail as I head off to my car holding onto the door like I was fighting with an invisible person who wanted to pull it off.  Well that's Spring and can't have weather on demand.  Even just a little of our rain entitlement would be nice?

Saturday 21 November 2015

Christmas blows in early



Santa has officially arrived in the Christmas Parade unbeknown to me as I tried unsuccessfully to manoeuvre the wrong way against a footpath tide of pram and toddler traffic today.  Once returned to the safety of my kitchen I now look to baking plans for Christmas.  Max can't go passed a good shortbread but I'm considering an attempt at mince tarts of sorts.  I found a recipe in an English Country based magazine that tells of winter wonderlands with pictures of snow dipped hedges and knitted Christmas stockings.  A long way from the gale that's blowing across my back paddock that means if I risk putting the laundry on the clothes line next door's cows could end up wearing my underwear and the sheets will be somewhere along the highway.  Having had a cup of tea and a home made rock cake, it's time to put pen to paper and come up with the Christmas baking list. It's the time of year when diets and budgets are packed up and put away to be replaced by bags of caster sugar, white flour and packets of the unusual that would normally be forgotten in the pantry.   The temptation to buy chestnut flour and elderflower water is pretty strong even though I have no idea what they're used for.  And the beautiful display of Christmas pannetone that if your family aren't familiar with a European Christmas will be wondering why you are serving them dry cake.  Each year we try to do something a little different. But this year there will be shortbread.  After all, they're Max's favourite.

Friday 20 November 2015

Sharing home baked bread with my pet unicorn

Easy bread making is one of those kitchen myths like a non stick frying pan and an organised pot cupboard.  Easy the instructions may be but the alchemy of bread baking is in the hands of the proving gods.  My most trusted bread adviser tells me, having worked many years in the commercial bread producing trade that if you wipe your finger across the texture of the bread and it comes away too easy then it needs more proving.  This was only my second attempt so I was pretty happy with a 'needs to improve' mark on my report card. My early attempts swung between crusty but not risen or worse, cake like in bad need of beating - with a wooden plank.  Flour power will bring good fortune because as we know if you start out with good ingredients the need for luck reduces.  It's worth the pursuit to have the opportunity to have the home baked stuff.  The smell of just out of the oven loaves with a firm but not denture cracking crust and the taste of local wholewheat flour is all about living the country dream.  But the secret lies in ancient artisan skills that have proven (er, yes) that the modern commercial world just can't produce the magic quickly and cheaply. So back to the bench and time for another attempt at easy but not really, simple but most complex bread making.  If I could just find what I did with the tin.

Monday 16 November 2015

It's no Ramsey Street but what do they know about sheep?


In our previous home we were close to our neighbours.  In a block of eight townhouses designed to utilise every inch to its maximum, yes we were really close.  We heard them get up in the morning, use their bathroom, leave for work and return at the end of the day.  Max our ragdoll cat would sit along our back fence and spy on another lot.  They, no doubt could hear our conversations in the courtyard that backed onto their yard and while our kitchen window looked straight into the townhouse opposite it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that on Sunday's it was his turn to cook.  And whilst I say we were close, I didn't know their names.  I didn't know anything about them and all they knew about us was probably a feeling of being watched by large pair of blue eyes through a hole in the back fence.  But that, to a large degree is what some inner city suburban living is like.  You come and go and keep your good selves to yourselves and don't ask too many questions.  A little bit like when they interview the neighbours of the crime scene on the telly, they always say 'Quiet couple, always kept to themselves'.  When we arrived here, we asked a lot of questions from people who live close by but not that close.  And got some really good advice.  We asked about livestock, and water and septic tanks and why there isn't a national task force to eradicate the huntsman spider.  We got some pretty practical advice and a lot of help too.  We now know we can't knit the wool from our type of sheep, that there are ways we can better manage our water tanks and don't get me started on septic trenches or I'll be going for days.  I'm yet to get a response on the task force but I'm hopeful. Our fences our different here, they don't provide much privacy and some of our neighbours push them over sometimes to get to the green grass on our side.  Some just chew and look and ponder - what on earth are they up to now? 

Friday 13 November 2015

Is that sleigh bells I hear?

It's almost here.  Boy, where did that year go?  There is something about your first sight of Christmas decorations that makes the rest of the year really fly.  The wall to wall carols playing in the supermarket aisles makes me want to move my shopping trolley just a little bit faster.  Fortunately it's only mid November so we can cast a leisurely glance over the glossy magazine pages of elaborate Christmas menus and overloaded tables stuffed with fare.  Each year they seem to outdo the last.  This year it appears we need to have home made decorations including crocheted bunting draped under the fire place and Irish linen wrapped parcels.  The menus become more unique as the traditional foods get gazumped by the inventive.  Whilst giving the appearance of a frugal feast, the pictured glazed rare species of some sort that will take two days to cook, if not found roaming wild in your back paddock will probably cost you an amount similar to a holiday in Spain. The assortment of children should be strategically placed around the table in crisp white cotton (as if) seen joyfully playing with hand crafted bon bons and not an iphone in sight. Fortunately our reality is not quite so stylised as our much tried and true traditions prevail.  There is some comfort to know, no matter what book or magazine we choose for inspiration, there will no doubt be mess, stress and we'll promise ourselves, that next year it will be at their place.

Thursday 12 November 2015

No call for confit

We had a visit from a weary traveller yesterday.  Not so much as a knock on a farm door but more like an hysterical scream coming from the chook pen.  Just as dinner hit plate, the cries alerted us to all hell having erupted in the chicken house. Having only moments ago seen them tucked in alongside each other in their somewhat limited and soon to be renovated indoor outdoor pen, the new visitor sat outside causing concern.  A white duck with a troublesome leg came by to enquire about a place to rest.   He accepted our kind offer of some grain and a water bowl and didn't seem keen to move on.  In the spirit of Christmas he was given lodgings for the night in an old shed with plenty of fresh straw and a few restful piles of old cow manure. Our ever wise Cocker Spaniel looked on with Minnie our dumped and now resident farm cat unsure as to what chicken variety this was and how we really need to stop feeding them so much.  Post dinner our rested friend had regained his energy and was last seen walking slowing towards the dam at the back of our paddock. A little ditty sprang into my mind from an early memory of my Irish kindergarten friend Ema (pronounced Eema).  She used to sing a little song about always be kind to your duck.  Because your duck used to be your brother.  Or something to that effect.  I was four years old at the time and now that I think about it, given her accent it was probably dog not duck.  Anyway, best wishes my feathered friend - and good luck for the festive season (you might need it).

Wednesday 11 November 2015

Fair coop

Lewis our second in charge pekin rooster likes an early start.  I mean early as in a 4:30am early start.  No sleep in for this little feller.  I was hoping with daylight savings that the early risers would be delayed an hour but the early rising sun soon put that theory nicely back to bed.  Lewis likes to survey the land and determines his schedule for the day.  He recently suffered a demotion to the rank of second in charge following the loss of one of our hens in a water trough.  A sad event but with no suspicious circumstances.  Since then he's been pushed to the back of the group, no longer left on his own to supervise and now the last one at the assortment of last night's leftovers.  Even though the incident was not his fault there's no fair process and union representation in chicken world.  He took it on the chin and didn't even call in sick the next day.  I wonder if he'll ever get the opportunity to work his way up in the pecking order again.  Or maybe his warning sits permanently in the chicken files forever.  Most unfair.

Tuesday 10 November 2015

Throw the keys in the bowl, it's the retro radish

What is it about the radish to says Sao biscuits and the 1970's.  An under rated vegetable that deserves a little more of the spotlight over the ever present cress and every party goer the pea shoot.  Our first harvest from our newly planted patches have provided enough radishes to keep us going all through summer.  Provided we eat nothing but radishes.  I'm looking at my Margaret Fulton's for inspiration.  I've often seen them mandolined within an inch of their lives alongside a carpaccio or ceviche - thinly sliced raw fish to you and me.  Someone suggested to me radish pie but I think it was a joke  and I'm still under performing in the sashimi slicing category so we'll be having salads all round for a few weeks yet.  Being home grown and freshly pulled from their comfy beds they've developed a strong mustardy flavour.  Your standard supermarket variety as opposed to common garden variety don't have that same punch on the nose of heat and crunch that has you reaching for your Kraft Cheddar cubes and bypassing the cabana.  So here's to the humble radish.  An almost forgotten feature of the hors d'oeuvres platter.  Pass the prawn cocktail and break out the spumante, cheers.

Thursday 5 November 2015

Same same but different

So how different really is it for you to move from a heavily populated and almost uppity bayside village where puffer jackets are numerous and lattes are soy?  My view from the window is of a road that has not so much luxury people movers but movers with more leg room - and more legs.  There are trucks not jeeps, loaded with feed not groceries and the white Ute is the vehicle of choice for the discerning working dog who never gets to see inside.  Puppy school is non existent as a dog's life starts on the back of a tractor.  He learns quick and is not terribly fussed about grooming as rolling in something dead is the highlight of the day.  We're learning at breakneck speed.  We know our pink eye's from our kennebecs where in our previous home our potatoes were not grown and named just scanned and packed.  We've learnt about mounding up soil and the constant quest for water in a dry place.  We've learnt what's old news for so many around us.  Knowledge from living off the land is an under valued source like water, you can never have too much of it when you need it.  We knew about peak hour traffic that goes all day and e-tags and e-tickets but they were soon forgotten in a world of water tanks and fire boxes in winter.  No flick of a switch but chopping, splitting, and a worthwhile moment between man and dog as they stare at the first flames to take on a newly stacked fire.  So yes, a different world for us but the same same for the oak tree that sits out the front that remembers the first world war.  We're just a different set of caretakers.

Sunday 1 November 2015

Cheep Cheep

Baby chickens everywhere.  It's spring.  Mothers have stern words and flapping of wings over their protective circles.  Roosters are struggling to keep up with the demand for a watchful eye over the hens as they wander about the grounds.  Mothers play groups don't form and there's not a jumping castle in sight.  Wattle birds are told to push off in no uncertain terms and the ever present farm cat watches on with more than a passing curiosity.  Fortunately farm cat is on a strict diet of more meals than usual as we feed her up to keep her mind elsewhere.