A Walk around the Wee Farm with the Purse Camera

Last night we were sitting outside eating our simple repast, the food supplied by our own wee farm, when we heard a worrying creaky noise coming from Pats Paddock. I could see part of the big paddock, and noticed the Murphys (lambs for dinner) and Mia (lamb forever) galloping across the field. Then there was another very obvious creak followed by an ominous crack. Probably Daisy behind the tree, I said to Our John who grunted and started eating faster. I was on those last few mouthfuls of dinner. You know the one bite when there is the perfect mix of pasta (made with our own eggs) and spinach (from the garden) with sunflower seeds (from down the road) and the fresh tomato salad (yes we are still picking tomatoes, sigh) has become warm and sweet. All the tastes are individual but melting towards each other. You go and see. I said, collecting the perfect forkful.  I just want to eat his last bit. John looked up.

Really big creaky, wiry, posty, breaky fency noise, yikes. We both jumped up,  I dropped the domed  fly covers over the plates, on went the gumboots  and we ran down the verandah steps, through the garden, across the track and round behind the tree  and there was Daisy. The naughtiest house cow in the world, leaning over the fence and as far out of the paddock into the cornfield as her considerable weight could take her, her tongue, her neck, her whole body at full stretch, trying with all her might to get to that one elusive stalk of corn and taking the fence with her.

Bad cow I was shouting.  Daisy NO, John was calling. Daisy NO.  Get your head away from that Genetically Modified corn, I am thinking!  John ran for the fence I ran through the barn through two gates and out into the paddock with a  bucket (the lure). The lambs were still at full gallop, expecting an escape hatch to open up any minute I am sure. Then they would fly through it  at top speed and disappear into 400 acres of dry corn.

Daisy always comes when I call her (each set of animal has their own call). So  I called her Come on Daisy! Banging on the bucket. She reluctantly turned from argueing the point with John, saw the bucket and leapt towards  me.  I spun and ran for the barn doors to get her in there. And she came flying after that bucket into the barn. Head and tail still up. Eyes showing way too much white. She is like a 16 hand clydesdale horse of a cow.  An Ayrshire cow who thinks she is a horse at full gallop takes a lot of stopping (so I jumped up onto the hay feeder as you would).  She was bellowing that John had yelled at her, why couldn’t she have some corn candy, the cows across the creek get corn candy, applying her brakes a bit late as she hit the barn floor. I threw the red bucket to the other side of the barn and she did a 180 degree turn up on two hooves  and hurled herself after it and through the other doors  into the yards. I slammed the gate. Thinking, I am supposed to be milking this cow this spring.So now Daisy is back in the potato paddock, by herself.   They keep assuring me that after she has had a calf she will settle down. Still no sign of the results from the pregnancy test though.

John went to get the fence repair tools and  I ran as fast as my little gumboots could carry me  back to the verandah and to my dinner, lifted the cover and oh there it was, the last mouthful. Aah. My mother used to call it the mouses tail.  I guess the cat would save the tail for last. If so I am a cat.  Queenie is a good girl though. She is my Hereford calf. 

And for my new readers. We are developing an old fashioned sustainably managed farm. We just want to grow our own food in a simple gentle respectful way. It is possible to eliminate processed foods from our diets and be GM free. Sometimes I tell the stories that go with the history of the food we cook.  Then we all get distracted. But mostly it is about the wee farm where we live and eat.

So the grapes are in, and the vegetables are winding down except for the leafy greens, silverbeet, swiss chard, beetroot and the new plantings of  lettuce, cilantro and spinach. We are picking and drying the red peppers and freezing tomatoes and the big peppers.  The last of the pumpkins are in.  Soon we will plant the garlic and mow the asparagus. But the wind-down means that the chickens can come out again. In fact their door will not be closed now. They will wander the farm and gardens until about December when it gets really cold. When they will not come out of the chook house anymore then I shall close both their doors  and lock them down  for the winter. At the moment they have a half door leaned up against the door so that Hairy McLairy can not get in. Did I tell you he loves to have his ears scratched. I was trying to get all these shots this morning and he kept appearing solemnly and silently right behind me, gently offering his ears for a scratch. And sweet as he is, and now that I am out of earshot, I have to say in the nicest possible way. This ram smells very rammy!

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