Busy, Busy, Busy

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It's been really difficult to get around to blogging.  This is going to be an attempt at a 'catch-up'.

"As a retiree you're a failure!"

This is what my dear son Neil has told me.  Since we've been back I've spent a bit more time than I expected on city work - and I just haven't been able to get quite as much done in my time on the farm.

Personally, I think it would be unreasonable to expect the transition from 35 years of full time employment to a portfolio career to be all easy and precise.  I'm quite happy to go though a year or two where I'm feeling things out - and getting a sense of just how much I can actually fit in.  I think that is the challenge at present - understanding how much is enough.

When I was first back in the office with the firm where I was a partner for 20 years, everyone seemed pleased to see me, but the work was a bit slow in coming.  Just as I was starting to get a little concerned, 3 interesting jobs materialised and it seems like we're off and running.  One that involves travel to Rockhampton (Central Queensland) makes it a little more difficult.

Eating local

No question - we want to eat local.  Initially I thought of trying to use a food log - but that definitely takes way too much time.  I'm just going to have to estimate it - with a bit of checking analysis from time to time.

In a previous blog post I said we would look at food from 3 sources:

• our own;
• from short sustainable supply chains; and
• everything else.

1st April we had nothing of our own except a few herbs - so it was off to Farmers' Markets and the like.  I was quite surprised how quickly we could get the supermarket component down once we got started.  There is a Farmers' Market within 15 minutes drive of home every weekend - and the quantity / range of food available has improved substantially in the 2 years we were away.

Then, at the start of May - a major development.  A cull cow went up to the slaughterhouse and came back as nearly 300 kg of Moora beef.  Now 5 year old cows are not supposed to be 'prime', but the butcher said it was beautiful meat - and it certainly tastes that way.  We're particularly pleased with the mince and sausages - both of which have a real depth of flavour.

So my best guess is that our 'eating local' performance looks like this:

In just the last few days we've started to get the first salad greens from the kitchen garden - it's onward and upward from here.

Moora meat

We're very pleased with our first taste of Moora Farm Belted Galloway beef.  On limited word of mouth we've managed to sell nine 10 kg packs of meat.  Each pack includes around 3 kg of premium cuts (steaks and roasts) 2.5 kg of mince and sausages and 4.5 kg of a variety of other cuts.  Feedback so far has been very good.

We've managed to find a really good butcher to do the breaking down of the carcass and packing it into meal size packs.  We are also happy with the 10 kg pack as where we'll start in terms of how we will sell the product.  

Hopefully it will only be a few weeks before we are looking for orders for the first of several steers that are ready to go.

Compost

Our compost heaps are growing and looking good.  This is a photo of me with Winarsi soon after we got back.  Win had her first job with our family in Jakarta 20 years ago - and we have kept in touch over the years.  She was in Australia with her current employer and it was good to show her around the farm.

I'm now working out, in my mind, just what infrastructure we need to make the compost yard work well on a farm scale - rather than garden scale as we've always done before.  When you're trying to cover 57 acres, a wheelbarrow is not enough.  I think the minimum is a chipper (probably PTO based) and a spreader.  I met a guy the other day who was effusive about the capacities of a Bobcat / Skid Steer.

Joel Salatin

For the last 5 days a great hero of mine has been in Daylesford giving seminars.  Joel Salatin is an American farmer and local food evangelist.  I attended 2 events and he didn't disappoint.  He is a very bright guy.

Feed management

One of the things I desperately want to do is manage my pastures better - such that I have a thick sward in every paddock - except where the cows have just been.  Well the reality is some way short of this.  Moora has been a bit over-stocked and we're going into winter without enough carry over feed.  Plus - it stopped raining as soon as we got back from Jakarta and we didn't seem to get much Autumn growth.

Part of the solution is to get access to more land - and we now have 2 places where we are ajisting stock and I'm looking for more.  We're happy to help people get fences and water in order - it just needs to be within 10 to 15 km of Moora.

I bought 20 tonne of hay - and we're feeding that out gradually.  The cost of hay is a lot lower than it was a few years ago.