The Best Laid Plans

The year has nearly finished, so much has happened down in Apple Gully and now it's Christmas.
We know it's Christmas because Marilyn our feral fruit tree has changed her spring looks for a suitably brassy but classy Christmas makeover.

Marilyn the feral fruit tree last Spring      

We also know that we are are into the festive season for another reason - one that we had not given enough thought to.
We now know that 'while shepherds watched their flocks by night'  probably has some basis in necessity as well as scanning nicely in a Christmas carol.  

We have, as you know, a fledgling herd of fine Herefords and though they are not fashionable we like having them. Everyone in our part of the world grows black Angus cattle because they do better in the sale yards.   But we can't help thinking that once McDonalds tries to supersize you up to a Mighty Angus burger that the trend has run it's course.  So we're a bit retro with our copper coloured cows, but retro is cool and the girls put on weight just by looking at a blade of grass.

Marilyn dressed for summer with mighty Angus burgers in the background

Last season we had a midnight visit from the neighbour's bull and a fine little out of sync heifer resulted, but the bull has since been sold so our guard was down.   Plans for a Hereford rent-a-bull had been put in place, our girls were to be shipped over to him and a good time was promised for all.  For no particular reason because we can, we decided to preg test the girls and -- you guessed it they are all pregnant again. Another phantom bull is on the loose.  A friendly visit to our over the fence neighbours left us none the wiser, they have no bulls. So our rogue has wandered in from who knows where, jumped numerous barbed wire fences, not just once but multiple times as he got at each of the girls in turn and then, exhausted he must have staggered back over the barbed wire.

So Merry Christmas to you all and just remember that 2000 years ago they didn't know who the father was either, but it started a new trend. We think we're onto something.  

It seemed like a good idea at the time-   Merry Christmas

Sweet and the not so sweet

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You might think nothing much happens down on the farm in winter, maybe not below ground, but we humans and  the daffodils are as busy as. Our farm was once a market garden and the legacy each September is a vision straight out of Wordsworth's poem.


     When all at once I saw a crowd,
     A host of golden daffodils...
     Ten thousand saw I at a glance
     Tossing their heads in sprightly 
     dance     


Daffodils are toxic to animals, but they seem to know not to eat them, in fact daffodils are about the only plant that grows completely untouched by any critter in the Australian bush, they thrive on neglect and repay you five fold. The wombats insist on taking short cuts through them, leaving flattened tracks like straight crop circles- if you know what I mean and it's easy to see where the kangaroos take their short cuts because every two meters there is a flattened patch as they hop along. That still leaves plenty for the humans to appreciate -

That's the hereford telling me not to eat those yellow things

      For oft, when on my couch I lie
      in vacant or in pensive mood,
      They flash upon that inward eye
      which is the bliss of solitude.         
                   thanks to W Wordsworth



From bliss to brew...
We've decided to go into home brewing, we have a recipe, it calls for a 200 Litre barrel, that's more than the old 44 Gall drum. So our brew is going to be a seriously large scale production, especially for first timers.
The first hurdle was locating a barrel, one that could be sealed, yet able to be modified for brewing with a gas vent. The barrel hunt led to a deal that seemed too good to be true - $330 new or $12 on Ebay, it was of course a no brainer . The only problem turned out to be where the barrels had been before they were loaded into the back of my car-
and that was a pickled onion processing plant!
I quite like a pickled onion with a slice or two of sharp cheddar, but these barrels had spent way too long in the pickle factory. By the end of the 45 minute trip home my eyes were watering and I was dizzy with pickle fumes, I had become a walking pickle. Three days later the car still smelt as if it was part of a ploughmans lunch order.

In fact the onion smell was the last thing we needed to worry about, because the brew is not for human consumption. We're brewing our own fertiliser down here on the farm. The recipe is worth noting-
      first gather 50L fresh cow dung - it must be fresh.  To that is added yeast, molasses,  milk
      rainwater -  ( no chlorine) and lots of other secret ingredients.
The whole thing is gently stirred, well as gently as you can stir 200L of brown goop and then sealed.  There is one vital modification to the barrel, and that is an air lock to let off the gas from this monster of a brew. If you have ever tried making ginger beer or regular beer in the laundry and had a bottle or 3 explode, you can only imagine what 200L of cow poo brew would do if .....  !!!!

photo:  Milkwood Farm

Our brew must now sit for two months while the microbes and yeast do their magic. We've been assured that when we open it our senses will not be assaulted with a foul smelling concoction, instead we'll have a fine vintage fertiliser, clear and golden in colour and sweet smelling too. We'll keep you posted.

Commuting by chain saw

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wind damage to the grand old wattle

Winter has come and almost gone and things have slowed down, the grass certainly has, with the result that the cattle are looking trimmer by the day. Not a bad thing really as some of our girls could barely fit through the cattle crush at the end of last summer.

In other ways mother nature has been on speed dial, or just plain speed, dishing out wind, sleet, rain and more rain. Whole generations of drought raised wombats round us have had to learn how to dig a hole that doesn't flood.

This year the winter rains have left the paddocks difficult to access. The tractor is definitely off limits as it turns them  into a Somme-like battle field, so it's just as well it's been at the mechanics shop the last few weeks for a holiday. All of which has nothing to do with the driver believing he is on a machine with double the horse power.  That old farm adage  'the only good tractor is a contractor' has some truth in it.

After the rains came the winds where trees that have stood for 50 plus years were snapped off and uprooted all over our shire.  In the days after the storm the only way out was by a chain saw as the roads had to be cleared tree by tree. Lots of fire wood but a 20 minute trip to town took well over an hour.
Ahh ... fond memories of commuting in the city - maybe all traffic jams could be resolved with a chain saw .. hmm -would that be a massacre or infrastructure management?

knots of debris after the high winds

Days later, trees were still silently keeling over even in the calmest of weather. With their root structure water logged and weakened they are all potential killers. A friends stitched up head attests to their unpredictable power. When his wife asked why he didn't move out of the way, he replied that the first thing he knew about it was waking up and wondering why he was on the ground with blood pouring down his face.
Two days later he went back to the scene and found he could barely lift the offending branch. It was either a glancing blow or he has a very thick skull. Either way he is probably lucky to be still walking.
                                                                               

Marilyn the feral fruit tree

It's a little early to be talking about Spring, we still have frosts in the mornings,  but the flowering fruit trees are ready to go. It's good to see that nature is not just about destruction. Our favourite little survivor sits in a paddock surrounded by neglect, her mop of brilliant white blossom sparkles in daylight and glows in the dark. Dressed in her party best she is oblivious to the weeds and dead trees around her. She's commonly referred to as a feral fruit tree, we prefer to call her Marilyn.  Sing the words to Elton John's Candle in the Wind and you'll know why.

Nose Ring Update

'Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.'  Is the forgiving way of saying - we blew it!
The nose rings did seem like a good idea- an excellent idea. In the past we'd tried the more conventional methods of weaning our cattle with a mediocre success rate.

On a small farm,  a fretting cow's bellow can be heard echoing across the valleys and hills for a kilometer or so. No matter how we separate mothers from calves, they know where the missing family members are and fences are no obstacle.

Our small acreage led to the nose ring solution, no need for separation and anxiety, the spikes on the calves nose ring just make life too uncomfortable for the cow and she does the weaning by herself. A win-win situation.

In any form of mass organisation, it only takes one to break ranks for the system to falter. Most of our cows baulked at the calf trying to suckle with a great yellow medieval torture device stuck on the end of their noses so the weaning was looking good.     Except for one hyper maternal mother, who gritted her teeth, spread her legs and put up with her udder being pricked and poked and butted by some instrument left over from the Spanish inquisition. Yes, a total mummy's boy who would not go out with the others and play in the paddock.

Kids being kids, it didn't take long for a game of copycat to develop. The other calves knew well enough to leave their own mothers alone, but that didn't stop them from harassing hyper maternal mother by ducking in between her back legs for a quick slurp or performing pincer movements to out wit her. Either hyper mother had to harden up or the humans had to step in.

hyper mother

With a bit of lateral thinking we thought of making a spiked bra to fit over the cows udder, something like a size 600 EEE, with a bit of research and development it might just work in the future. I'll have to consider adjustable shoulder - make that hip straps, but it should be possible. I'm thinking black rubber and large chrome spikes.

Meanwhile we tightened up the nose rings till the calves eyes watered and sent them out to eat grass.

Dealing with the weather

Watching the cattle during the heat wave in February made me feel happy not to be a cow. They have a built in summer and winter wardrobe,  as memories of scarce winter feed fade they shed their heavy winter coats along with their scrawny shapes. They are down to their summer short back and sides but they now weigh in at a hefty 600 to 650 kilos. There are shoulders and hips in there somewhere but they are well padded by burgeoning rumps, sirloins, briskets, chuck and rib eye steaks. Lugging that sort of weight around creates its own portable heat wave.

By mid morning the cattle head for the shade of the trees by the dam and there they relax till late afternoon. Occasionally one will channel it's distant relation, the hippopotamus and wade shank deep into the dam. Cattle don't have a vast range of facial expressions, but the blissed out face of a Hereford standing in a dam on a 37 degree day is a joy to behold.

Come winter, our cattle cope well with the cold weather by growing in a woolly coat on top of their already thick natural leather jackets. If only the grass in winter would grow in the same way. Where we are, winter means scavenging over thin pickings supplemented with hay. If you want to train a herd of cattle to sit, roll over and beg, bring them bales of hay in winter.

4 degrees outside and not much better on the inside,
the calf is wearing an old jacket  

All of this brings me to the Asian water buffalo  Bubalus bubalis. 


While extreme weather plagued our east coast, we were in the hills of northern Vietnam, trekking through the winter rice paddies.

The Asian version of a tractor, plow, cart, family transporter and producer of baby buffalos - the water buffalo,  spends most of its life in cool squishy mud, the water buffalo has no need for a winter coat because winter in Asia is usually a non event. This year the temperature in the hills around Sapa in Vietnam was close to freezing for days on end.
Water buffalos died in their thousands- over 20,000 to be exact.  

That's 20,000 pieces of multipurpose farm machinery gone.

The ups and downs of Spring

All was going well down on the farm, as Spring emerged so did our new calves.  Looking back there were signs of trouble we didn't pick up on for one of the cows. She gave birth easily enough- but not without consequences because out came the calf and her uterus as well.  There she was slowly wandering along dragging her uterus behind her. One look at the dirt, stones and sticks she was picking up would be enough to make you think she didn't have a chance.

The great thing about the bush we keep discovering is that when you make a phone call things happen rapidly. Down here  'your phone call is important to us'.  The local vet was there in 20 minutes with a drop sheet,  a bucket of water and antibiotics. A good wash and a fair amount of shoving and the cow and her uterus were back together. After an hour or two she perked up and at the end of the day she ambled back to the herd, calf in tow.

All seemed well for the next month, then the same cow went missing. We found her caught up in some fallen branches- 3 steps backwards and she would have been free. Instead she had tried to push forward, had exhausted herself and was down. Again the phone calls went out and this time within 10 minutes the neighbours started arriving, some we knew and some were called up on the bush telegraph- strangers with a bale of hay, years of experience and  and the time to offer what ever help was needed.

She hung on for another day,  but she could not get up and so we lost a cow and gained an orphan calf. Life was not looking all that promising for the calf, but when a hungry calf needs a drink it finds a way.

The little orphan quickly worked out that cows can't count and they can't see behind them either, so as soon as one of the other calves sidled up to its mum, the orphan dived in between the cows back legs and slurped up as much  free milk as it could get away with. This tactic kept it alive but was not without it's dangers. Cows don't announce when they plan to empty their bladder or their bowels and when they do, it comes with an almighty rush. If you happen to have your eyes down concentrating on a surreptitious suckle from the rear end of a cow then you often end up with a pile of shit on your head. Our poor little orphan often looked a sad and sorry sight wandering around  motherless, with its coat matted and dripping.

He's still there, smaller than the rest and always one or two steps off to the side of the herd but he's going to make it all by himself in the world.