Monday 30 January 2017

Crime spree

Bastards. That was the only word I could think of at the time.  Our first zucchini so proudly displayed under an umbrella of sunshine coloured flowers had been the main course for a freeloading possum in our veggie patch.  Partially our own fault for placing fully ripened low hanging produce on display with no anti theft systems in place.  However we had no concerns about the high security polly tunnel now proudly growing our carefully staked Hobart Botanical Garden Tomato Plant, until now.  The first and only red tomato tucked away under the branches was left to develop its own sun drenched flavour.  Not the fridge flavour of your tennis ball variety tomato found in gas filled plastic bags in the supermarket, this tomato was about being able to do what tomatoes should naturally do.  Ripen in the sun in their own time.  Not when the Supply Chain department deem them ready to be shipped.  So on one of the daily quality assurance inspections of the veggie patch, assisted by our Head of Logistics and Lounging About Minnie, I found the tomato was nothing more than a stalk and a few shards of red skin.  Possum had partaken, again.  He'd managed to abseil down the polly tunnel pipe using the olive branches as a guide rope, descended into heirloom heaven and dined in on our one and only heirloom tomato and presumably catapulted his way out.  So this weekend was dedicated to upgrading security.  The sewing of net holes and securing of ties seems only a small step towards a secure environment without surveillance cameras, a sensor alarm and automatic spotlights.  But unfortunately the chooks would never get any asleep.  'YOU DOWN THERE. PUT THE ZUCCHINI DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM THE PLANT'.  Bastard.

Tuesday 24 January 2017

The Cat Management Task Force would like their dinner now...

They were disappointed they weren't invited for submissions to the Tasmanian Cat Management Plan proposed to 'improve the management of feral and domestic cats in Tasmania', but when not even considered for the Tasmanian Cat Management Reference Group, well this caused a major upset.  Whilst the feral cat problem is exactly that, the proposal to restrict domestic cats to owners properties is like saying your goldfish is only allowed to swim on the left side of the tank.  And as cat owners know, no two cats are alike. Some, like Maxwell failed in his early attempts at the outdoors and was bullied by birds which has left him with permanent anxiety issues.  Minnie on the other hand likes her food served early and often, and no longer has the physical attributes to chase endangered wildlife or pull any rare parrot out of a tree.  Happy (read spoilt) cats have little reason to stray.  Minnie being our outside cat, knows her place outside is to kill the odd mouse (the less mobile ones anyway) and sleep in the workshop.  She doesn't stray beyond her fence border as next door's dog would just eat her.  And probably eat us as well if we ventured in uninvited.  Max, being restricted to the indoors knows only a privileged world of regular meals, Laura Ashley blankets and ten minutes of play time at 8 o'clock each night. I'm not sure why that time, he just likes routine.  The only time Minnie crossed the threshold was when the bathroom was being renovated and we arrived home to be greeted by Bennie and Minnie each sitting on lounge chairs. So it is difficult to make rules for cats but confinement to properties could mean big costs for cat owners which seems a bit rough.  'Just keep feeding them, and the good stuff, and heaps of it' was the response from our own Cat Management Taskforce. 

Monday 23 January 2017

Chickens have the right of way

From one extreme to the other. Today we've got hot wind coming through the lounge room window.  The green tinge that the front lawn took on after the downpour is already starting to fade.  Our indoor cat remains upstairs as usual.  Max considers downstairs inappropriate most of the time, and I'm entirely to blame for subjecting him to too many episodes of Downton Abbey.  He already had a well developed sense of entitlement and now considers me his very own Carson.  Minnie has flaked it in the shade of the verandah and will only manage a few steps before a dramatic fall to the floor again for full effect.  And the chickens sit with their respective families under the shade of the plum trees.  Our driveway has now become a major road hazard with a chicken fatality on the weekend.   I wasn't aware of it until Mrs Chicken (pictured) came running up to me in the driveway and then went and pointed at the flattened chick in the drive.  I felt bad. I tried to explain it wasn't me that did it but she clearly wasn't interested in hearing my side of the story.  It's become increasingly difficult to reverse our cars out as the families of hens run towards us thinking we are all day, every day food vending machines.  I'm reluctant to install a lolly pop man and I don't think designated walkways would help.  I am attempting to get them to feed with the main pack but unfortunately adult chickens don't possess 'it takes a village to raise a child' mentality and peck the smaller ones to get them out of the way of food.   I'm looking forward to them getting a little bigger so we can have our driveway back, and hopefully they can go to traffic school, or something.

Friday 20 January 2017

Raining scones and jam

It's raining today.  About time too.  There is a heavy cloud all around us that's a bit like fog but we don't mind at all as it's bringing some steady falls.  The garden was staring to look a little deep fried.  It's not the heat, but the wind. The hydrangeas faint and the fruit trees start to look like satay sticks.  It's like taking your hair dryer out into the garden, plugging it in and blowing hot air on your veggie patch, for a couple of days.  So hooray for rain.  Being a Friday there's not much happening on the gardening front but we could always take shelter in the glasshouse.  We've been known to muster up a decent mug of tea and scones with some homemade jam to discuss new plantings, or in some cases post mortems.  Of course being jam makers now (note the tone of righteousness) we must have scones to showcase the jam, in the words of Scone Master Sally Wise.  And the beauty of the scone making exercise is that the leftovers go in the freezer to be reincarnated as breadcrumbs for tonight's Flathead.  Gotta love a bit of frugal every now and then. 

Wednesday 18 January 2017

So peaceful...or not

There is a misconception that if you live on a farm, in a regional or country area, you live in peace and quiet.  Not the case if you've got a few acres with a lot of beaks, hoofs and mouths to feed.  As the summer day ends we often take a cold glass of something out into the back paddock to sit and feel the serenity, as they say.  Over time I've tuned in to the many sounds around the place that include the various chook and baby chick noises, like happy sounds versus the oh shit I've fallen in the water bowl again and can't get out sound.  The goats have the most astute hearing of all.  They can hear the back door open and know our cars.  Their call is about, let me out of here and on my tether so I can eat new stuff and not have to listen to chicken's gossiping all the time.  The sound of ducks from the back paddock marching over usually happens about dusk.  They are keen to see if the kind lady with the chicken feed might show up again, maybe tomorrow night.  And everywhere you walk in the garden you are followed by squawking and swooping noisy minor birds telling us that Minnie is on the move.  They harass her terribly and one day she'll reach up and swipe one just because she can. Or she could, if she lost a few kilos.  There was a strange squawk last night from the top of the macrocarpa tree.  It's over over 100 years old and the top is pretty high. Sitting at the very peak was a black cockatoo.  You rarely see one on it's own.  They are usually in pairs.  As it called out for its partner from the top branch, every chicken sat up alert.  Mother chickens called their chicks in and sat on them quietly until it moved on.  The peace was soon interrupted again with a stray sheep arriving in next door's paddock.  Our own four highly privileged wander over for a chat and when they establish, they can't do much to help, wander off.  The lost sheep keeps calling and a few texts get sent around the area, is it yours?  As the sun begins to descend a bright red, blue and yellow Rosella swoops through and shows off his colours in the berry tree.  I call it the berry tree because it grows tiny red berries and vomits them all over the courtyard for months.  I wish the birds would eat it to death, but no such luck.  Time to call it a night and we close the kitchen door - for a bit of peace and quiet.

Tuesday 17 January 2017

Bennie's Summer Horribilis

Not good.  Last night we took a very sick little dog into the after hours Pet Surgery in North Hobart.  Clearly in pain, unable to eat or drink we knew Number One Son was in trouble.  Kept in overnight for tests and fluids, he still managed to howl the place down even under medication.  As we left him in capable hands, we stood at the surgery counter waiting while they tallied up our bill (the equivalent of a night in a Crown Towers Suite with a bottle of Grange thrown in for good measure) we read the brochure about Pancreatitis.  Vomiting, depression, abdominal pain, all caused from eating fatty foods.  Oops.  We had given Bennie some lamb straps that were off cuts of our recent lamb delivery.  Whilst only on the smallish side, they were high in fat and too much for a highly susceptible breed as we read, like Cocker Spaniels.  So we picked him up this morning and he was transferred to our local vet who will keep him in, and on pain killers and intravenous fluids for tonight.  We're hopeful he'll be discharged tomorrow (expect to pay another equivalent night in Crown Towers, with French Champagne and use of private jet).  We're to have him on a special diet of plain chicken and rice for a few days.  The Paleo diet is off the menu for this little guy.  We highly rate our local vet surgery and we've had a few visits now.  At one point the nurse looked up from her computer and said,  'Oh, you're fish hook Bennie...'.  Yes, that's him.  He'll be glad when this summer is over.

Monday 16 January 2017

Farmers' Markets with real live farmers

Being farmers (uh, hum...), we go to Farmers' Markets.  When we lived in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne we had a local Farmers' Market.  We'd trundle along, and trundle we did as that's what you do when you have a nanna trolley.  You know the canvas ones, with the wheels?  I once thought I was a happening market goer when I bought myself a coloured pull along wire trolley.  It's only short fall was that small round objects would fall out through the wire which made it a bit useless and when one of the wheels rolled off in a veggie stall disappearing under the mandarins never to be seen again, I took my limping trolley home and binned it.  Now that we have the proper nanna trolley, it works in rain, hail or shine.  Which is what you get on most Tassie Farmers' Market days anyway.  Our Melbourne suburban Farmers' Market was well attended by the neighborhood and a gold coin donation would get you past the armed volunteer at the gate.  The market was fine just a little short on farmers.  A bit of bakery (good), some home grown veggies but not much (also good), a stall selling oranges (ok) but no one who could actually say they came from a farm and produced food for a living.  What I love about the Farmers Markets here are the people behind the stalls.  There is Ruth who we buy apple trees and chickens from, pets of course.  In fact we've got some baby Guinea Fowls on the way (great, more birds!!).  There is the Gin man who made the Gin in the bottle in front of you, Jenny who will give you some advice about your non performing plants and the really informative wine guy who we are on first name terms with but just don't recall his name, so he remains as 'that guy from the winery'.  And these are just to (almost) name a few. There is always something to go in the nanna trolley every time we go and the day starts off with a coffee and some music just to get you in the mood.  I do note however, that we are the only trolley lugging people there. Perhaps it hasn't caught on yet. 

Friday 13 January 2017

You can't eat your chips out of an online newspaper

Remember when fish and chips came wrapped in newspaper?  They didn't have menus back then, it was just whatever had been caught locally and hadn't sold out.  These days the many fish and chippery joints offer a huge selection of fish, with some of it travelling long distances by shipping container freezer and requiring a passport.  Not the case here.  We visited the Dunnally Fish Market today.  And when I say market, I don't mean the huge wholesale style market that you immediately think of, this is more about if it's in, we got fish...if we've sold it or they're not biting, we don't, style market.  The first time we went there we walked in and looked for the menu.  The first mistake.  Then we started talking about what we'll have.  The second mistake.  Before we got carried away with ourselves we were interrupted and told the rules.  There is no menu and you have what's in.  For either one person, two people, or three.  That's your choice.  And don't bother saying where you are sitting, she says she'll find you.  And she always does.  So you find a seat either inside the dining area (and I use that term loosely) as you sit on some 40 year old, metal backyard chairs staring at the faded photos of fishing memories, or the dusty shell sculptures nailed to the walls, the old black dog with the grey around his nose walks past with a limp and his front paw slightly lifted.  The notice at the front door says he's old and grumpy so don't expect anything of him.  He recognises some sympathetic greetings and limps over to us.  We offer a chip, he turns it down, like he's understandably a bit over the free chip offer by now and stays long enough for a bit of a pat and some friendly attention.  He walks off with a tail wag and limp gone.  Today it was calamari, and some small pieces of fresh crumbed fish that could have been leather jacket but not entirely sure as I'm not up there with my fish knowledge.  Regardless, it was so very fresh and so very much what a fish and chip shop used to be.  Not a Greek Salad in sight. Just the fisherman's basket.  Wrapped in newspaper. This being the only modern day thing about the place.


Thursday 12 January 2017

She'll be apples

We discovered three apple trees on our property when we first moved here. According to the property history there had always been a row of fruit trees on the original farmstead but I don't think these trees are those same trees. These are in reasonably good condition as far as my limited apple tree diagnosing skills go, but they were a little unloved.  They produced some fruit but the day I went to inspect them, every apple was gone.  I'm not sure if they fell off and the birds ate them, or a band of hessian bag carrying possums came in one night and collected the lot.  Who knows.  Anyway we pruned them back and are proud to see some early signs of some pretty handsome looking fruit so far.  And the grubs agree.  Grubs at our place take their life in their hands with an ever expanding chicken population that take their grub hunting skills very seriously.  Not being one to want to use any pesticide I've not done anything to prevent the mass migration of grubs into our apples.  Someone told me to spray apple cider vinegar but then someone else told me they drink that in the morning as a tonic. Very confusing.  So on the discovery of fruit producing apple trees, we got all excited about being fruit growers.  So like crazed addicts we just had to purchase more.  Most Tasmanian's know their apples. They grow more varieties than I have ever seen.  I suspect the subject is in the school curriculum.  That by Year 10 you must have passed at least three subjects on unheard of apple varieties.   So rather than pretend we knew the difference between our Lady in the Snows and our Cox Orange Pippins we spoke to our trusted Farmers' Market person of much apple knowledge.  She sells the bare rooted variety mid year.  So we arranged to meet.  We drove to the stated location which was a public ground on the outskirts of the city.  We saw her trailer.  Just behind the toilet block. There were others waiting.  It was cold.  Freezing in fact.  Like someone was throwing ice cubes at you the minute you stepped out of the vehicle.  People were milling around as one customer was sorted at a time.  It felt like we were buying cocaine.  In Tassie, it's who you know for apples.  Good ones.  So this year, for the new ones it's a bit early to tell.  But I will remain on full possum alert.  I might consider a stakeout from the upstairs bedroom window, ready with spot light to shine in their eyes, 'You.  Down There.  Put down your hessian sack and step slowly away from the tree'.   Busted.

Wednesday 11 January 2017

Hooked on fishing

Sometimes we should just stick to what we know.  It usually starts with the backpack. For a little dog that means someone is going fishing.  Well not me of course.  But a backpack means a ham roll, a thermos of tea and probably some Jam Fancies if he's in luck.  He was very excited.  They took off early on a perfect morning.  I don't partake in these expeditions.  The whole fishing thing is not for me.  I just know I'd end up with a fish hook being lodged somewhere creative.  I'm ok on boats but prefer something bigger, with an Acapulco Lounge and a ten piece band to see you off. About 8am I sent a text to the crew, 'How's the fishing?'  Usually a report comes back from First Mate Bennie (pictured) about how many fish were biting and how they'd like to stay out a little longer.  Instead, on this day the report was a little different.  It read 'bit bumpy, caught a few then First Mate Bennie somehow got a hook in his nose.  Just at the vets now, he's all ok, but his fishing days are over.  Home soon'.  The First Mate had a first prize nose piercing.  The vet said it was pretty common but mostly it's in the lip.  The hook was cut following a minor anaesthetic and he was soon as right as rain.  But unfortunately from now on he will no longer be the little Gilligan on this SS Mishap.  I haven't told him yet. He didn't even get to stay out long enough for his ham roll.

Tuesday 10 January 2017

Fruit Pickers required

Nature doesn't work like a supermarket.  Obviously.  However I do have a new respect for berry pickers as we enter the season of fruit picking.  Our neighbour's cherry orchard has many bright orange bins strategically placed on the ground in between the trees for the yearly collection of travellers who come to help pick.  Some come back every year and the good ones are always in demand.  It's hard going as I soon learnt as our generous neighbour allowed us last year to go into the orchard and pick as much as we liked following the end of the exporting and picking period.  As they don't all ripen at once, the ones left on the trees were left behind as they weren't ready in time.  We have a similar problem with our blueberry.  Yes.  Singular.  It ripened before the others.  I've got the team of backpackers on standby but the blueberry still has a way to go. As I now appreciate, these berries unlike grapes will not ripen by the bunch but by the individual.  So when said berry ripens into its purple powdered coating, I can be ready.  That's why blueberries are so expensive.  Not because they think they are all individual little snowflakes blossoming into ripeness in their own special way, but because you can't pick them by the bunch.  I now stand in wonder at supermarket displays of punnets of unknown location blueberries and appreciate the work put in to fill a display case.  Let me now just correct that.  Not so much display as more take the lid off the crate and put up a big price point sign.  Our local fruit store makes a special note of what fruit is local.  It uses the latest technology to display the weekly specials by putting a sign on top of a broken down ute outside an unoccupied (for years) property on the corner of the busy roundabout.  I kinda like this approach. When the fruit is local it places in capitals LOCAL BLUEBERRIES so the locals can read it as they whizz around at full pelt towing boat or trailer.  Boat being the preferred towing apparatus at this time of year.  So I'll keep you posted on the berry picking. Just the one of course. 

Monday 9 January 2017

Today's weather forecast...just look under the trees

I, like many other people who were not born in Tasmania, wrongly thought a hot Tassie day meant just reducing your usual three layers of Kathmandu clothing down to two.  This weekend proved that wrong.  We've had a few days of pretty warm weather for this neck of the woods.  Whilst our country home generates a breeze in itself, (read that as a bloody great draught in winter) we found ourselves all a little bit slower and seeking the cool spots of the house.  Similarly our animals did likewise but were a little more prepared than us.  They seem to be better at predicting the day's weather and generally find themselves a suitable shady spot under a tree well before we've cottoned onto the effects of blistering hot or windy day.  The chickens whilst usually found roaming in packs throughout the property retire to shaded shrubs and branches, or set up camp in the old shed.  Our two goats Billy and Harry (Harry pictured, who used to be called Donald, but we had to change his name because he complained) settle down for a quiet day sleeping close together in a shady spot.  The goats love to be where we are.  We returned to indoors one night last week to start dinner and only later realised that they had removed their tethered leads and jumped the rock wall to come into the back garden.  We found them just in time and poking around the clothes line having left a trail of vacuum sucked branches that were once our rose bushes.  They hoovered their way around the garden and turned a flourishing green and leafy Virginia Creeper into a single twig left poking out of a few remaining rocks that didn't collapse with the break in.  Back to the pen they went.  So rather than looking up my weather App in future, maybe I'll just go outside and see what the farm is up to.  That way I'll know what's coming.  'Harry, I know you're wearing a touch of cashmere but will I need the Katmandu or not?'

Friday 6 January 2017

Nanna didn't do bottling...just bottles

Ahh...preserving.  Just like nanna used to do.  Well not my nanna actually, she was more the Stout drinking, Camel cigarette smoking kind of nanna but that's not the point.  Regardless of your nanna's preferences, finding ways of using the abundance of summer produce here in Tassie is a well regarded tradition.  Even the man at the roadside stall standing at the back of his ute selling kilo bags of locally grown apricots knew we'd want the small ones for preserving.  Not usually the kind of culinary knowledge you would expect from someone sporting a well worn blue singlet and some highly descriptive tattoos.  Wars have been won and lost here over lesser fruits.  Having recently attended a preserving class, I came away only slightly the wiser on the mysteries of stuffing fruit in a bottle and stuffing the bottles in a bigger contraption to boil the buggery out of them to call them preserved.   I found myself somewhat out of my depth as the other class participants swapped stories about preserving from home grown fruit I'd never even heard of, and probably extinct by now anyway.  The only fruit trees I recall growing up with were nectarine trees.  Unfortunately they were blamed for producing the first huntsman spider of the summer and as a result were immediately chopped down.  Just to be safe.  So last night we commenced our very first attempt at preserving, and when I say we, I don't mean me.  You see not coming from the right nanna family, I merely observed the operations from my nearby apprentice stool with my fellow, observe-only colleagues, Minnie and Bennie.  We watched on and listened to the official preserving music from the Rolling Stones (well they are preserved in a way, and there are stones...). As for the jars, I assume you leave them on the shelf until the trees, and cupboards are bare; and in your last gasps of starvation in the midst of a deathly winter, there will always be apricots.  But just no Stout.

Thursday 5 January 2017

Instant Chickens, just add water

We thought we had a lot of chickens.  They grow up so fast you know.  Now we've got a shit load.  Every now and again a hen would disappear only to reappear about a month later with a fluffy dozen of her best.  The last lot had taken residence in the front garden prompting us to consider putting a sign in the driveway, 'Chickens Crossing'.  Our neighbour said he drove past the other day and the driveway moved.  And then this morning, another fresh batch arrived with proud mother presenting us with her new bakers dozen.  Inghams would be feeling a little nervous right now except for the fact we're committed to not eating our family.  When I first moved to Tasmania it puzzled me why so many roosters were roadside wandering the highways in gangs of two or three.  I only later found out that these roadside gangs are the result of too many roosters from too many chickens which is exactly our problem.  Whilst the rooster road gangs don't pose any immediate problem, I mean they're not holding up wagon trains or anything, but the dumping of any animal isn't ideal.  Unfortunately the other alternative I'm told is to donate them to the zoo.  Where they are a gift for the tigers.  And I imagine the tigers aren't exactly wanting them to play chess with either.  The difficult thing is that even if we did find a solution for the too many roosters problem, they aren't exactly born in pink and blue.  Meaning we don't know who is a rooster until we've heard cock a doodle doo.  And by then they may have already embarked on full time rooster duties. So the rooster dilemma remains without an obvious coq au vin answer.  In the meantime, if anyone is looking for some lovely little chickens....

Wednesday 4 January 2017

Clueless Cooking

Summer.  A time of eating great produce.  We're not serious growers but we enjoy eating what's come out of our small if chaotic veggie plots.  It's simple food that makes me smile, made from simple home ingredients. Over Christmas I took time to consult the various food magazines that promote baking extravaganzas that are as easy as following the 127 simple steps.  Or worse, following the simple 5 steps and wondering why it didn't turn out because they failed to mention the other 122.  I've had baking mishaps that can be described as monumental of late.  Pastry that would only come together if I pulled out a glue gun and stick it to the bench, moussaka making that took an entire day to produce something that looked like a major tidal tsunami of ingredients moving in slow motion across the plate, and scones that could withstand participation in a game of backyard cricket.  And I blame the writers.  I've come across recipes that listed ingredients that failed to make the final cut in the method section.  Where did they go? Did someone just take them off the team?  Then I've had items not listed in the ingredients but making a starring appearance in the mixing.  Is nobody proof reading recipes anymore?  Aside from the odd typographical error, and I'm guilty of many myself, the list of ingredients in today's latest mags are definitely getting longer and more complex.  The ingredients often require a google search because the local store would just look at you a bit strange, and when you do find them listed under rare or indigenous species you are left wondering if parsley would suffice.  Simple is being replaced with complex guilt.  No longer can we be proud of a home made left over ham and pickle roll, we have to have made the bloody roll ourselves.  The ham must be a specific rare breed and from single origin (or is that coffee?) and the pickles must contain at least one item only found in the jungles of Borneo.  Dessert ingredients, the origins of left over grown fruits and ice cream are now replaced with dessert trolley masterpieces with sprinkles of goji berry dust or some such time consuming piffle.  Restaurants yes. Home kitchens, no.  No time and no team of workers dedicated to grinding berries.  I feel ill at the thought of the money I have spent on ingredients for recipe disasters.  I've kept economies strong and kept my local supermarket executives in bonus town for many years.  I've paid high prices for punnets, bunches and bags of premium produce only to result in being hurled into the bin (some are so bad I'm ashamed to give them to the goats).   I'm not a clueless cook and neither are you.  We've been persuaded to purchase more than we need by fancy photographs of equally fancy food that took at team to prepare and a stylist to print.  So in future, my simple is the new black.  And my berries are not for grinding.