The bath tub brooder..

A friend gave Damian 24 fertilised eggs a few weeks back, all the light sussex breed. So in to the incubator they went. They are all hatching at the moment, and so far we have got 18 hatched and another 1 on the way. One has died in it's shell, and the remaining 4 haven't shown any signs of doing anything yet, so we're not holding out for those to hatch. It is day 21 today, so we'll see. That's probably one of the best hatching rates we've had to date. The person who gave us the eggs said he spritzes the eggs with water in the last couple of days to keep the shells moist, so we tried this along with the higher humidity we normally do in the last 3 days, so not sure if this is the reason why we have ended up with a higher than normal hatch rate, but we'll certainly do that again.
I usually put the chicks in a large cage I have here with the brooder light, but the chicks flick the wood shavings all over the ground, and it makes a really big mess. The man who gave us the eggs says he uses an old bathtub as a brooder, which we thought was a great idea, and we have a few old baths around here, so Damian set about making a stand and putting a mesh lid on the bath, and......ta dah!

He has made it nice and high for easy access, and to keep the dogs out of it. He also cut a hole in the mesh at the top for the brooder light to be able to poke through so we can keep it high enough for them. They seem nice and happy in their temporary home.

These 2 have hatched in the last couple of hours, with another one on the way, which is the egg on the right with the pip marks in it....

We went to the markets this morning to get some fruit and veg, and I picked up the huge basket full of lettuce and herbs for  $8!!   I thought that was way too cheap, but apparently that is what she sells them for.

I just got back from a week in Brisbane with the big kids yesterday afternoon, and friends of ours on the Sunshine Coast did a big garden clean out while I was down there, and gave away all of their agaves, so I went and picked up some of what they had, and planted a few down in Brisbane and the rest will be planted up here...it's about the only type of plants that grow well here at the moment, hopefully as Damian now has the bore sprinklers working it will keep things a bit more lush and green and we will be able to have better luck with the gardens. I also did a big garden clean up while in Brisbane and pulled out a heap of wild iris, and bought just a fraction of them back up to plant here as well.

So, lots of planting to be done over the long weekend. Kasey had a fantastic week at her horse riding camp and is looking forward to going again, I said she may be able to go to one of the Xmas holiday camps. She was keen to show me how much she has learnt today, as she can also do a rising trot now, so she saddled up her horse and we went down to the yards for her to have a ride. Unfortunately, her horse had a flip out on her again, and bucked her off.....again...so Kasey promptly announced she is never riding Magic again, to which I said, "I don't blame you, I wouldn't ride her again either", ...so we are on the hunt now for an OLD plodder for her....she wasn't hurt, she has a grazed elbow, but that seems to be all, luckily. Poor kid....We also seemed to have solved the crow problem, we have closed the doors in to the house area of the chook pen, and there is a small access door that the chooks use to go inside. Since closing the doors, we are no longer losing any eggs, so the fridge is finally starting to fill up with eggs again. Next project here for me will be for Damian to build be a small corrugated vegie garden with a shade cloth roof so I can grow some vegies, it's too hot without the shadecloth, so I am hoping I have some success with growing some veg again sometime soon.

Predator birds, and farm goings on...

I lost my adolescent light sussex rooster yesterday to an eagle. The eagle was an awesome sight...I didn't realise he was even around until he came back for a 2nd hit and all of the chickens and guinea fowl were carrying on and squawking, I went out to see them all running for cover to hide, and then I spotted the eagle, and the remaining pile of feathers, this was all that was left.

The rest of the chooks obviously saw what he did to the little rooster, and now realise they have to run for cover in an eagles' presence. I am hoping that they now know the drill and that I won't lose any more. They have never encountered an eagle before, so they didn't seem to realise it was a threat, but they do now. Our new bull has started to get to work on the girls, the jersey seems to be the first that has come in to season since his arrival, he has been hanging around her all the time, and trying to mount her, she isn't quite ready yet, but I don't think it will be long.

Hopefully in about 9-10 months I will have a cow to milk. I will need to start to work with her after a few more months and try to get her tame and used to coming in to a stall etc. as she hasn't had a calf before.
I started to make a sourdough starter last night, I am hoping it starts to ferment soon.

I haven't made a true sourdough bread before, so it will be a learning experience. I finished drying the large pick of chillies that I got from the track in to our property, I got quite a large jarfull, so hopefully that will see me right for chillies for the year. I also juiced up the 50 odd lemons from the neighbours tree, I think I ended up with about 15 cups of juice, which are all now in the freezer waiting for use.

I did use up 1/2 a cup of juice today, I made this yummy lemon loaf with lemon glaze, it's very nice, I didn't cook it long enough though, it's quite difficult cooking cakes in my George Foreman benchtop oven, as the heat is so close to the items being cooked it burns the top but doesn't cook through. The skewer came out clean, but after I took it out and it cooled, I realised it wasn't completely cooked so I did lose a little of the cake out of the centre, never mind, it is delicious anyway.

 Damian will get around to connecting up my gas oven soon I hope, then I can make a decent cake again.

Lemon Loaf

INGREDIENTS

· 1 1/2 cups flour
· 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
· 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 3 eggs, room temp
· 1 cup sugar
· 2 tablespoons butter, softened
· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
· 2 teaspoon lemon extract
· 1/3 cup lemon juice
· 1/2 cup oil
· zest of one lemon

Glaze:
· 1 cup powdered sugar
· 2 tablespoons whole milk
· 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract


DIRECTIONS

1 .Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9 x 5 loaf pan.
2 .In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
3 .In a medium bowl, combine eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla extract, lemon extract and lemon juice with a mixer until blended.
4 .Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and blend until smooth. Add oil and lemon zest and mix well.
5 .Pour into loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. (It took an hour in my oven). Remove from oven and pour glaze over it, then cool in pan on a rack.
6 .Glaze - whisk to combine, pour over top of cake.

I also planted up some garlic bulbs today, I still have to do the other half, but I need to get another foam box from the local IGA and then I can finish planting them up

They are now covered in dirt and watered in, so now I just need to wait for them to start to sprout.

Everything in my little veg garden temporary setup seems to be coming along really well. I am finding this small garden quite easy to manage as I don't want to take on too much there at the moment. So, I am on the lookout for a couple of alpacas to add to the farm. I have been wanting them for a few years now, and now that I have a hungry eagle to contend with, my chooks need a guardian, and from what I understand the alpacas will do that for me...and hopefully they will keep an eye on the 2 little dogs as well, as that is worrying me with a big eagle around. I am working on finishing off doing the mulching in the garden area around the house, hopefully I can get that finished over the next few days. I have also found some lovely new little Australian farm blogs thanks to Liz over at Eight Acres, and I am enjoying having a read through those, there are some very inspiring people out there.  The newby chickens are enjoying free ranging, I have a feeling I may have lost one of the adolescent guinea fowl to the eagle as well, I can't find it, I am hoping that it turns up

They young ones are also starting to work out the feeder and large waterer as well, I place a stopper in the feeder during the day so the smaller ones can feed without risk of them being caught until they are heavy enough to lift the lid with the treadle feeder on their own,

The little wyandotte pullet is growing fast'

Newby araucana's and guinea fowl are getting bigger

And the newbies are all learning how to use the big drinker as well

It makes life easier when there is just one feeder and drinker to worry about filling up rather than different ones for different chooks. The new adult wyandotte rooster has also settled in well, no major fights now and he has his own little girl followers

And I also managed to get some little maran chickens, I have been waiting to get these for a while now, they lay very dark chocolate brown eggs

So, now that it looks like I may have lost another bird today, I think freeranging may be off the cards until I can move this eagle on :( or get some protective alpacas....we are also getting there with our little Bichon Frise Stella, she is now about 2.3 kgs, and we had to have her baby teeth surgically removed on Saturday as they weren't coming out on their own and were all going rotten and her breath was really bad. Unfortunately, not having had the proper diet at her previous home has not given her teeth the right start, but now she is getting a healthy and mixed diet hopefully her adult teeth will fare much better. Even though she is still quite small, her frame is starting to fill out now, and her bones can't be felt like they could when we first got her, she still has a way to go, but she is getting there and starting to really come out of her shell as well.

Anyway, I'm off to look for alpacas :)

5 minute Bread

This morning I made my first batch of 5 minute bread from the bulk mix I made up on Tuesday.

I took a piece about the size of a grapefruit off, and quickly shaped it in to a ball by pulling the 4 corners to underneath, and place it on a floured tray for 40 minutes

I pre-heated the oven to 230deg, and slashed the top of the loaf with a serrated knife, and placed it in the oven with a cup of hot water in a pan in the bottom, and waited.

Half an hour later, my first loaf was ready.

All I can say is.....YUM!

The crust in beautiful and crispy, and the bread inside is soft and delicious. Just perfect. Slashing the top of the loaf allowed the loaf to rise nicely, and create lots of lightness to the loaf. And it was very, very easy. Took me about 10 minutes on the first day to mix it together. It then sat on the bench for the afternoon, then I put it in the fridge where it stayed until this morning. Today, if there was 5 minutes in it, it would have been just 5 minutes, and no more. I had some for lunch with just butter, started off with 2 pieces, then...ahem...had another...then a teensy weensy small bit of the crust, as it was so nice. Talk about full now though...I also picked a hand of lady finger bananas from the tree this morning, they are now in the fruit bowl on the bench waiting to ripen.

There is still plenty more on the tree to be picked, so I hope they ripen up ok. Getting a bit tired now, didn't sleep very well last night, the dogs woke me up (again) so was awake for a few hours reading until I was tired enough to go back to sleep. Must order my spring seeds and get those sown though, might relax on the laptop this afternoon and order those online I think. Must not get carried away though, I'm not sure whether we will be up at the farm by the end of the year or not, so don't want to go to overboard on the vegie garden here until then.

Potato Planting day

Today was time to plant the potatoes. I ordered mine in from Green Harvest, and I got 6 different varieties to try, and I have decided this year to try the potato tower method. The varieties I am trying are Sebago, Nicola, Dutch Cream, Desiree, Toolangi Delight and Ruby Lou. I have purchased 12 kilograms all up, so I would like to get a 5:1 yield back at least to make it worthwhile. I used chicken wire as the frames, and put sugar can mulch in around the base and sides and filled the towers up with home made compost, alternating layers of potatoes all the way up the towers, then watered them in...crossing my fingers for a good harvest in a few months time.

                                     

The sewing retreat on the weekend was very productive. I made quite a few items, and I also repaired a skirt that I needed to replace the zipper on. This is a bag I made for Kasey for school, but I think it is probably a little small for a school bag, but she loves it anyway. I just need to finish it off with a couple of clip studs to join the top on to the bag properly.

I also made her a new lunch bag, as her other one was getting a bit past it. 

 A new sun hat for me...might make a couple more of these I think...it has a nice wide brim, so is really great for the garden.

 There is always a project that the retreat ladies give us to do, and this time it was this table runner using a special flip ruler to do the shapes, I loved the colours of this one, and it is on the table taking pride of place.

 The last couple of days have been pretty busy, I had a bit of time spare before picking Kasey up from school on Monday, so I called in to the op shop and picked up this lovely picnic basket. I've always wanted one like this, but wasn't prepared to pay the high price of a brand new one. I picked this one up for $15, so was happy with that.

 Yesterday I spent some time in the kitchen, I made these lemon honey yoghurt muffins from Linda's blog for lunches, they are very yummy, for the extra sweet tooth's around here,  I made up some lemon butter in the Thermomix (very, very quick and easy, 10 mins from start to finish) to spread in the middle to keep them happy until they get a bit more used to less sugar, which is a big focus around here right now, and Linda has heaps of healthy recipes on her blog, so I will be trying quite a few for lunch box treats. I added some Chia seeds to them as well, they look just like poppy seeds, and no-one has even asked what they are, so a bonus.

I also made up a batch of mayonnaise in the Thermomix last night as Toni wanted some to put on her chicken sandwiches for lunches, very quick and easy to make, and yummy. I was looking at the prices of whole egg mayo in the supermarkets and they charge nearly $6 a jar, so it got left on the shelf! To make this batch would have cost me about $1.00 I would think, and I know exactly what is in it, no numbers in this jar.

I also made up a batch of yoghurt, and a big batch of dough from the Artisan 5 minutes a day for fresh bread book, so it has been resting in the fridge, and I will probably bake my first loaf from that tomorrow. I used a mix of organic white flour, as well as a soy and linseed mix, and I also added chia seeds, so it should be a nice filling, healthy loaf. I also baked up a batch of pikelets for the lunch boxes as well. I have flowers coming in tomorrow to be made up for the weekend, and an embroidery workshop in the morning, and scrapbooking Friday, so still a busy week ahead.

Still having chicken dramas...

2 more baby chickens were dead this morning, that just leaves 2 left, the little silver sussex, and 1 silver spangled hamburg. I have decided to treat them for coccidiosis, I'm not sure if this is the problem, but I don't know what else to do for them, and the treatment won't hurt them if they don't have it. I have put mum and bubs back in the small cage so I can treat them easier, I am treating mother hen as well. I am also treating the silver chinese silkie, as she isn't looking very well either, just wants to sit all of the time, so I have her in a box inside with some water and hopefully I've caught these in time. They  have all been started with the proper chicken starter mix, but apparently the medicine in this mix doesn't cover all the strains of the illness, so they can still get it. It's an incidious illness in poultry, the 2 plymouth rock chicks that were dead this morning were as healthy as they could be yesterday, running around, and I even checked on them about 11pm last night and they were all still completely fine, so whatever it is, it works very fast. I hope that I can save the ones that are left, but not much more I can do at this stage. I completely cleaned out the chicken tractor and moved it, I poured boiling water over the nesting area to try and kill off any of the oocyst bacteria that may have caused it, if that turns out to be the case.   I have spent some time outside the last couple of days, trying to clear my head from all the poultry dramas, I received my giant garlic on Friday, about 50 cloves, so they are all planted up, along with a few more lettuce and a big batch of climbing peas. I still have some beans to plant as well as cauliflower, brussel sprouts, green cauliflower, oregano, and coriander, and a few other things like snow peas and carrots. I dug some dynamic lifter and compost into the areas I planted, and then watered them over with a comfrey tea. I also harvested a nice big bucketful of worm juice today, so I will bottle that all up so I can use that as well. Hopefully this will add some much needed nutrients back in to the soil in the vegie garden. I also let the 3 new guinea fowl out today with the 2 bigger ones, they stuck with the 2 bigger ones and went away with them tonight, so that means they can now come out each day for some pick. The white chinese silkie came out for a little while as well, but put herself back in fairly quickly. It's good to see they all know where bed is for the night. Also caught up on some mowing, but still need to do the front, will try and get to that tomorrow.

Our mini break...

We returned from the property on Monday. We had a really relaxing time away, and didn't really want to come home. Easter was quite busy as we didn't leave until Good Friday, and we had car problems on the way, a turbo hose blew out, and we spent a bit of time on the roadside fixing it, and finished the trip with no turbo connected. 

After the Easter weekend, we headed to the property and took delivery of the tractor, and started on some slashing. We also had a dozer out to prep the pad for the shed, so that the next time we go up, we can organise to get the concrete slab prepped.

The neighbours cattle on the track on the way out of the property.

 Damian on the tractor slashing

 The dogs swimming in the dam

 Back at home, and all is starting to calm down a little. Unfortunately, Kasey's guinea pig came down unwell, and died.  Kasey is ok about it, and once we have disenfected the hutch, and left it in the sunshine to get rid of any bacteria that might have caused him to come down sick, we will look at getting her another one. This time though, only from a reputable dealer, not from the markets. I feel like I am living on the killing fields here at the moment, all I seem to do lately is bury animals. I found one of the baby chicks dead this morning, I'm really not sure what happened, they were all fine last night, I think it may have been stood on. I have since moved the chinese silkies and the guinea fowl over to the large chook house, so that mum and babies are in the chicken tractor on their own. I have another clucky hen at the moment, so I may look at getting some other day olds to pop under her, to try and build my stocks back up.  I picked our bunch of bananas from our tree, we probably lost about 2 kilos to birds, but still managed about 4 kilos of bananas, which is plenty to eat at one time, they seem to be ripening at different stages which is good, if they all start to ripen at once, I may dry some.

I also managed a small passionfruit harvest, definitely not a lot on the vines this year, but that seems to be the way it has been in general this year. 

So, I am enjoying home grown bananas and passinfruit, with home made yoghurt.

 Today I harvested some radish, and the sweet corn. The corn was really small, but the cobs were all well pollinated, and there were plenty of kernels on the small cobs, and they were really sweet and delicious.

So, lots of new plantings to go in to the vegie garden now, I should receive my garlic tomorrow, so I can get those in as well, and I will be picking up some more seedlings over the next few days to refill the empty spaces. Lots to do as usual.

Today's hour in the garden

I spent my hour in the vegie garden this afternoon, still weeding, but I managed to get one side nearly finished. I still have the mulch to do, and the other side to finish. Hopefully I can finish by the end of the week. I am currently reading "Smart Permaculture Design" by Jenny Allen, which I am loving. It's a very visual book, but with heaps of info, and the way she has written it, it's easy to read, and having done my permaculture design certificate, it is basically like a refresher course and everything she is writing makes sense. I am also planning what to plant in the vegie garden, and I want to include a lot of perennials in the garden that I don't need to be replanting all the time, and filling it in with fast growing annuals.

It is very, very wet around the garden though, which makes it easy to pull the weeds out, but really muddy to walk around, so I think some pavers are in order or some gravel. So, I have managed 3 days in a row of my hour in the garden challenge , and it is making a difference so I am happy with my progress so far. Ann and I had card class today, so some creative time today, which was good. We made these cards today

So tomorrow will be an at home today, so a couple of things to organise to finish off inside renovations, and then I will probably do a little bit of mowing - can only do a little area out the back as it's too wet in a lot of areas.  Then I might do a bit of sewing....we'll see how the day pans out...