Hazeltree Farm

A grisly tale of death and destruction

2012-01-25T16:28:00.002+13:00

Our chooks are nearing their end days, and I'll be the hatchet-bearer.

Being a sensible girlie and all, I'll be putting their bodies on the compost heap, where they'll eventually be of use to the garden. That's what we did when one of our elderly chickens died a few months back, of unknown causes.

Her body decomposed very quickly - in a mattter of two weeks or so. Two months on, if you dig through the compost pile, all that is left now of her is a bit of beak.

Which is as it should be.

Dust to dust

This all got me thinking: have you ever thought about how silly our current burial practices are?

I have.

I mean, think about it. Human bodies are a great source of nutrients and, like any other dead thing, would decompose quickly given half a chance.

But what do we do instead? We put them in fancy, expensive caskets that often beggar the deceased's family. Sometimes we even embalm the body, to stop it decomposing! Like, huh?

If the person had cancer, often the body is pre-pumped full of toxic chemicals that will pollute the groundwater and poison any plants that might grow around where the body is buried.

If you visit a typical graveyard, you can actually tell the graves of cancer victims by the fact that there are no ants nearby. No insects. And usually no plantlife. They're a death zone for every creature that goes nearby.

You also don't want to be farming or drawing water from any wells or bores anywhere near a modern graveyard - not unless you, too, want to glow in the dark with a few nasty chemicals downloaded for free from the toxic, buried bodies up the road.

And sometimes, in our society, we don't even bury the body. We "cremate" it - which is a pretty term for doing a spit roast BBQ without the party afterwards.

Plain talking

I'm talking really plainly here, and probably offending and upsetting quite a few people. I don't mean to, but I'm breaking a taboo subject here deliberately, and there's really no other way to do it but to talk bluntly.

Human bodies are big, and we're not being sensible about how we deal with the Remains of the Day.

We can't even blame it on religion!

I don't know of a single modern religion that considers what happens to our physical bodies afterwards to be important. Our current crazy burial practices are not the fault of religion.

Here are three examples:

Christians believe that our soul is important - something that can't be found in physical form inside us, and certainly has nothing to do with a rosewood casket with silk lining.
Jews believe that bodies should be buried, and fast. Caskets are not necessary. Historically, Jewish remains have been found buried wrapped in simple shrouds and left in cave tombs, or in simply dug graves.
Muslim practices are also simple. Once again, a shroud is the only physical requirement, other than that the body be positioned with its head facing Mecca.

In no religion that I am aware of does the flashiness of the funeral or the glitziness of the casket make a difference.

All this stuff is just window dressing. Caskets are not important, and not even necessary.

Neither, for that matter, are graveyards.

Reduce, re-use, recycle!

So why not actually make use of our bodies? Use them in the way they were designed - as the ultimate, totally-recyclable product? Bob the Builder would approve!

Put a human body on a good compost heap and it will break down in as little as 2-3 months. In good composting conditions, maggots can consume up to 60 percent of a human body in less than a week.

Nature has designed us this way - ultra-efficient, and quick to break down. Also the quicker the breakdown, the less likely disease will be transmitted to living humans nearby.

Humans probably started burying our dead to stop disease, and the quicker the breakdown, the better it was for us.

And now here we are, slowing down the breakdown with caskets and enbalming, and all sorts of toxic drugs. What fools are we!

Sustainable death

When I slaughter my elderly chooks, I'll be putting their bodies on the compost pile. I've done this with a few others, and have been amazed at how quickly their bodies decomposed.

It wasn't even particularly grisly. Or smelly.

I hope that, by the time I die, our burial laws will have wised up. Because I can't think of anything more sensible than for my body to be likewise slung on the compost heap, so I too can decompose and be of some use to our beautiful Hazeltree Farm.

It's time we humans talked sensibly about our bodies, and what happens to them after death. This has been a taboo subject for far too long.

Death is, after all, a natural part of life.

So, yeah, when I thought about my chookies and what to do with their bodies, I started thinking about humans and our own deaths, funerals and burials.

I think it's time to throw away the caskets, and get building a few rather large compost piles. And then planting gardens to remember our loved ones could take on a whole new meaning.

What do you think?

Have a lovely day!

Incubating chicken eggs

2012-01-22T11:15:00.008+13:00

We bought an incubator a couple of weeks ago. Now we're incubating chicken eggs.

Our new incubator. I hope it works!

Our old chooks have had a great run, but it's replacement time. With the exception of Lizzie the Third and Sirius Black (our rooster), they all came with the property, two years ago.

However, taking stock of them all, and looking at some of their physical features - old, tired legs, skinny bodies, aged beaks, and so on, I'm guessing they they're mostly at least four or five years old.

And this past year, our lay rate has really dropped down, to the point of getting maybe 3-4 eggs from the lot of them per day (we have 13 chickens). That's not good enough - they're not earning their keep.

So - out with the old, in with the new.

Our incubator is loaded with eggs. About half of them are from our own chooks. I'll be interested to see what the hatch rate is! Wish us luck!

The incubator is filled with about half of our eggs, and half bought fertilised eggs. The eggs I bought are a mixture of three heavy breeds - Barnevelder, Rhode Island Red, and Light Sussex.

I wanted heavy breeds, because besides being a good, dual-purpose bird, they're solid layers through cold weather, they tend to be hardier, and they're less likely to fly, so when we extend the chicken run in a few weeks' time, we won't have to make the mesh as high.

From the old group of hens, I'll be keeping Sirius and Lizzie, assuming Sirius proves his worth by having a good hatch rate from some of our own eggs. The rest of the hens will be culled. I'm not looking forward to the job.

I talked about this issue before, and we've put it off as long as we could, but we're not a chook retirement home, and they've all had a good run. I'll despatch them humanely.

As for the eggs in the incubator, this is my first attempt, so here's hoping we get a good hatch rate. I hope so!

Have a lovely day!

Why are kids' menus options so unhealthy?

2012-01-13T15:18:00.007+13:00

I want to talk about kids meals in restaurants and cafes.

They're bloody shocking.

This summer break, my family and I went for a holiday up the east coast of New Zealand, to Picton.

We had a terrific time despite the weather (it rained most days!), and the kids got in plenty of swimming.

But we had a big problem finding good food for the four of us.

Everywhere we went, the "choices" for kids on offer were the same.

"Chicken nuggets and chips...bowl of chips...hot dog and chips...cheeseburger and chips...chicken wing and chips...fish and chips..."

"I have a great idea! Let's teach our kids terrible eating habits so they'll be obese and have type 2 diabetes as adults! And I know just how to do it..."

You getting the picture? Because we sure did. There were no options for healthy kids, let alone healthy vegetarian kids.

Not good enough!

Has the world simply decided that we want an obese future for our children? Because that's what where it looks like we're headed.

While on holidays, our kids pretty much ended up with chips and salad every main meal. There weren't any other options. Even my daughter got sick of chips, and that's something I thought would never happen!

We got around lunches and breakfasts by providing our own in the hotel room - fresh fruit from the supermarket, and weetbix and toast for breakfast, with bananas. So it was manageable.

But the restaurants and cafes should be ashamed of themselves. It's not just New Zealand either - it's the same in Australia, and in the USA - except over there, the serves are even bigger, and they serve the kids soft drink too.

So what should the restaurants be offering?

Here are a few ideas that my kids love. All are quick and easy, and filling:

Sushi rolls and rice paper rolls with salad or veggies. These are so easy to make, they can be made up en masse and kept cold in the fridge, and they would be popular with adults too.

Different filling options would be possible - vegetarian as well as fish or chicken - and yes, sushi rolls can even easily be made gluten-free.
Mini pizzas. Mini pizzas are quick and easy, you can serve whatever toppings you like, and they're yummy. They can be made with tortillas as the base, and dairy-free is an easy option too.
Dip and veggie sticks platter. How easy is this? Some hummus and veggie sticks, and my kids would LOVE you! And healthy and filling too.
Baked potato with fillings. Baked potatoes cost no more than chips, but are so much more healthy. And kids love them. Fill them with whatever - many options are possible here. But please - hold the huge mounds of sour cream, slimy coleslaw, cheese and other gunk!
Warrior canoes. My son loves these. They're just celery sticks filled with peanut butter, with sultanas squidged in to the peanut butter. He plays with them, sending them all around the plate (serve them on a big plate). Kids love food like this, with imaginative names. My son is seven, but he hasn't grown out of his "canoes" yet!
Skyscrapers. These are just squared off club sandwiches, with a host of fillings, piled layer on layer to resemble skyscrapers. Yummy, fast, and healthy!
Fruit salad. Yum. Every kid loves it. (And every adult too!)

Other ideas:

Grilled fish and steamed baby veggies. A great replacement for the greasy "fish and chips" option that you see everywhere.

Firstly, why not grill the fish? Grilling is quick and so much healthier. And kids are more likely to eat baby veggies, so why not serve them? My experience is that kids like foods to be separate, not all mixed together. Steamed veggies fit the bill on both counts.
Lamb chop with veggies. Once again, a much healthier alternative to the greasy fare. Replace the chicken nuggets with this, PLEASE!
Sausage and baby baked potato with steamed veggies. A much healthier replacement for the ubiquitous "hot dog". The sausage could even be - shock! horror! - one with real meat in it!

They're just a few ideas.

Cheap and fast

The food options offered on children's menus is there because it is cheap and fast, and kids like it. And the reason they like it is because our culture is teaching them to like it.

It's our own stupid, stupid fault. Whoever we blame in all this, we cannot, and must not, blame our children. They deserve better. We're giving them bargain basement second-skimmings, when we should be giving them the healthiest food we can provide.

The kids menu should represent the healthiest and best offerings a restaurant can manage, not the poorest.

I'm heartily sick of seeing our children being offered the worst food on the menu. Other parents I know feel the same.

Isn't it time we gave our kids a better deal?

I think so. Or we'll have no-one to blame but ourselves for a growing generation of kids suffering from obesity, diabetes, poor health and low self-esteem.

I don't think that's good enough. What do you think?

Have a lovely day!

Soft drink free! Want to join me in 2012?

2012-01-07T23:02:00.007+13:00

This year, I'm only making one environmentally-friendly New Year's Resolution.

By limiting myself to one resolution only, I can manage it.

Most years I've tried to do something too hard, and failed. So this year I'm aiming high, but not too high.

My resolution is: no more soft drink in the house.

I'm soft-drink free for 2012.

It will do me, my body, my wallet, and the planet a world of good.

I'm banning the bottle from my home in 2012. Care to join me?

The exceptions: just to keep me sane

There are a couple of "Excepts":

I can have soft drink when I go out to dinner with my husband, if I choose. I only go out with him once every few weeks, so that's hardly an issue.
I can also have soft drink when we order our monthly pizza from Hell's Pizza, if I choose. It isn't pizza without Coke to go with it!

My resolution is for one year (for 2012).

When I think of all those plastic PET bottles I won't be buying, and cluttering up our planet with, and all the energy I won't be wasting in their transportation and recycling and disposal, I know that my one resolution is enough for me.

So - anyone want to join me? Or do you have an eco-resolution of your own?

Have a lovely day!

2011 in hindsight - successes and failures

2012-01-04T11:09:00.010+13:00

2011 has been a hugely busy year for us. You might be able to tell that, by the lack of blog posts this last month or two!

Lambs!

I've learned so much this year, and yet I feel like I have so much more yet to learn. When I look back on the person I was when I came to the farm, I was such a city slicker! My goodness! I knew nothing, but thought I knew so much.

These days I still know nothing, but at least I'm aware of the fact!

Nothing takes the place of hands-on experience, the good and the bad. It takes a few gazillion stuff-ups to make a farmer. I'm sure I'll be making a few gazillion more before I can really call myself a woman of the land.

But in the meanwhile, I'll keep learning - and sharing what I learn. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly!

Happy New Year, everyone. May 2012 bring peace, prosperity and grace to all.

But now...on with the list!

2011: What we did. Successes and failures.

The new fencing. Top of the list was our new fencing. It was a HUGE job. We got a contractor to fence the lower orchard in, and I watched to learn how it was done.

Then Michael and I fenced the hazelnut orchard, all by ourselves! Both fences mean that we can now do away with our ride-on mower - we no longer need it. Success!

The sheep can graze these two areas, and it means not only are we not having to mow about an acre of extra land, but we're getting an extra acre of grazing out of the property. Win = win.

The downside? We still have to finish fencing off the new fruit trees we planted in the lower orchard, so the sheep don't eat them. It's a long job ahead of us for 2012...

Fencing the new trees in the lower orchard.
Fixing the internal fencing. I've been around the property, fixing scraggy bits of fencing and sorting problems out.

All of our internal fencing needs to be fixed a lot more than it is, but it will do for now. I'm replacing it all with lamb-proof mesh bit by bit.
Flowers! I planted over 600 flower bulbs on the property. A lot of daffodils, and a huge number of gladdies and lupins, plus some tulips. A lot of work, but I'd call it a success. The flowers looked so beautiful when they came up.

I'll be planting more tulips in the autumn, and more lupins along the roadside verge, as it looks messy. I've been collecting the seed from my current flower heads as they've turned, and will scatter that. And I'll be adding another few hundred daffodils to the property this season.

Some of the tulips I planted.

600 flowers might not sound like a lot, but it was a lot of digging...
Cutting the hedge. Our hedge was getting tall enough to tangle in the telegraph wires. This was a job for the contractor, so I called him in and he chopped it down to half its height. I don't think it had ever been chopped before.

The downside was that the contractor came just a few days before Christmas. I barely had enough time to get the loppings off the road, and am still cleaning up the cuttings from the hazelnut orchard. There are tonnes of cuttings, literally. It will take a while to dry them out enough to burn them off.
More fruit trees. We put in more fruit trees (apples), but still have 6 more sitting there, still waiting to go in. Failure, in that I overestimated the amount of energy I'd have to plant trees, as they should have all gone in the ground long ago. I've just been so busy.
Lambs! We did incredibly well with our first ever lambs this year. We got nine lambs from four ewes. I never expected so many. A definite success.

Four of our lambs, running down the hill of the chook paddock.

Rambo (our ram) did so well that he's getting a second season with our ewes, then he'll be heading over the road to John's place, to have a fun time with his ewes for two seasons. Lucky Rambo! He'll have a long and happy life.

Of our lambs, we'll be keeping the females (four of them) plus one wether. The other four males are going to various deep freezers around Mosgiel.
Docking and castration. I learned how to dock and castrate lambs, two necessary skills for a farmer. A success.

That said, in retrospect I wouldn't dock lambs that are getting chopped while they're young. So, looking back, I'd have left our four males that are going to freezers undocked.

Docking is painful - I've seen it and I can vouch for that - and I don't think it should be done unless an animal is going to grow up and the risk of flystrike is high. So, a failure on that decision.
Chickens. Our chickens have continued to produce well enough to give them a year of reprieve.

That said, I'll be buying an incubator, as we've had no luck with hens sitting on their eggs, and the whole flock will be turned over next Spring. So they have a year left. I'd call them a success, but they're on borrowed time.
Improving the pastures. I've been busy improving our pasture. That means grubbing out thistles and weeds, and adding more manure and white clover.

Our pasture is now 100% up on last year, and the lambs are so fat they can hardly run any more - they just waddle from mouthful to mouthful. Success!

Our pasture is looking terrific.
Fruit. Our fruit trees were all pruned and winterised, and now they're dripping with fruit. None of it is ripe yet (apart from the cherries, which were delicious), but I'll call it an early success..
Jam. I attempted my first ever jam. Yep, I'd never made jam before this year. But I got my hands on a few kilograms of local strawberries and raspberries from a farm down the road, and made jars and jars of strawberry and raspberry jam.

The first strawberry jam was a failure. It didn't set. I could have reboiled it, but it was so yummy as a syrup, that we ended up eating it all over Christmas, just poured on ice cream and toast.

Yummy strawberry jam, from berries from the farm down the road. It would have been our berries, but a certain Pet Sheep ate our strawberries plants! Grrr! The experience encouraged us to decide to build a berry cage as a project for next year.

The raspberry was perfect. Success. As was the second batch of strawberry jam. Now I'm waiting on our plums to ripen, so I can make plum jam from our own plums.

Yummy plummy jammy jam!
New compost bays. Our old plastic compost bins got MASHED when Rambo ran into them. So I'm building some new compost bays out of recycled bricks. They'll be done soon. I'll blog about them as the project continues, but it's sort of a 2011 project...

Looking forwards to 2012...

Berry cage. We're building a berry cage that will be bird-proof, for various types of berries. It shouldn't be too big a project.
Removing the swimming pool. We said we'd give it two years, to see if we used it or not. We don't use it enough, so it's going. We'll be landscaping the area, and turning it into a kids play area for a trampoline, slide, and small garden. It will be a huge job, and one of the two main tasks of 2012.
Woodlot. We're putting in a woodlot this year, of eucalyptus nitens. First we have to fence the area, then put the trees in. The woodlot will take up at least half an acre of Big North paddock, and we're positioning it carefully so it doesn't shade out our neighbours' properties.

This is the other main task of 2012. Once the trees are grown (about 5 years) we'll be self-sufficient in heating.
Retaining wall in the driveway. The driveway has a garden covered with bark chips, and is gravelled over. The bark chips spill over onto the drive and make a mess. So we're going to build a low retaining wall to divide the two areas, to keep it tidy.

We'll be making it from those pre-form stone blocks, so it should be a fairly straightforward job.

2012 looks to be a busy and enjoyable year. I love keeping occupied, and I love my little farm here in the south of New Zealand. Now that things are starting to get sorted and to run themselves, I should be able to spend more time enjoying the place, and less time working.

We knew when we bought the place that there would be a few years at the start that had a lot of work to them, before permaculture really got working.

Now that most of the big jobs are done, and the problem areas fixed, there is less and less work to do. By the end of 2012, I hope the place will practically run itself.

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Have a lovely day!

Herbicides don't work. Here's why

2012-01-04T09:57:00.006+13:00

Our property is organic.

Within a few months of moving here and turning the farm organic at the beginning of 2010, the insects started coming back, and a family of wild ducks moved in. We were stunned at the huge number of insects and birds, many of them native. The bees came back too.

Our middle orchard - healthy, organic, and dripping with fruit.

Then the weeds moved in too, and I started to worry whether this whole "organic business" was a good idea after all!

You see, when we moved in, the whole farm was kept beautifully, but conventionally. That meant there were large swathes of land - especially along fence lines, in difficult-to-reach spots, and in the hazelnut grove - that were bare patches of earth.

Being a newbie to farming, I didn't understand at all that these places were bare because they'd been sprayed to kill off all weeds and greenstuff.

(Have a look for yourself, next time you visit a farm or vineyard, and you'll see the same thing - bare land next to fences, under the vines, and under the fruit trees. That's where the ground has been sprayed, most likely with glyphosate (trade name RoundUp, by Monsanto), to kill competitor plants and weeds.)

Within a few months, those bare patches started to sprout every kind of weed there ever existed I reckon. And it was at that point I learned the dirty secret behind herbicides.

Herbicides don't work: here's why

Herbicides don't work. They just kill off the green tops of the weeds that you can see above the ground for a specified amount of time. Then the plant regenerates, because the root system and seeds in the soil have survived.

Everywhere that had been sprayed for weeds became a weedy mess. In other words, the weeds were tougher than the sprays. And what I'm hearing around the district is that the current sprays people are using are becoming less effective - what used to work no longer works.

The weeds have adapted. Darwin would be proud.

In the first year, I grubbed out - from the roots - more weeds than I could count. It took weeks. The next year was much easier. I reckon it was only one tenth the work.

And this year was much, much easier still - I think I probably spent maybe 2-3 hours all up over the season doing weeding. That's it, for a three acre property.

So now I'm in the situation of having to do less and less work. Organic is working well.

I don't use herbicides. First it was a matter of ethics, but now its common sense. They're expensive, and they create more problems than they solve.

I've learned that in some things - like farming - there are no short cuts. I had to simply grub the weeds out. It was backbreaking work, but now the lion's share of the work is done, and control is easy.

--

Have a lovely day!

Shopping online: Happy cheap Christmas - and an affordable New Year!

2011-12-23T18:45:00.006+13:00

The newspapers have had a lot of articles recently about how the retail shops are finding it hard to keep going in this tough economic climate. And how so many people are buying items online.

I've stopped buying anything other than food from the local shops. Everything else, I get it online. And I'm saving heaps.

I want to talk about some new cosmetics I got recently, and the price difference between buying online and buying at the department store.

The shops are crying poor, but when they're not respecting their customers, do they deserve our custom? I'm not sure they do.

Retail is a two-way street, with respect from both sides of the equation. If stores shaft customers, we'll shop elsewhere. And that's precisely what is happening.

A study in makeup: Clinique

What really set this off was when my parents, who are Aussies, went to the USA for a holiday recently. I did my usual, and put in a request for some Clinique makeup.

Before I went, I dropped in at the local "Clinique counter" in Dunedin, and wrote down the colours of the cosmetics I wanted.

Then I went online to http://www.clinique.com, to check out the US retail prices, as well as http://www.clinique.com.au to check out the Australian retail prices. (There is currently no official New Zealand Clinique store online.)

And I got one hell of a shock.

Australians pay more than double the US retail price. Figure in currency conversions and shipping, and they're still paying twice as much.

And we Kiwis? We're paying more than three times the US retail price. Go to the websites above and check the prices out yourself, if you don't believe me.

Just one example was my foundation, which the New Zealand retail price at the "Clinique counter" is $78. In the US? $24.50. No wonder all around the world people are buying online and abandoning the retail shops.

Planned customer shafting

Mum posted all my items over from Australia for me (thanks Mum!). She just paid US retail prices in a store. I don't have to buy cosmetics for a long time now.

But I was curious about how and where to buy them online cheaply.

And you know what? US eBay sells brand new cosmetics even cheaper than the US retail outlets.

Not surprisingly, really.

So, for example, I can buy a Clinique "chubby stick" for $4.99 plus $2.99 postage from the USA eBay. Or I can pay $35 for the same thing in Australia. Or I can pay $48 for the same thing in New Zealand, at the local counter.

What do you think I'm going to do?

Here are a few more price comparisons in Clinique items that I found. Other brands are similar in their price difference.

"Colour surge stay matte" single eye shadows
US Price $14.50
AU Price AU$33.00
NZ Price $45
US eBay price: $5.99 (plus postage to NZ $3.50)

"High Impact lip colour SPF15"
US Price $14.50
AU Price $36.00
NZ Price $46.00
US eBay price: $4.99 (plus postage to NZ $2.99)

"Mild clarifying lotion"
US Price $12.50
AU Price $36.00
NZ Price $45.00
US eBay price: $11.49 (plus postage to NZ $4.99)

All of the above eBay comparisons were brand new, from reputable sellers.

We'd like to support our local stores, but...

I'd like to shop locally. I really would. I enjoy shopping (yeah, I'm a weirdo).

I'd be happy to pay US retail prices in a store here, with the appropriate cash conversion, plus maybe 10% markup for postage.

But a 300% plus markup? That's not on. I don't appreciate being shafted. So I won't buy makeup here in New Zealand, not even "supermarket brands" like Dove and Revlon at the supermarket. They're too rich for my blood.

When it is cheaper to ship stuff from halfway around the world than buy exactly the same product in your local supermarket even, something is wrong.

So why am I writing this post?

Firstly, to tell people that it is much, much cheaper to shop online.

Even if you only shop secondhand, give US eBay a go. The options are terrific. And if something doesn't fit, or you don't like it, sell it to someone who will like it at your own local eBay or TradeMe.

My second point is, the department stores have to lift their game.

The world has changed. People do not appreciate being ripped off, and now we have the ability to do something about it. The stores need to start respecting their customers again - or they will go out of business.

Thirdly, it pays to shop around. Really shop around. For example, I just bought myself a brand new beautiful black velvet blazer with 40% off and free international postage, by shopping around, and buying it from the designer's website.

Total cost? Less than $50. Over here in New Zealand I've seen the same thing for sale for over $400. Yes really. I couldn't even buy a top from the Warehouse (our local discount store) for that price!

I don't know where this will all end, but I do know that it pays to be clever. My days of "going shopping" by walking out the door are over.

Have a happy Christmas, and may your budget forever be in the black!

Have a lovely day!

Sheep, bees, trees, fruit, thistles - and an Ode to Weeds!

2011-12-11T15:57:00.008+13:00

I realised the other day that I haven't posted for a good, long while. That's what happens when I'm very busy, I guess!

The sheeple

Farm work has been rolling along.

The lambs are all topping 30 kgs apiece now easy, and some of them are so fat they're wider than they are tall.

I should have named them more appropriately - "barrel" and "lardball" would have suited them better!

Some of our sheep, grazing peacefully.

We've found buyers for our four extra males, so they'll be going to various barbecues in and around Dunedin. Just don't tell them. But we're keeping our females, plus a wether as company for the new ram lamb when he arrives.

The orchard

Everything is going well. The huge pruning and winterizing I did in the orchard has started to pay off.

The orchard is absolutely laden with fruit. I don't know how we'll ever eat it all! I'll be preserving all summer, I think.

The orchard is dripping with fruit. I can't wait until it is ripe.

One of our recent jobs has been fencing off the new orchard trees. We thought we'd be okay letting the sheep in, now they were a bit bigger and there was plenty of grass to distract the animals.

Bad move! One of the new trees was badly damaged, and another suffered a bit too. So we've been busy working out how to fence the trees.

We've started fencing the new trees in the orchard extension. It's a priority job, as we can't let the sheep back in until it is done.

What we came up with was putting Y-posts (waratahs) around, then wire, then chicken wire around that. I'll do a post on the details of this operation once it is done, but it is keeping us busy!

Painting

On rainy days I've been inside, busy painting the upstairs bathroom. I'm making sure I do a good job of it, because I will not be in a rush to do it again!

It's hard work, working in such a confined space.

Conversion to organic: de-thistling

I've spoken about it before, but in our conversion to organic, we've been busy de-thistling the property the old-fashioned way - grubbing them up by the roots, and ripping them out!

This patch of thistles missed my eagle eye when I last did a round. Never mind - I'll get them tomorrow! The property is now organic and almost thistle-free.

It's been hard work, because what happens when you turn a conventional property organic is that everything that was poisoned before comes back with a vengeance, and you have three times as many weeds to deal with as every else.

When you go organic, you really begin to understand that chemical poisons really are a short-term fix that will just make the problem bigger in the end. They're a short term cop out, not a solution.

I even wrote an Ode To Weeds:

Oh Weeds!
Why dost thou growest faster than mine flowers?
I plantested thee not, yet reap thee do I, yea: thistle and vine both.
Tarry not do I, yet thy prickly scourge does taint my earth and shedests thine blight year beyond year, making beauty desolate...
Avaunt! scoundrel!
A weed whacker have I!
Avaunt! Avaunt!

You can kind of see how crazy the thistles have been making me!

The new woodlot

Other tasks I've been doing, apart from all this, is planning the new woodlot that will be going in in 2012. We'll be planting 200 trees, which will make us fuel independent for heating. The likely candidate for our woodlot is eucalyptus nitens, which can be coppiced.

Coppicing saves the tree a lot of energy. Not only do you not have to re-plant with new trees, but the trees grow faster, because they do not have to develop new root systems, which is literally half the energy expended by the tree as it develops.

Our estimate is that 200 trees will fuel our home and keep it toasty warm. It sounds like a lot, but did you know that the typical wood-heated home will burn through 25 trees a year?

Yes, really.

The beehive

This month, I was also busy completing my new beehive. It's ready, and now all I have to do is source some bees. The workshop was lots of fun, although I really didn't do well with the drill!

My top bar bee hive. Now all I need is the bees!

Our group of bee people now have a working group located on Facebook. Search for "Dunedin Working Bees" and you'll find us!

Christmas!

Between beehives, woodlots, fencing, de-thistling, planting tomatoes and salad veggies, general weeding, planting another 50 flower bulbs, writing a 50,000 word novel, and various other jobs I've not talked about, someone reminded me that Christmas is fast approaching!

Oh my - I forgot!

So I was glad that I did all my Christmas shopping back in the middle of the year when the sales were on. Everything is scarily under control, and the only thing that got forgotten was this blog!

I'll be back again more reliably once the silly season is over, but in the meanwhile, I guess I've done a lightning-fast update!

Have a lovely day!

A permaculture photo tour of Hazeltree Farm in Spring

2011-11-17T10:12:00.015+13:00

The farm is looking very beautiful at the moment, so I thought I'd walk around with the camera, taking photos to share with you all.

The front driveway is filled with flowers.

I carry a bag of seeds and bulbs with me, and every time I pull a weed, I put a flower bulb or seed in its place.

Gradually the whole area has become a mass of colour and weeds have become less of a problem. Now I hardly bother to weed it at all - I don't need to. I don't know whether this is a permaculture technique, but I like to think it is.

Our next job in this area will be to build a small retaining wall, to stop the bark chips and soil from spreading onto the gravelled area of the driveway. Then we can build the soil up a little more, which the newly installed cherry trees will appreciate.

Developing crab-apples.

Our driveway isn't just flowers. It also includes a very prolific crab apple tree, and three cherry trees. All are developing lots of fruit.

My son's tree swing, in the driveway area.

One of the main ideas of permaculture is to double, or triple, the use of an area. So our driveway is also a play area. Since coming to live here, we've installed two tree swings - one for each of the kids. When my son walks home from the school bus stop, he almost always stops and has a swing for a bit.

So we've turned what was just a driveway into a fruit production area, a driveway, a play area, a flowery bower, and we've also added a lot of bee forage, for the bee hive we'll soon be installing. Quintuple permaculture whammy!

The lower fruit orchard.

Since fencing the lower fruit orchard earlier this year, it's been doing terrifically. I did a massive pruning of the trees, and also did broadcasting of a lot of white clover seed, then sent the sheep in to do the rest.

The sheep chomped it down, and tidied the place up, and now the area not only produces fruit, but an ongoing crop of wool and meat, thanks to the sheep (although I don't think they're happy about either).

This autumn we'll be adding some fancy bulbs, creating a third layer crop for the area, and an extra economic (and beauty) benefit. Cut flowers sell well, and my son is keen to make some spending cash!

Grazing this area also means that I don't have to mow it, so we've reduced the energy (oil) input to zero. It's now completely sustainable. I call that a win!

Fruit trees in here are listed in the Growing section of this blog, if you're interested.

Some of our sheepies.

Here is about a third of our flock. Our lambs are getting enormous now - they're all probably about 20kgs (45 pounds) apiece or more. I can't lift them. Even runty Gabrielle weighs in at 14 kgs (31 pounds), and she's the smallest by far!

You can see by the photo above how big the lambs are getting. To give you some idea, our ewes weight about 80 kilograms (180 pounds) each - they're big. So you can see how big the lambs are next to them, and draw your own conclusions.

All the boy lambs, except for either Wallace or Gromit (we haven't decided) are going to that Great BBQ in the sky. We're keeping the girls to add to our flock. And we're expecting the arrival of our new hogget ram, Ramses, pretty soon - he's coming from a friend's place, and will be our ram for the 2013 season.

Our big boys, Rambo (our ram) and David (our wether).

For this season, Rambo will get more action again. Of course we're not breeding him with his daughters - he'll just breed with the older ewes again, all of whom did very well. Then he'll go back over to John's place. John is our neighbour who owns both Rambo and David (our wether).

So yes, everything is very lush and green here at the farm. Like everyone else around here, we have more grass than we know what to do with, and may have to make some balage to deal with it all. In the meanwhile, the sheep are getting so fat they can hardly move!

But then, we also have more eggs than we know what to do with, so the warmer weather has its bonuses!

Some of the tulips I planted, in the driveway area.

More of the tulips I planted, getting their first season above ground.

About the only problem is weeds, and I'm just tackling them, bit by bit.

We've fewer than we had in our first and second years, so organic farming seems to be working, with the tactic of just topping anything that spreads seed, and grubbing out anything that spreads by creep, then slashing anything you feel like.

I don't think our property will ever be weed free, but we're reducing them and controlling them without pesticides, and that's a good thing.

I hope you liked the photos. As for me, I'm looking forward to summer!

Have a lovely day!

Rural farmers unite to feed Wall Street protestors

2011-11-10T09:19:00.000+13:00

This video snippet gave me a warm feeling - and reminded me how, in the midst of adversity, there are always, always terrific people doing kindness for others.

Have a lovely day!

NaNoWriMo is eating my life

2011-11-08T16:05:00.000+13:00

Everything else, barring my family and work, stands neglected right now. Including this blog. This is because NaNoWriMo is on, and I'm scrambling to write a 50,000 word novel before November 30th.

You can read it, if you dare: My NaNoWriMo novel. It's a work in progress, and the aim of NaNo is not so much to turn in a great work of art as to, well, turn in something.

As I write this, I'm up to nearly 13,000 words, on track to finish on time, and eating my body weight daily in dark chocolate.

In other words, all systems normal.

I suppose I should also include a quick update: the animals are all doing well, the property is going beautifully (touch wood!), and we're all doing fine,

See you in December!

Have a lovely day!

Home made medicines: cough medicine

2011-10-21T16:19:00.004+13:00

I've had a bad cough the last few days, and as I was going through the checkout at the local shops, the check out lady told me of this great recipe for home made cough medicine.

It's easy, and works - fast! However, it might not be suitable for children, as you'll see!

Home made cough medicine

2 black ball sweets
1/4 cup of whisky

Yummmm...black balls!

Black ball sweets are traditional English hard boiled sweets, and very, very minty. You can buy them in specialist sweets shops or, like me, in bags in the supermarket.

To make this recipe,

Simply dissolve two black balls in a 1/4 cup of whisky overnight.
Once dissolved, mix well.
Store in a small airtight container in the fridge.

Take 20 mls (a dessertspoon) of the mixture as needed, but it is alcohol, so remember that it will affect your driving blood alcohol levels.

I found this recipe to be just as effective as any shop-bought cough mixture. It has cleared my cough up nicely!

Have a lovely day!

Home made laundry powder and home made laundry liquid

2011-10-20T09:35:00.003+13:00

I've posted several recipes here at Hazeltree Farm for home made cleaning products, but never my recipes for washing powder and laundry liquid.

Both recipes below are really easy to make, and very economical - and they work really well.

Home made laundry powder

2 parts of soap flakes - grated home made soap, lux flakes and grated shop-bought soap are all fine (I use lux flakes because I'm lazy)
1 part washing soda crystals - you can buy this in most supermarkets in large boxes, in the cleaning aisle.

Mix the two together really well, and store in an airtight container. Use about 1 tablespoon per wash.

NOTE: If the water in your area is really hard (you'll know this because it's hard to get a lather up with any soap!), you may need to dissolve the powder in some warm water first, then pour it into your washing machine.

This recipe works well for both top and front loading machines, and for hot and cold washes.

NOTE (2): I keep those little silica gel packets you get sometimes with shoes (we get them with shop-bought taco shells) and put one in with the laundry powder to keep it dry - it works a treat, and stops clumping.

As an aside, those little packets also work brilliantly at keeping saved seeds dry throughout the year for next planting season. Just pop one in with your saved seeds in their packet, and they won't go mouldy.

Home made laundry liquid

1/2 cup soap flakes - grated home made soap, lux flakes and grated shop-bought soap are all fine
1/4 cup washing soda crystals
3 drops eucalyptus oil (optional)
Hot tap water

You'll also need a clean 2 gallon (8 litre) bucket, a 5 litre (1 gallon) pourable storage container (I use an ex-bulk 5 litre vinegar container with a handle), and a funnel.

Put the soap flakes into a large old saucepan. Fill with hot water, and stir over a medium heat until the soap is completely dissolved.
Add the washing soda crystals, stir until dissolved, and until the mixture thickens.
Remove from the heat, sit your bucket in the laundry sink, and pour the water, soap and washing crystal mixture into the bucket.
Fill the bucket to just over halfway with hot water from the tap, and stir well.
If you choose to add eucalyptus oil, do so at this point.
Let the mix cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.
Finally, pour the finished product from the bucket to your storage container, using a funnel. Label the storage container, and put the lid on once it has cooled completely.

I use an old plastic quarter cup measure per wash with this recipe. It works well, and can be used on hot and cold washes and with front and top loaders (I use a very old top loader and a cold wash).

Safe for our land

Both recipes are safe for a septic system, which is why I hunted out these recipes and tried using them in the first place.

Our septic outflows on to our own property, and I wasn't keen to have nasty chemicals fouling up our land.

The laundry powder recipe comes from a friend in Germany (*waves*), while the laundry liquid recipe is an old, old Australian Women's Weekly recipe.

A note about borax

Both recipes originally contained borax (sodium borate), which I removed.

Borax is a commonly found, but quite dangerous compound, which has now been identified by the US Environmental Agency as "toxic for reproduction" (will affect and damage reproductive health of humans and other animals). It is suspected of causing genetic damage to humans and other animals, and research is being done in this area.

If borax gets into waterways, it will kill wildlife and plant life. Severe poisoning can cause renal failure in humans, and respiratory problems. It also causes the death of microbes in the soil, and will poison trees and insects.

It is commonly used around the world as an insecticide, but will also poison pets and children if accidentally consumed.

For these reasons, I do not use or keep borax on our organic property, and do not advocate any recipes containing it.

Happy washing!

Have a lovely day!

Our new hi-tech green-accredited solar-powered lawn mower

2011-10-09T15:47:00.007+13:00

Check out our latest acquisition - a new, hi-tech green-accredited solar powered lawn mower!

The old petrol-driven lawnmowers are obsolete. Let the latest technology - the Gabrielle 2011 - do your hard yakka for you! PS - she's cute too!

It not only runs on the grass it mows, it is self-reproducing, and fertlises your land at the same time.

This model is called the "Gabrielle 2011", and will not only keep your lawns tidy, but will provide endless hours of entertainment for your kids. And if it gets too big, you can sell its wool or you can eat it!

Gabrielle - up close and personal!

Our "Gabrielle 2011" was the last in a set of triplets. Her mother (JayBee hiFi) abandoned her, which sometimes happens with triplets. So we're bottle-feeding her, and she's doing just fine.

Gabrielle as a newborn, just a day old. Her siblings - Xena and Hercules - are with their mum, but poor Gabby was abandoned.

She has decided I'm her mother, and has attached herself to my son as well, who is the main bottle-feeder and playmate - he's doing a terrific job.

We're intending to keep her, and add her to our breeding flock of ewes as soon as she's big enough. She'll be bottle fed until she's about 15 kgs in weight (about 40 pounds), although she's already starting to mow the grass for us.

So are sheep the ultimate green alternative to a petrol driven lawnmower? I think so. Our four ewes produced nine lambs this year, but even a small city section could host - or co-host - one sheep, which would take care of all the mowing, and provide meat and wool in return.

Maybe it's time we threw some of our stupid machines away, and returned to lovely animals, don't you think?

Have a lovely day!

Our children are our best teachers

2011-09-29T10:38:00.005+13:00

My son told me off yesterday for chopping back a tree.

I wasn't hurting the tree, just trimming it so that I could use a post that the tree had overgrown. The tree had grown over the fence line and, in order to be able to access the post for a new fence we're installing, it needed trimming back.

My six year old son saw what I was doing, and immediately quoted The Lorax at me. He told me that the trees have no tongues, they can't speak for themselves, and we shouldn't cut them.

And at that moment, I was incredibly proud of my son.

Because, in spite of all the horrible things we're doing to our world - the overfishing, and the wars, and the people who are horrible to one another, and the people who are hurtful and vindictive and never forgive, and the cruelty to animals, and all the wild places that are being destroyed - if one small boy can take the message of caring for our world to heart, maybe there is hope for us yet.

Teaching our kids to love the natural world is perhaps one of the most important lessons we can give them. And then, when they turn around and give us the gift of wisdom back, it is both a surprise and an honour.

I explained to my son that the tree won't be hurt, and I won't chop it down. I told him that by trimming the tree I was able to use a post that was already there, instead of having to put a new one in.

Using what we already have, instead of buying new stuff, is a really important message to learn. And he's learning that message well too.

I have absolutely no doubt that my son - who has moved from the "special needs group" to the "gifted" group at school within the space of just a year and a half - will grow up to be a man I will be even more proud of than I am right now.

But today, I'm a very proud mum. I know I've raised a son who recognises that we are a part of this world, not overlords or controllers of it, and that caring for other living things and other people is as important as caring for ourselves.

Have a lovely day!

Counting sheep: maintaining flock data

2011-09-26T12:47:00.002+13:00

When we bought Hazeltree Farm nearly two years ago, eight sheep came with the property. Four ewes and four wethers (castrated males).

Our original flock - four ewes and four wethers.

We passed the wethers over to the farm next door, as our property was overgrazed at the time and needed recovery, and later on acquired a ram (Rambo) and new wether (David).

The ewes have stayed on all the while, and all four of them - Minnie, Maxie, Kylie and JayBee - have become good friends.

While I was pretty good at recognising that small flock of six on sight, recently (in case you didn't notice!) our flock has grown. We now have fifteen sheep on the property!

While we intend to keep all the ewes except one, we do need to tag and identify our flock for various reasons. The first step in doing this is to gather data. And this is what I've been doing this morning.

Ear tags! Castration! Docking! Baaaa!

We're going to tag our sheep (ear tags) when the littlies are docked and the boys castrated, which is happening in a few days time. Each sheep will be given a unique number, which ties in with my records I keep on the computer. I also keep a hard copy in a folder in the bookcase - just in case!

Here's a link to my flock records, if you're interested.

[Sheep flock data]

As you can see, we knew virtually nothing about our sheep when we moved in. But very quickly we're establishing good data about them. This is useful in identifying which animals to keep and which to pass on or slaughter.

Of course, we still don't know what breed they are! Mainly Romney, we think! But it doesn't really matter for our purposes.

Who to stay, and who to go?

For example, we'll probably keep all our ewes except for JayBee, because she orphaned her triplet, and had some birthing problems. Not enough to need the vet, but the warning signs are there, and we'd be fools to put her to a ram again this coming season.

The boys will probably also all go to various places.

Rambo has to go back to his owner across the road, and we'll negotiate for a new ram of different genetics for next season. David (the wether) can go with him if our neighbour wants him back. We'll also ask our neighbour if he wants any of the young boy lambs, as it was his ram who did the daddy!

My dental hygientist, interestingly, has also expressed interest in a couple of boy lambs. She has a lonely goat on her property, and wants a lamb or two (castrated) to kee it company and help eat the grass. Any lambs of ours that go to her will score the "pet sheep deal" - the sweetest deal there is!

Apart from that, it's likely one or two will become Christmas dinner for some friends of ours. We'll get the home kill guy in, and our friends will score some organic lamb for Christmas.

For all these decisions, we need plenty of data, and good records. So when our lambs get docked, the ear tags will be going on. Then our grown sheep are getting a second yearly shearing pretty soon, and we'll tag them then. All should be tagged within a couple of weeks.

Farming is bookwork! Augh!

So yeah, part of farming is keeping good records - especially on a mixed farm like ours. If we didn't keep records, we wouldn't know which sheep was breeding with who, which sheep to keep and which to sell, and which ones might need a bit of extra care at lambing.

It's not just sheep either. Our whole property is mapped out, with lists and pictures of what tree is where, which fruit trees we have, and what pollinators we keep. If I didn't keep good records, I'd never keep track of it all!

Have a lovely day!

LAMBFEST 2011: Triplet lambs - Xena, Hercules, and Gabrielle

2011-09-25T20:37:00.007+13:00

Never say lambing is over until it is OVER.

The last few days have been a bit chaotic. With the arrival of Minnie's twin boys (Wallace and Gromit) we figured we were all done for LambFest '11.

We couldn't have been more wrong.

It made sense, our assumption. You see, we'd found a dead lamb early on in the piece, and when Minnie produced twins a few days ago, we naturally concluded that the dead lamb must have belonged to JayBee (or, to give her her full name, JayBee HiFi LOL).

Anyways, that all ended when I heard a ewe in labour three days ago. I was just seconds too late, but still managed to catch a very, very newborn baby lamb, who we named Xena, in honour of a demoted planet and a Kiwi legend (Lucy Lawless).

Hercules followed a couple of hours later. But something - primarily the uneven look of JayBee - told me that JayBee hadn't quite finished.

I told my husband that I suspected another lamb was on the way, but checking and re-checking every hour until past nightfall produced nothing.

On Friday morning, we were in a rush to get the kids to school and kindy, and I could see JayBee with Xena and Herc, so I figured I'd been wrong about the third lamb.

So I got the kids off, and did some shopping, and it wasn't until about 9:00 that I was down in the orchard checking on the new mum and her kids properly. Slack, I know, but you try managing young kids and lambing!

And it was then I heard a sorry little bleating coming from behind the fence.

After scruffing through the neighbour's fence, a muddy patch, and some pretty thick brush, I found the source of the noise - a tiny, tiny lamb girlie, who had made her way through a gap in the fence onto our neighbour's property and into a hole in his woodpile.

You have never seen such a miserable looking little creature. I think if I hadn't found her she would have been dead an hour later. And she was stuck in so tightly in the woodpile that I could have gone past her by a foot and not noticed her. She is one lucky little lamb!

It took a while to get her out, and when I did, she bonded on to me straight away, as her mother had clearly abandoned her.

What else to call her but - Gabrielle!

So now we have a poddy lamb (orphan lamb). She's doing really well, and we're bottle-feeding her. She has also bonded with my 6 year old son, who is a really gentle soul who loves animals, so he's doing a lot of the feeding and cuddle roster.

As for Xena and Hercules, they're doing well too, as are all our other lambs. But I guess the truth is I just wasn't going to get through our first lambing without an adoption!

My husband is actually quite pleased, because we'll be able to keep Gabrielle in our lawn area, and he'll get out of doing the mowing this Spring! But it would have been much better if her mother had accepted her in the first place.

Our final tally for LambFest 2011...

So our final tally for LambFest 2011 is:

Boys: Spock, Boris, Wallace, Gromit, Hercules
Girls: Blossom, Sputnik, Xena, Gabrielle

Not a bad haul from four elderly ewes! Well done, ladies!

I'll leave you with a seriously cute EweTube from the BBC about lamb gangs, which I think you'll enjoy, if you love animals as much as I do :-)

And I promise to post lots more photos of Gabrielle and the rest of our gang soon!

Have a lovely day!

More lambs! Minnie the Moocher births Wallace and Gromit

2011-09-21T19:50:00.008+12:00

Just when I thought lambing was over, and the only reason Minnie the Moocher was fat was just that she was hugely greedy, she went and gave birth to twin boys today in the orchard.

We've named them Wallace and Gromit.

I won't bore you with words. Instead, I'll just show you the photos of extreme cuteness, with a few subtitles, to let you know who is who in our little flock.

Wallace and Gromit - our two new wee laddies.

Boris (Kylie Minogue's son) having a sniff at Wallace, while Minnie the Moocher looks on.

Kylie Minogue breastfeeding her girl! (let's see how many google hits THAT gets! LOL)

Sputnik, Boris, Blossom and Spock (from left to right).

Boris and Gromit. Boris (left) was born on the 29th of August, while Gromit is just hours old - look at the difference in size already.

Wallace looking adorable. Don't you just want to pick him up and hug him?

So we've had a great season for our first lambing. Three our our four ewes produced twins, and the fourth, although her lamb died, had no complications. You couldn't really ask for a better result.

Have a lovely day!

10 reasons why I love living in a country village

2011-09-15T15:18:00.004+12:00

I live in the little village of Wingatui, just outside of Dunedin, on the south island of New Zealand.

Population: about a thousand.

Here are my top reasons why I love living where I do, and why moving from The Big Smoke (Melbourne, Australia. Population: 4 million) was one of the best decisions I ever made (others include marrying my husband and having kids).

10. No traffic jams. When I have to go to the city (Dunedin), it's an easy drive in. No traffic jams. Ever.
9. Local everything. Pretty much everything I need is within easy drive, cycle or walking distance. Mosgiel (our local township) has two supermarkets, lots of great shops, and all the basics like vets, doctors, post office, petrol stations etc.

I've completely relocalised and find I rarely need to go into Dunedin at all. As a result, my petrol bill has dropped.
8. Fresh air and peace. We're happier and healthier here in the country. There's no pollution, and the air is clean. We're surrounded by birdsong, and the noisiest thing we hear is the sheep and our next-door neighbour's horses.
7. Space and safety. Lots of space for my kids to run around, and little fear of road traffic injury. Plenty of playgrounds - we're down the road from the best playground in Otago - and lots of great kiddy facilities.
6. Great school and family community. Our son goes to a "high performance school" - one of the best in Otago.

It has a great community and sense of place, and he's getting a first-class education. And - because it is government-funded - we don't pay the huge school fees we would have paid in the city.

Also, there's a free school bus that picks him up at the corner. No driving him to school!
5. I can see the Universe through my window at night. Out here in the country, there is very little light pollution. I can look out of my bedroom window at night, and see thousands of stars that you're not even aware of, living in the city. It's magnificent, and awe-inspiring.
4. Friendliness. I know most of the people who live around here by sight already, and they know me. Whenever I drive or walk anywhere, they wave and say hello, or we stop and chat.

I know most of the people at our supermarket and health food shop by name, and they know us. It's a great community, and I have a great sense of belonging.

The service is great too. If I want an item, and it isn't at the shops, they'll get it in for me specially. And country New Zealand must be the only place left in the world with petrol stations where an attendant still fills your car for you!
3. Greenery. I believe it is healthier to live in a place surrounded by greenery. We do. I never stop being stunned by the beauty here.
2. Cost of living. Some of the ways we're saving here include:
- no school fees (in Australia: at least $7,000 per child per year);
- child care fees (in Melbourne we were paying $160 a day for our two after tax);
- toll road fees (our tollway fees in Melbourne were regularly $140 a month);
- lower cost of housing (the average cost of houses in Melbourne is over $600,000;
  in Otago it is under $260,000);
- travel time (my daily commute to work was 1 1/2 hours each way every day in Melbourne - here I don't have to work at all, because we're financially better off).
1. Being able to watch my children grow up as a stay-at-home mother. In Australia, our expenses were so high that I had to go back to work when my daughter was only six weeks old, just to make ends meet. My story was pretty common - most mothers work over there, and putting your kids into full time child care is not unusual.

I have horror memories from Melbourne of pumping breast milk in toilet cubicles at work for months on end, and of the exhaustion of leaving home before 7 in the morning, and arriving home after 7 at night. I felt like I never saw my kids.

I was also a walking zombie, and suffered massively from depression and stress. My baby daughter wasn't sleeping well, and neither (ironically) was I. The more exhausted I got, the more I found I couldn't sleep. That way of life is hard on young families - we're people, not robots.

Living in the country, where homes are much cheaper and there's little stress has been wonderful for our family. I know that the world is becoming more urbanised, but somehow I can't help but think that when the alternative exists to move to a smaller town, there are a lot of advantages to doing so that you might not realise until you get here.

So now we live in Wingatui, New Zealand. A very small town! I don't have to work, although I'll probably go back next year anyway. I got to see my kids grow up to school age. I was there when they needed me, and if they need me to be a stay-at-home mum again, I know we can afford to do that.

For me, family comes first. Always has, always will do.

If we want something that isn't available, it is usually for sale on the internet. About the only things I miss about my old home in the big city are friends, choirs and a couple of favourite restaurants. Sure the shopping was great - but not great enough to pay double the house costs for!

Where we live now: Wingatui, New Zealand

Technically, Wingatui is now part of Mosgiel, population: 10,000.

Even more technically, we're part of Dunedin. But Wingatui has its own identity and culture, and the ten reasons above are part of why I love living here.

Most of all, I love being able to relax, be myself, and avoid the rat race. As someone once said, no matter whether you win or lose, you're still a rat!

Wingatui is well-known for its horse culture (we're about the only people here without horses, and my daughter wants that to change!) and racing. It's also a haven for train maniacs, which suits my son - the world-famous Taieri Gorge Railway goes right through here, and we can watch it from our house.

In the past few years I've learned I'm a country girl in heart, soul and body. And that suits me just fine! They'll cart me our of here in a box, and bury me in the hills somewhere near here. I've been here only a little while, but already I know the country is where I'll stay.

Have a lovely day!

Chocolate chip peanut butter cookies (gluten free, dairy free)

2011-09-10T16:15:00.007+12:00

Chocolate chips and peanut butter - yum! Combine them in a cookie and you're looking pretty good, I reckon.

This recipe is gluten-free and dairy-free, while being sweet enough to keep any kid (or husband) happy!

Yumminess! If I don't bag and freeze most of these right away, they won't last long! Our kids are exceedingly greedy.

I just doubled this fantastic recipe for gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate chip peanut butter cookies I found in the New Zealand Healthy Food magazine.

NOTE: If you're not familiar with cooking dairy-free, and are doing so for someone else, check that the chocolate chips you use don't have any dairy ingredients in them - most brands do, and you may have to shop carefully.

Chocolate chip peanut butter cookies

Ingredients

2 cups peanut butter
2 free range eggs (from our chookies)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups of brown sugar
170 g (or whatever you want to add) of dark chocolate chips.

Lined up and ready for the oven.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F.
Combine all ingredients except the chocolate chips.
Stir well, until everything is combined, then add the chocolate chips and mix them through thoroughly.
Line several baking trays with baking paper. Scoop teaspoon-sized scoopfuls of the mixture into balls, and place on the tray about 4 cms / 2 inches apart (they do spread).
Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until firm and lightly browned on top. Rest for ten minutes until cook enough to move to a rack for further cooling.
Makes 75-80 cookies - enough for the greediest kids! (This recipe can easily be halved).
Cookies can be frozen into portions for weekly lunchbox happiness :-)

Besides doubling the recipe, I also added a few more chocolate chips - I used "Pams" brand dark chocolate chips - Pams is a Kiwi home brand that is cheap and good quality.

The cookies were quick to make up, and doubling the recipe resulted in nearly 80 kiddie-sized cookies which will keep our two bottomless pits (a.k.a children) very happy for a wee while!

Omitting the baking soda as I usually do made the cookies that bit tastier, as sometimes baking soda can create a bitter aftertaste in baked goods.

I also just used plain old sanitarium peanut paste instead of the specified "no-added-salt, no-added-sugar" peanut butter - goodness knows where you'd get that from in our country town, or how much it would cost!

Recipes like this work out very economical for lunchbox treats. We'll be freezing the cookies into bags of twenty - that way, they'll last for a few weeks, as well as giving us something to have on hand for unexpected guests.

Have a lovely day!

Internet piracy laws, whys and hows, and common sense

2011-09-08T14:04:00.011+12:00

"Come, friends, who plough the sea
Truce to navigation
Take another station
Let's vary piracy
With a little burglary!"
- The Pirates of Penzance

New Zealand has introduced a "three strikes" law against so-called "illegal" downloading online. It is a hot topic among my friends, many of whom work in the computing industry and are aware of the issues and pitfalls surrounding the new laws.

Our laws (the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill) are similar to those introduced in France, Britain and elsewhere.

The anti-piracy video that is unskippable and on most purchased DVDs these days. But maybe it's a crime to charge people $30 for an unreturnable DVD that breaks after one viewing?

The laws are part of a worldwide move to clamp down on services that make it very easy for home computer owners to download the latest TV show or movie for free from just about anywhere, from almost the moment that show or movie is released.

Interestingly, the introduction of New Zealand's laws have coincided with an automatic, unrequested doubling of download data allowance on virtually all internet plans.

Our data allowance was doubled last week - and we never asked for it. Everyone I know has had the same thing happen.

I can't help but wonder if this is some thinly-veiled attempt to open up wide nets with which to catch the suspected "evil pirates"?

The laws were rushed through using the new "urgency law" system in parliament implemented and designed to help the people of Christchurch after the earthquakes.

This is seen as an abuse by many Kiwis of laws designed to help people in dire need, and it is not popular.

My view is that the new laws won't work. I want to discuss why.

Why do people download online?

Downloaders fall into a few categories and, against what the propaganda suggests, most people who download do not do so to get a "free lunch".

They are not criminals, do not steal, and are not evil. They are just ordinary people using the net in the way it works best - to share information, ideas and entertainment.

People download for some of the reasons below:

Availability: Much of the content that is downloaded in New Zealand is not available in the shops or on TV, or via any legal channel. Downloading content is the only way to view it.

The net means we're aware of more content than ever before, but if it is not available to us by any other means, no wonder people download it!

Spoilage: A good example of spoilage is the Doctor Who TV series. New Zealand gets the series (which is available for free, legal online viewing in the UK) many weeks after the rest of the world.

This is a problem, because online forums and chat groups about the series are full of spoilers and series tell-alls immediately after the show is screened in the UK.

So yes, you eventually get to watch Doctor Who in New Zealand on TV - but you can be pretty sure that by the time you do, if you're online at all you already know what happened, who has lived and who has died, and pretty much all plot thrills.

Kind of takes the fun out of watching.

Poor quality legally-bought DVDs: People are downloading copies of DVDs they own that have broken or failed to work after just one or two screenings.

An example is my own copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. I paid to see the movie - twice. Then I paid to get a DVD of the movie - legally.

One viewing later, and my DVD (a legal copy!) was failing to play properly, and flicking through scenes. Now I can't watch it at all. Can you blame similar viewers - who have now forked out over $30 in cinema costs and another $30 for a crud DVD - if they decide to download a copy of the movie they already paid for three or more times?

Returning faulty DVDs is not an option these days. No shop will accept faulty DVDs. So in my case, I've paid $30 for merchandise which is useless.

Would you pay another $30 for another DVD copy if you were me?

Cost: I am also going to mention the thorny issue of cost. This is the issue that the manufacturers and movie-makers don't want to touch. They don't want to admit that maybe, just maybe, people are downloading because the movie makers are ripping us off!

The truth is, the cost of DVDs is outrageous.

I buy a LOT of kids DVDs for our children. They are priced from $9.99 (at the cheap end) through to $20.00 and upwards for the more expensive ones.

New release movies can cost you $35. Blu Ray discs seem to cost even more - no wonder they're not catching on!

A plain blank DVD disc costs about a dollar. My guess is that my Harry Potter DVD probably cost about 80c to make in China - if that! We're getting fleeced, and we know it.

So the fact is, DVDs are just ridiculously overpriced. Most people are honest, and prefer to do the right thing, but when the legal version is so insanely priced, people simply can't / won't pay. And who can blame them?

A system that works

In the USA, Netflix is making huge amounts of money.

For a subscription fee, you can get direct streaming movies online. It's cheap, and people (more than 25 million of them at last count) are happy to pay for something they see as good value.

But other options are available.

One option I can think of is production channels like the BBC, CBS, NBC and so on creating membership clubs. Once again, pay a small membership fee, and download whatever you want, whenever you want.

How to make it desirable? Include forums, old episodes not available, interviews with actors, you name it. Many fans of various TV series would love to join, if the price were reasonable.

Had something similar been around when we were waiting months for every new "Buffy" episode a few years back, we'd have loved for something like this to be available!

People are sick of being shafted

People are sick of being shafted. They want quality viewing, and they want it at a fair price.

It seems to me that downloading and piracy is rampant not because people are criminals, but because the movie-makers and TV makers and TV channel operators are not respecting their clients - us!

They've forgotten who they're supposed to be serving, in their rush for more and more profits. And now people are bucking the system and refusing to play along, the companies are crying Thief! and hoping to keep playing an unfair game on a playing field that is anything but level.

If piracy is a problem, maybe it is time to ask why, rather than simply attempting to close everything down.

Big Brother tactics never work - or they work for a while, until they're outsmarted. A few years ago, Napster was closed down, but that legal dumpage didn't change a thing. Downloading is more pervasive than ever.

Likewise, I'm convinced these new laws won't change a thing. Legally attacking a few families or individuals will just engender bad feeling, and create a truckload of bad press. And the downloading technology will evolve, and become harder than ever to track.

So - what do you think?

Have a lovely day!

Another set of twin baby lambs!

2011-09-05T16:42:00.001+12:00

Kylie Minogue (yes, we really have a sheep called Kylie Minogue!) had a set of twins on Sunday morning.

It was our second set of twin lambs to be born here at the farm. And I only wish I'd been a little earlier out, because I think I missed the birth by minutes.

Boris and Sputnik are born at Hazeltree Farm - a nice gift for my husband for Father's Day!

When I arrived, the lambs - two of them - hadn't yet stood up. Kylie was licking them clean, and she was looking pretty tired.

I went over and checked the lambs were okay, and breathing properly. I also checked their gender - another boy and another girl. I also checked Kylie to make sure she hadn't prolapsed or anything that might need a vet rightaway. She was fine.

Kylie looked pretty tired, but she's doing well - and the lambs are feeding well.

Within half an hour, both lambs were up and feeding well, and spinning their little tails in that cute way they do when they're latched on. So cute!

We've decided to go with a Russian influence on names for this second set of twins. The girl will be Sputnik, in honour of the first satellite into space. And the boy will be Boris, which is just a really cool name.

Boris and Sputnik having their first ever feed. It's amazing to think they hadn't even stood up less than five minutes before I took this photo!

A couple of days on, they're both doing really well, as are Spock and Blossom, our first set of twins.

Four lambs! It has been a good season here.

Now the only ewe we're waiting on is JayBee. She's a bit of an odd shape, so we think she may also be about to lamb.

We've booked the vet to come any time after next week, for docking and castrating of our lambs, so hopefully she'll be all done by then, if she's going to have any!

Have a lovely day!

Sheep midwives - loving behaviour as seen by a silly human

2011-08-30T15:01:00.002+12:00

This week, I watched as ordinary ewes became expert midwives, caring for a new mother and her babies, and protecting them in their time of need.

Let me explain.

Our baby lambs were born in the Tree Paddock, down the back of our property, near Dragon Lane.

It's the most sheltered spot on the property, but it's also the furthest away from where I give the sheep hay, from the best water, and from where I pass out extra food when the animals need it.

Our three other ewes protected the new mother when she left her babies to come get some grain. I would have brought it to her where she was, but sheep (like people) are creatures of habit, and are used to doing things the same way, day in day out.

They came to get her when I appeared, figuring that the goodies were coming (treat time!), and ushered her to the food, past the males.

Then the three other ewes stood around the new mother, and let her feed first, something I have never seen before. Usually it is a free for all food-fest, but not this time. This time, new Mum went first.

The other ewes also kept our two males away from her, and I watched with interest as the males, for the first time, kept their distance. They didn't get to eat until mum had fed. Not a chance, the way she was protected!

While this was going on, the lambs were back in the Tree Paddock, all unprotected in theory, but one of the ewes had placed herself between the males and the Tree Paddock, as a sentry.

The gate was closed, and the males couldn't get in, but she was being extra-protective. There was no way those males could get past to the babies, or to the new mother.

When new Mum had finished eating, the other ewes literally formed an "honour guard" around her, and escorted her back to her babies, one on each side of her, and one behind. You couldn't have got a more precise operation in an army!

I've never seen anything like it, and watched, entranced.

I wish I could have taken movies, but frankly, I was so stunned at all this that taking film was the last thing on my mind.

Finally, all four ewes waited patiently for me to open the gate to the Tree Paddock again, and the new Mum went through to her babies. She checked each of them, sniffing carefully, then licking them, then she fed them.

Dumb animals? Who is dumb - us or them?

In the last few days, I've seen things that have really changed my mind about sheep.

Sheep are not dumb animals. I think now I have to question whether there is any animal that is dumb on the planet, having seen what I have seen. Sheep aren't supposed to be as bright as pigs or dolphins - so what might those animals be capable of?

Maybe we're misjudging everything - especially the theoretical "gap" between humans and other animals. Maybe intelligence is more like a spectrum, a rainbow of ability and understanding.

Maybe no animals are dumb, if we're smart enough to see what they really are.

Except maybe humans. Maybe we're the dumb ones? Because we've been raising sheep for thousands of years, and yet, with this sort of intelligent, social behaviour going on all around us, we're still foolish enough to call sheep "dumb"!

Everything I've seen with our ewes has reminded me, more than anything, of my own experiences as a mother. I relate to and acknowledge what our mother ewes go through because, as a mum, I can see so many similarities.

Maybe it is time for us to re-think how we treat animals, if we're to consider ourselves truly civilised.

For now, I know that I'll never call a sheep "dumb". I've seen too much, and I know better.

Have a lovely day!

Baby lambs - and mixed blessings

2011-08-29T13:09:00.012+12:00

This morning I woke up and first job was to check on our baby lambs. I was really pleased to see that they were both still alive.

Here's our twins. A boy and a girl. Aren't they cute! They're about the size of a small dog.

They seem to be feeding regularly now from their mum, and they are both up on their (very long and wobbly!) legs and dancing about.

Here's mum and the twins, down on Dragon Lane (at the back of our property).

Did I say how cute they are? I think I did!

Mum and the twins again, down Dragon Lane.

We have a boy and a girl. If the girlie survives (farmers typically lose a fair proportion of baby lambs in the first 10 days or so to various problems), we'll keep her and add her to our stock.

Here's our wee girlie. I want to name her "Blossom" (it's a family joke).

The life of boy sheep on a farm

We can't keep the boy beyond summer (assuming he survives), so we'll give the owner of the ram, who is a neighbour of ours, first offering on the little boy.

Here's our wee boy lamb. My husband Michael wants to name him "Spock"!

"Mary had a little lamb
The doctors got a shock
He had such long and pointy ears
They named it Son of Spock!" (Gaudete, gaudete etc.)

If our neighbour wants him, he can have him after he's spent the time through till Christmas at our place, helping to keep the grass down.

We'll also return Rambo. If our neighbour who lent him to us doesn't want Rambo and the as-yet-unnamed boy, Rambo will have to go to sale. The baby lamb will get home-slaughtered here at our farm, and we'll offer the meat to friends, for the price of the slaughter.

I know that all sounds brutal, but we simply can't keep any males. We can't risk him breeding with his sister or mother, and we can't afford to keep wethers (castrated males) for no reason as our goal is to build a flock of breeding ewes that will raise a small profit for us.

The only reason we'll keep and castrate him is if no other female lambs are forthcoming - then we will.

We also won't be able to keep any females that have problems birthing. Eventually we want to build our puny number of stock up to about 6-8 breeding ewes, plus rotating rams and lambs in spring. That should be about the right stockage for our three acres.

When next season arrives, we'll get hold of another ram, from different bloodlines, and start the process over.

Today I dug my first grave

This morning was also mixed blessings in another way.

One of the other ewes gave birth, and the lamb was dead when I got to it this morning. It was such a wee little thing, and it was the smallest, and first, grave I have ever dug.

I cried when I filled in that grave, and I know it sounds silly, but I said a small prayer. I wanted to share the experience with you, so here's a photo.

Farming is tough sometimes.

Our poor lost lamb. I promised never to hide the rotten side of farming from you. Well, here it is, in all its misery. I don't know why the lamb died. It's just one of those things.

This is our first lambing, and it has been mixed blessings. I won't ever forget our first lost lamb. But in the meanwhile, I'll enjoy watching our beautiful two new additions to Hazeltree Farm.

Running to mum.

So - ideas for names?

Have a lovely day!

We have baby LAMBS!

2011-08-28T10:15:00.001+12:00

They were born last night. Photos coming soon...

I'm having paroxysms over their cuteness...:-)

Have a lovely day!