Why Tallow There! Making Lard

This year is all about saving money, reducing waste and becoming more self sufficient so with al that in mind we decided to give rendering our own lard a go.    After reading about it in Kay Baxters 'Change of Heart'  we thought it looked straight forward enough to have a go the next time we butchered a sheep.

This is the recipe we followed

Turn your oven to 225 degrees C, and use your largest baking dish that has a lid.

Cut up fat, the smaller the pieces the quicker the rendering and the more lard you will get out of it. When the pieces of fat no longer change (get smaller)  it is time to let it cool a little and strain into your lard container.  

Sounds simple and it really was.  It took longer than I expected, 45 mins to an hour.  But the product we were left with was great and delicious for stir-frying, cooking omelets, anything really!

The fat we used was internal fat from around the organs, it was clean and white, and there was rather a lot of it on this particular animal.  We put it in a bowl then left in the fridge for a couple of days to harder, then we were left with this (pictured below).

I wasn't sure how it would go, so cut up about a quarter of it for the first batch

 Once strained we left it to cool

And this was the finished product!  

All in all it was a really simple process for a great product.  And there is still plenty left over to make some more batches.......and maybe some soap?? Watch this space!

Happy growing :)

So Fresh and So Clean Clean (and Cheap Cheap!) DIY Laundry Detergent Experiment

As The Farmer and I are having a super saving year this year we are looking to be frugal in as many ways as possible, as well as being green.  So in view of this I decided to go in search of a home made clothes washing powder or liquid....and I didn't have to search far as I stumbled on a local blog that had a recipe that looked like it was worth trying.  

Frugal Kiwi is a great fantastic New Zealand blog with some super interesting posts.  Including this fantastic recipe for home-made clothes washing liquid

http://frugalkiwi.co.nz/2009/09/clean-green-diy-liquid-laundry-detergent/

The recipe is as follows 

250g (1 cup) Borax (aka borax pentahydrate, sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate)

125g (1/2 cup) washing soda (aka Sodium carbonate, soda crystals or soda ash)

1 regular sized bar of soap around 85g (3 oz)

Grate the soap and put into a pot with about 1 litre (4 cups) of water. Heat the water until the soap is almost melted, but avoid bringing to a boil. Pour into the 20 litre bucket. Add 11 litres (44 cups) of warm water to the bucket. Add washing soda and stir until dissolved. Add borax and stir until dissolved. Your mixture will now look like soapy water. Cover with your bucket lid and let sit overnight.

The next day you’ll find a gel surrounded by a soapy liquid. Use 1/2 cup per wash scooping some gel and some liquid for each wash. 

The old classic, fantastic stuff!  I used Sunlight soap as the solid soap

 

The grated soap melted down in water 

All mixed up in the bucket ready to set overnight 

And after setting overnight you are left with this really cool jelly with a little liquid around it!

I found all the ingrediants I needed at our local Binn Inn store.

I've been using this to wash my clothes for the last week, and to be honest I was expecting it to be inferior to the shop bought stuff, but I have been surprised!  My clothes have been coming out cleaner and softer than ever before (and the powder I had been using had a built in fabric softener)  I've been so impressed with the results!  There is no perfume to it, which has taken getting used to, as I was used to associating perfume with clean-ness.  But the clothes have a lovely fresh smell to them which The Farmer loves - he hates any kind of fake perfumey scent.

No going back now, I'm in love <3 and costing out at less than 5c a wash... 

awesome!

Happy growing (and washing!) everyone :)

The Danger from Above

We've had a new visitor at the farm, and safe to say the chickens are not impressed. 

 A very large australian harrier has noticed our bumper crop of chicks this year, and is hoping to enjoy the bounty.  3 times how we have heard a huge racket of squacking, screeching, wing flapping drama coming from the back yard, we have raced out only to find a huge harrier landed amongst our chickens, often with a chick in its talons.  I was amazed at the bravery of the hens and roosters as they ran at the hawk, lunging with their claws doing their best to frighten him off.    The chicks themselves will drop down into the grass and freeze, they are almost impossible to see.  Once the hen is sure that the danger is gone, she will call to her chicks and they will pop up out of the grass and run to her as fast as their little legs will carry them.  

So what to do about this problem?

The hawk seems to come around in the early evening, either he has sussed out that is when I feed the chickens or it is when he does most of his hunting, avoiding the searing heat of the day during the summer.  

Either way, I had been feeding them out in the open but  I can move my feeding area to inside the chicken run, it has a roof so will protect them from attacks from above and I can't see the hawk putting himself at risk to fly in the door of the run.  Apart from that the hens are pretty good at keeping their chicks under the trees dashing from one sheltered area to the next.  

I can't begrudge the hawk hunting my chickens, they seem to be raising chicks at the moment so he will just be trying to feed his babies, but we also need to stock ourselves with chicken meat for the winter.  

Has anyone else out there had this problem, what did you do about it? 

Till next time, happy growing  :)

The Summer of Plenty

What an amazing start to the summer, after an unheard of 200mls of rain through december everything is growing like crazy!

All the hens are going clucky,  I've got three with hatched chicks now and three more still sitting producing lots of roosters for the freezer and pullets to sell.

The ewes and lambs are looking great, even with the size of the lambs still feeding off them all our girls are putting on plenty of weight so will be looking great when they go to the ram in march.

Onward to the garden update pics!

 Not in my garden,  but an amazing Morton Bay Fig at Pahi Bay, it was beautiful! 

 We decided to grow some tomatoes around the water tank garden this year to try it out.  With mixed sucess,  as you can see the tomatoe in the centre has had fantastic growth, it gets the most sun, whereas the others are getting not quite enough,  still they are starting to fruit up so we are looking forward to eating fresh tomatoes soon!

 Our new zucchini garden is going off!  It was a strawberry patch a few years ago, then sat unused last summer.  We dug it over with plenty of sheep pellets and mulched it with the hay our of the orphan lamb stall.  We've ended up interplanting it with some tomatoes, but they all seem happy enough together :)

 This zucchini has grown an interesting fruit!  Yes I think I'll leave it at that!

 The Cos lettuce has been a fantastic performer.  We've been eating off these ones everyday for the last month or so,  lovely crunchy sweet leaves, and yet to go to seed....

 The little gems have just blasted off into seed, but we have been enjoying them everyday for the last couple of months,  a great early lettuce the leaves are really crunchy and tasty and they grow pretty quick too!

 Silverbeet in the background, its turned out ok, but needed more feeding I think.  I need to chuck some more sheep pellets around.  Happily they don't seem to be bothered by slugs or catepillers, thats my kinda vegie.

 Beans have moped along.  Once again not enough food I think.  The parsley at the front however is very happy.  And is doing a nice job of shading the bean roots.

And last but not least.....My newest pet!  Water Kefir.  I've  just been learning all about how to keep it happy and growing.  And it is delicious!   I'll do a more in depth post on it when I do the first strain.  So excite!

Busy week on the farm, catching up on lots after christmas/new years.  Shearing this thursday/ friday and saturday,  heres hoping it doesn't rain!

Till next time,  happy growing everyone!

Later that month...

The garden is growing like crazy at the moment!  All the lettuce greens have gone mad, as well as the kamo kamo, the tomatoes, the beans and the zucchinis.  We are getting 6-7 eggs a day!  Fab-boo.
The Ginger Princess and I are off to do our first trek together next month, it should be interesting.  I'm imagining it should fall somewhere between complete terror and utter bliss, but if you don't try these things you never know, right?
We are having a lesson next weekend with Parelli professional Jane Cook, can't wait!  So much to learn so little time time!!

 Summer time Jade-ness

 Starting to work the chickens into helping create the compost

 Kamo Kamo!  The key is not letting them get to big, eat them while they are small and they are amazing :)

The Grey Ghost with his coating of DE (Diatomaceous Earth)  The fleas have been a nightmare this summer, so lots of coatings of DE as well as natural flea treatings and flea combing have been the key!

Blessings

The Farming Wife 

A New Beginning, Hellloooo 2014!

Boy, 2013 was a year I was happy to see the end of.  After losing two amazing and much missed family members I can only hope that 2014 will bring better things!

As always much is happening on the farm, lambs and calves are growing, the grass is still growing thankfully, after a very dry winter and spring we have been very grateful for a damp summer so far.

The poor garden has been absolutely neglected for the last 6 months so over the christmas break we have taken the opportunity to get some plants in the ground!  As The Farmer and I are now officially slow carbers it has changed what we have been planting.  Lots of green beans have been planted, with the goal of freezing a load of them for the winter months.  Lettuce and cucumber, as well as chillies, spinach , tomatoes and kale.  Let the photos commence!!

 The Huntaway, The Collie Dog and their gorgeous cousin, Lily Dog

 Our sweet Araucana Hen ( Lilac) with her first clutch of chicks, she successfully hatched seven, and has ended up rasing five herself, with another chook adopting the other two!

 Blackie, with one of her chicks and her two adopted babies!

 Lettuce, pumpkin, green beans freshly planted in the water tank garden

 Sid (Obsidian) the rooster trying to work out how to get into the freshly planted vegies

 The Choko!  Sprouted from a choko fruit over winter, I hastily chucked it in the pot outside to harden off, then forgot about it for a couple of months, oops, I'm hoping it will grow out through the bottom of the pot!  

 Green beans in the water tank garden, we have already started eating these and they are delicious!

 The zucchinis and what we thought was a pumpkin but happily turned out to be a Kamo Kamo - my favourite

 Newly planted cucumbers and chillis 

 Kamo Kamo growing along below the BBQ

 Lavender, heliotrope cherry pie and calendula for the bees

 More lettuce and perpetual spinach

Kale and tomatoes in the other end, cant wait to have a go at making kale chips! 

Gooseberries!  We can't eat these during the week but on our cheat day there will be no stopping us :)

My new (old tatty) pinto float!  The Farmer has promised he can make this look hot!

because I now have this 

beautiful

amazing

majestic creature in my life!!!!

Introducing...

The Ginger Princess!!

                                   

I am constantly pinching myself that I actually have a riding horse now, it is such a dream come true and makes me happy EVERY, SINGLE, DAY!

Ok, enough gushing, but she is pretty awesome.  I have just started doing Parelli Natural Horsemanship with her and it is absolutely life changing, I can't rate it enough and I am so excited to see where it takes us!

Whew!

Bring it on 2014, I'm READY!!!

Wow, its been a While!

Gosh I can't believe how long its been!

A lot has been happening on the farm, we have almost finished lambing, there are only 5 or so Ewes to go,  they seem to be crossing their legs and hanging on!

We have a new heading dog, Major, he is a beardie x border collie and he is SMART!  He has just gone 3 1/2 months and has started lead training.  Hes adjusted to farm life well and is good with the chickens and with our new orphan lamb Poppy - photos to follow!

We also have chicks, nine in total, being looked after by two hens and they are cute!  Photos to follow also.

I have also been planning out our summer vegetable garden as I am planning to do a SSS (Semi Self-sufficient Summer)

So this is what I am planning to plant so far.....

Tank Garden
- Pumpkins (on ladder)
- Sunflowers
- Beans
- Corn (to dry and grind for corn meal)
- Cucumber

Front Garden
- Zucchinis (same as last year)
- Strawberries (same again)

Narrow Deck Garden
- Lettuce
- Peas
- Raddish

Back of House
- More Artichoke

Veggie Bed
- Spinach
- Beetroot
- Broccoli
- Kamo Kamo

Still have to suss out somewhere to grow Tomatos( Money Maker and Cherry and Basil), may need to put in another bed somwhere
and I really  want to grow some nasturiam somewhere too

Can't wait till things warm up!!! Bring it on spring!