Missy Moo found...

Our neighbour on the next property has let us know that he has magically acquired a heifer in with his mob of steers, so it appears our missing cow has been located. He is bringing them all in to the yards in a couple of weeks for dipping, so we will round her up then and bring her back in with ours.  Things have been pretty busy, I took the hereford and Jersey up to the property, we kept them in the smaller paddock for a few days and Damian has let them out on to the rest of the property. They are sticking fairly close to us at the moment, and not heading off with the others at this stage, and we are bringing them up each afternoon for some lucerne. Once I have organised myself a little for being up at the property full time, we will get Nutmeg (the jersey) put in calf, and start to keep her confined a bit closer to us if she is starting to wander the whole property by then, but in the meantime, we will spend as much time as possible being around them to keep them used to us as much as possible. They are pretty used to humans, so hopefully they will stay that way if we keep them close by.
Toni and her boyfriend came up to the property on the same weekend and had a great time riding around and exploring and relaxing.

 They rode around the boundary while Damian followed on the tractor, so they could detect any logs and things in the grass before he ran over them with the slasher. He now has 2 full widths slashed on the entire boundary, meaning that we can get around the boundary almost all the way now, except for the deep gully, which is really only accessible on horse back, even the 4wd quad has issues with that gully. I look forward to the day that I can ride a horse around the boundaries, as I feel much safer on horse back than on quad bike, Damian is the opposite, he is not a horse person at all, because they have a brain and can make their own decisions :) not like a motorbike or quad bike.  Everything has their merits, I just don't like quad bikes with gullies and hills, but I do have fun riding around on flat safe areas. Kasey had great fun riding around with Damian on the tractor while he slashed the boundary line, it was slow going and took them about an hour and a half to go once around the full way,  but will be much quicker now that the pathway has been cleared.

 I am heading off to a sewing retreat tomorrow for the weekend with Mum, so Damian has headed back down to the house here for the weekend to take care of Kasey while I have a break. I have lots of projects all cut out ready to sew, so I am looking forward to it.  I collected some rocks to bring back home while at the property, and have been busy doing some garden edging and gardening down here. I am enjoying being outside at the moment, it's very energising. I have also mainly given up sugar, and I have found my energy levels have increased a lot, and I have also changed from low fat foods to full fat foods as I am always hungry on low fat food, and have been battling lethargy for years now. I have found that I am happy now just having my 3 meals a day, and not looking for snacks in between. So with a combination of cutting out sugar and changing my diet, my energy has been given a real boost, and I am much keener to get outside and do things. The vegie garden and the chooks are very therapeutic, and I could spend hours out there, the chooks are so funny to watch, when one gets something yummy, watching her run at full speed trying to get away from the others is a crack up..I think my family thinks I'm a bit nuts getting so much enjoyment out of the chickens, but I know other chicken fans know what I mean. Anyway...this has ended up being a longer story than I intended, so off to catch up on what everyone else has been up to and then bed.

2 new girls and a new fence

I spent last Wednesday building a fence to keep the chickens contained down the back part of the property, to protect them from Reggie and also the other 2 dogs, who are starting to copy Reg and get too excited around them now. So, I have put a stop to it all, and penned them in. I clipped the wings on the chickens, and on the guinea fowl, but the guinea fowl still fly out anyway, but the dogs seem to leave them alone, so not a real problem at this stage. So they don't have as big an area to roam around in now, probably only the size of a normal suburban block to roam in, but I now let them out first thing in the morning instead of later in the day, as they can't come up on to the verandahs and poop all over them, which they tended to do when out all day with full run of the yard. But, I can now get some ornamental chickens to keep as well, without having to worry about them with the dogs. Belgian D'uccles are definitely on my list!

                                      
It is so wet around here, the ground is squelching under our feet. The sun is out today though, so hopefully things will start to dry out now. I am in the process of ordering in some dwarf bamboo's to put along this new fence line, to make the fence look better, and to also hopefully solve the problem of the wet areas along there, as the bamboo should dry those areas out. We also went out on the weekend and added 2 new additions to our cattle numbers. A lovely little jersey heifer, she is 18 months old, and came in to her first season last week. We will probably wait about 6 months or so before getting her put in calf, I will look at getting her put in to a Jersey bull and see if I can get a 2nd girl to keep the milk supply going for us once we start milking.

We also picked up a lovely little Hereford heifer, we may keep her to breed from down the track.

So at the moment they are in the front paddock at home, and we will take them up to the farm over the next couple of weeks.

So, lots to do around here today, flowers to order for a wedding next month, house and cabin plans to get to the architect, and a couple of bouquet preservations to work on. Also, some school lunch baking to get done, and need to get back in to cleaning out the sheds in preparation for our re-location to the farm a little down the track.

Where are you missy moo?

We are missing a cow at the property. There are only 15 that we have counted. Damian has ridden all over the property and can't find her at this stage. We have asked the neighbours to keep an eye out for her. Unfortunately because we don't have the crush yet we haven't been able to put coloured ear tags on our girls yet, which would make them easy to identify from the neighbours cattle, so we can only tell by the number on the smaller ear tags which is which. Hopefully she turns up soon. All of the boundary fences are in excellent condition and he couldn't see the fence pushed in anywhere, so it's a bit of a mystery at this stage. Damian also had the cattle grid installed yesterday, so now we don't need to get in and out to open a gate when driving in to the property...yay...

Things are pretty quiet around here at the moment, I have so much book work to do, and a couple of preservations to finish off...really not feeling like it at the moment, but it has to be done...so will kick myself up the bum later and get it done. I am looking at a course run through Milkwood permaculture for later in the year about market gardens, and another about mushroom cultivation, not sure if I want to drive all the way down there on my own yet, will put some more thought in to it as I think it would be worthwhile for the property. Anyway, have done the washing (better hang it out though) and the bathrooms and the floors today, so will head out to the office and try and get some things done before school pickup time.

Farm Update

I am back home today from the farm. The nights have been very chilly. Before leaving yesterday I was sitting in the caravan with woollen leggings, jeans, jumper, woollen jacket, socks, ugg boots, gloves, hot cup of tea and a hot water bottle just to start to thaw out! I enjoyed putting the logs on the fireplace at home last night that's for sure. Before I left I took a few photos to update here with. I am slowly getting the cows used to us. I have been putting a biscuit of lucerne and some molasses on the front of the quad bike and calling them up. They came up much quicker the 2nd day. There are 6 that are much quieter than the other 10, the 10 all stay back just checking me out, but they are all getting much better.

I don't want to get too attached to any of them, but I do want them to come for food when we need them to, and not be afraid of us. I also took a few random shots from up on the hill where we will eventually build the house to the view below. These are a couple of really pretty spots to overlook.

 I thought this timber stack would be a nice photo overlooking the mountains, if you look carefully you will see a little willy wagtail in the shot on the end of the stick closest to the top of the mountains...he flew in as soon as I started clicking away...what a poser!

 He was determined to be in these photos, he then flew to the other side and posed on top of another branch...

We are having some issues with council up at the property. We have a gazetted road which brings us in the 1.2klms from the main road which is in need of repairs to make it accessible in all weathers, Bundaberg council doesn't want to do anything at all to maintain their road, so it looks like it is up to us to ensure it is accessible in all weather, which is what we were expecting anyway, but you would think they could at least grade it or something...but no...not a chance at the moment. It does make it difficult though, because we then become responsible for the road in and for all future repairs. Oh well, may be an opportunity for us to name the road after ourselves..hehe...I'm sure the locals would love that! But at the moment it looks like council won't do anything for us, but then they want to dictate what we are able to do to the road to make it accessible to their standards, even though they won't bring it up to their standards themselves, make us wonder what we are paying rates for...talk about wanting everything their own way. So back home now, and I need to organise a few things to still be done around here. I seriously need to get back in to my routines, they are all over the place right now with dividing my time between the 2 properties...I need to make some yoghurt, do the washing, mop the floors, put on the slow cooker for dinner, as well as finish off the decorating and renovating around the place....energy, where are you?

Mud and cows

We have had quite a few cold, windy and wet days up here at the property. It's our first indication of where the track in needs to be improved to enable year round access regardless of weather. There are a few places at the beginning of the track that are black soil which is becoming quite soft. Also one other area just before an area already repaired that could do with some gravel also. The rest of the track isn't too bad other than coming in our gate. The previous owner said it was very slippery in the wet, he wasn't exaggerating!

We are now leaving the cars outside the gates, and quad biking it in and out of the property, while we wait for things to dry out a little. We are hoping to be able to get a machine in on the weekend to install a cattle grid here and have gravel either side to fix this area. If it's too wet, we will need to wait another week, and hope for no more rain between now and then. 

The cattle are now out with full access to the property, Max and Diesel went down to the small paddock and chased a few of the girls, who ran through the fence to the small paddock, which meant 10 out on the property, and 6 remaining in the smaller paddock, so we let the remaining 6 out to join them, they are now all exploring the property and finding their way around. 

These two girls were coming up to say hello, and then Max and Diesel happened...they chased them....which is a pity, so I will try again tomorrow, this time the dogs will be tied up.

There has been some very chilly nights, in the caravan it's been pretty cold through the night. I bought a hot water bottle and tried it out last night, it works brilliantly, so I will be using it again tonight. Off to cook dinner now, and after work out some more plans to put in place for around the farm.

Our first cattle adventures have begun

We have been up at the property for the last few days, and we have purchased ourselves some cattle. 16 Heifers, 10 of which are brahman cross, and 6 are charbray cross. These girls are about 6 months old, and we will keep them for about 12 months, and we will keep any really nice ones for breeding. We had to first get in a ramp, we had the yard panels which came with the property, but needed the ramp. We went out for lunch to some new friends who manufacture cattle yards, crushes, ramps, trailers etc, who were introduced to us by our very good friends who already own property near ours and we have purchased a ramp from him and put in an order for a crush for ear tagging and injections etc down the track. Here is the sparkly new ramp ready for action

First girl coming off the truck

 And the rest of the girls coming off the truck.

We are keeping the girls in these smaller yards for a few days while they quieten down a little and get used to us and we will start to sweeten them up to us with some molasses treats as well, and then we will move them in to the smaller paddock for a couple of weeks to further their interaction with us and with our yummy molasses to hopefully make them happy to come in to the yards when we need them to.They can then go out to the rest of the property to graze as they wish. They all seem happy enough in here for now, and are very slowly getting used to us.

Damian and Michael have now finished their work in WA, and Damian has started a new job in Bundaberg today which is only a 40 minute drive from the farm, so he is going to stay at the property during the week, and will come home on the weekends or I will go up to the property on alternate weekends and school holidays, which will work out great while we are building the shed and we are also looking at building a small cabin to live in while we build the main house, and the cabin will later be used as extra bedrooms and car accomodation, allowing us to build a slightly smaller main house as we will have extra bedrooms etc in the cabin, rather than building a larger house with the extra bedrooms for when the older kids come to stay or we have guests. So, it's been a busy couple of weeks back and forth to the property organising things and slashing the farm and mowing the orchard etc. We absolutely love the town though, it's so relaxed and the people are lovely, so we can see ourselves fitting in nicely once we get up there full time.

Just sharing a wonderful video..

This video is currently getting heaps of views on youtube, and it's no wonder, if it doesn't make you smile, then nothing will.

It's a man from the US - Isaac's proposal to his girlfriend Amy...he went to so much effort....lucky this wasn't around when Damian popped the question or else he would have had some work to do!

Isaac's live lip dub proposal