Wool Centre at Ross- Yarn Tour Part II

Our first stop was historic Ross on the Midlands Hwy about an hour south of Launceston. Ross remains mostly untouched and unchanged visually from it's convict times and is so steeped in Tasmanian history that I'll revisit that subject another time but for now we'll visit the wool centre.

By the way, I think Ross has THE cleanest and most pleasant public toilets in the whole of Tasmania and makes an ideal stop for morning tea. It was an idyllic mild winters day, crystal blue skies, no wind and warm sun shining down. We set up a quick tea and coffee station on a nearby bench and served ANZAC biscuits and an Apple Spice Cake.

Directly across the road is the wool centre, perfect!

It is a retail showcase for woollen garments and knitting accessories but it is also houses a fabulous "museum" and historical display of the sheep industry in Tasmania.

You could spend at least an hour looking at the displays alone but unfortunately we only have half an hour and it's back on the bus so I arranged for a talk to the ladies about 

White Gum Wool

You can read the full story here about the ethically raised sheep in the Tasmanian midlands and you can also watch a story clip here from a Landline special here.

I contacted Nan Bray, the owner of the sheep farm, to see if she would speak to us at the centre but unfortunately she was right in the middle of shearing but we had a lovely lady from the centre give us a brief insight into the difference of White Gum Wool. Many of the techniques employed on the farm are in direct contrast to most properties and I would imagine there a few hairy-eared farmers having a bit of a scoff but I think Nan is a real hero. One of the really interesting things she does is manage pasture for greater diversity of food selection and she allows the lambs to self wean and stay within their family groups for five years. Her philosophy is that though genetics are certainly important, just as, or if not more importantly, is the way in which sheep are raised. You get back what you put in. Do watch the video link, it's a great story.

The ladies had a great time and most bought something from the White Gum Wool range. I bought a ball of the sock wool to try and look forward to working with it. They will become a pair of socks for Craig.

Don't you just love these needles? These are from Art Viva and are Tasmanian made, you may recall from a recent post that I tried these out at the Campbell Town show this year and bought a couple of pairs. I really like the point and angle on them. Here is the link for Art Viva if you would like to see more.

That's it, time's up!

Back on the bus for a bit more mystery knitting and on to our next stop in Hobart!

........

Civic Duty- Is It Dead?

Is Civic Duty dead or perhaps it absconded with Common Manners

The following is my opinion and certainly not meant as a blanket judgement on all circumstance but I use the following as an example.

First let's define what I mean by civic duty and I would like to use this definition as proffered;

"civic duty is to be a good citizen, obey the laws, serve in the military in time of need, be active in community activities that are supportive of something positive. These are the types of things that enable masses of people to live in proximity and prosper."

A patient at the clinic once commented to me that when he was in paying his rates that he also asked them for a sum of money to cover the petrol he used to mow his nature strip. He didn't expect to be given the compensation but he was serious about his resentment. But surely that is just a part of civic duty I said whereupon he shifted uncomfortably. I remember asking my Dad when I was very little why he mowed the footpath and he said it was just being a good and helpful citizen and made pedestrian ways more pleasant and enhanced the surrounding environment (or words to that effect as I was very little but I understood the meaning). It was always once generally accepted that this was appropriate practice but there is a strident note creeping into people's voices on all matters and it centres around "my rights", "I pay" and "not my responsibility"

It is yet another way we have decided to turn our backs on our neighbours and bunker down in our own little environments. 

I believe council resources are stretched and I think we all have to take part and pitch in. Shop keepers once used to sweep their paths but I never see this any longer. Some people have impossible verges but most people still have some sort of access along their road or to their letterbox.

There is no-one living next door and the grass is mostly long all year round except for a strip that Craig mows so the postman can access next door's letterbox. It's just a common care and courtesy he extends that says I care about your comfort and safety as you go about your job performing a service for us.

When we visit a park or walk along somewhere and we find rubbish, we clean it up. We didn't make it but does arguing the point make things right? If we just pass over rubbish in public areas we are sending a message that leaving rubbish lying around is OK. Gradually things become the norm and habits form. I would much rather the habits be for good.

Our local environment is just one small insidious effect of the erosion of our decline in civic duty.

More alarming is the decline in volunteer groups like the Parents and Friends at schools, The Lions Club and Rotary. Even our Neighbourhood Watch that Craig and I letterbox drop for looks like folding because there is no interest. Our communities are in real crisis and we need to step up if we are to continue to live together and prosper. 

Please tell me some feel good stories in your community. Convince me that civic duty is not dead in your area.

I Don't Mean To Alarm You But...

I don't mean to alarm you but.....

I'd like to give you a personal account of chemicals and your food.

There is a local farmer I know and to his credit he is trying some alternative methods in agriculture but his farm which has been owned for five or six generations also still uses chemicals and he likes to point out, and rightly so, there are chemicals and there are chemicals.

(I should point out these are not his sheep they are merely for decorative illustration of our purposes and blog ascetics.) 

The shearer is pretty sensitive to smell and even more so that we are chemical free at home and in garden. The more chemicals, and even scents, regardless of how natural they are, will cause a degree of loss to your sense of smell. Again, the old adage, all things in moderation. 

He was shearing the other week and as the sheep passed from the shearers they were penned below the shed where farm workers were spraying the sheep with a systemic chemical. It's important that sheep be treated for lice and fly strike. As the wind gusted it blew the chemical and the shearer certainly smelt it and was aware of slight tingling about his mouth and nostrils.

When he raised the issue with the farmer he was treated in a very off hand manner ( "I can't smell it" )and when he was pressed for the chemical specs was handed the torn off label from the bucket. As far as the farmer was concerned it was completely safe and if the shearer didn't like it he was free to leave.

Well of course everyone is free to leave but regardless of who you are as an employer, you have a duty of care and that is the law, but I'm not getting into that in this post.

The shearer brought home the label and looked up the specs. What the farmer didn't know is that the shearer has had a lot of chemical handling training. He wasn't looking up anything anecdotal, he only accessed the company's specification sheet. It turns out that this "perfectly safe" chemical is incredibly toxic to a huge range of animal species but particularly to water/marine animals and carries special warnings to prevent the chemical entering any water ways or run offs. The sheep must be withheld for a minimum of  two months before butchering and the wool must not be handled for a minimum of six months. The fact that it is systemic means that it is taken into the system. Protective clothing and eye wear are supposed to be worn and the area well ventilated.

The farmer's own son was spraying this chemical on without protection.

Now my point is this....

Chemicals like insecticides are sometimes necessary in our mono-agri businesses and I think Australia does a pretty good job with the regulations BUT what is the point if those using the chemicals don't know what they are using or how to administer them. The scientists have done the tests and the math and come up with the with holding periods and the danger points but it is only as safe as the user who reads it. 

If a well known and well educated property owner can be so ignorant can we have faith that the food is safe? 

I don't mean to add another notch to your paranoia but I encourage you to try to understand the source of your food and grow as much as you can. Always question and do not follow like sheep just because the guy up front says it's safe. Just because a chemical doesn't have an overwhelming smell doesn't make it safe. And I certainly don't want my man working in a hazardous chemical environment.

This goes for the ordinary householder too. Please for your family's sake try to avoid chemicals and if you can't please be absolutely sure of what you are doing and read ALL the directions including how to dispose of equipment. 

Ripe Near Me - A Free Food Network

"Ripe Near Me"

is a free site that allows you map food in your area; for sale or free or foraging.

It is a way for communities to network and make use of local produce and though this is an Australian initiative, it's available globally, so you too in your country can map your produce for locals.

Not just for backyarders either, local food producers can also list for local sales. Producers can really take it to the people, skip the big companies, reduce food miles and get paid a fair price.

Being able to tap into local produce means finding fresher food and real taste and flavour.

Even now when in the depths of winter and you think nothing is growing there is still plenty of food available. I have listed several things.

You have a much greater opportunity to try one of the thousands of diverse edibles including heirloom varieties not normally available in supermarkets.

Mostly the food will be organic, especially from back yard growers because there is no need for poisons or sprays in a poly-cropping environment.

You can support local growers and connect with community.

More importantly you'll connect with nature and buy seasonally reducing packaging and food miles drastically. Instead of being disappointed with tasteless tomatoes in winter, get excited about root vegetables and flowering edibles.

Here

are some great reasons to get involved.

Where ever you live in the world, go to the site and map your food and spread the word. Lets work together and eat 100

Find them also on facebook here

P.S. The winner of the draw for the Meat Cookery Book was Africanaussie and she has very kindly entered saying that if she won she would like the book to go to Renae and she would love the Microplane as a consolation. So Renae and Africanaussie please email me with your mailing address details and I'll pop them in the post.

  

Cleaning, Foraging, Divining

Our Living Better group met last week and we celebrated our first anniversary.

We had a speaker from the group talk about cleaning without chemicals. There are a number of ways to achieve this and each style suits different people, their lifestyles and methods.

There is the Enjo method which is reliant on just water and the micro-fibre of the cloths. There is also the home based methods of pantry items like bi-carb soda, vinegar and lavender oil for the very industrious. The third alternative that Elisha presented to us was by Nature Direct. It relies on the micro-fibre cloths AND different blends of essential oils and extracts, like pine, cypress, eucalyptus, clove and rosemary. It is an Australian company and nearly all the products are made in Australia which is important to us. Chemical cleaning manufacturers are not required by law in Australia to list their ingredients but they are required to list warnings....and there are plenty of those. The products from Nature Direct list all their ingredients and while you wouldn't want to ingest them, they are certainly not going to cause great harm. Check out their "Did you know...?" page here.

Our next guest speaker was Bridgette from Urban Farming Tasmania.

She runs a "market" on a Monday at the Tasmanian College of Arts and the idea is that people bring produce from their gardens or foraged along with any other trade items like music, artwork and design. Her group essentially wanted a community style market where no money changed hands and people supported each other by trading their surplus. They are passionate about seasonal living and not letting food go to waste, in fact they are wanting council to plant more food instead of ornamentals. They have produced a free food map of the area plotting figs, walnuts, apples, sloes, quinces and more about the greater Launceston area. We all received a gift from Bridgette (pictured above) of quince paste made from local foraged fruit. We were very excited by her project and many more tree sites were suggested 

BUT....

stay tuned for there is more to this story.

In the few days since we met Bridgette, Council has been made aware of the group through a newspaper article and they are coming down hard but I want to discuss this more fully in a day or so when we see their final stipulations. You can see this all unfolding on their facebook site. There is a can of worms here.

A very controversial point still in debate at the moment is the legality of foraging fruit from public land. They seem to have an issue with the food map. People on both sides are scrambling to find legalities. 

Does this mean fishing is not legal? To me that is foraged food from public land?

Anyway, we will have this debate in a day or two. In the meantime please show this group your love and support with kind messages.

Our last speaker introduced us to water divining. The image above from WikiHow is very similar to the rods we tried (as usual I got caught up in the moment and no pictures!)

Martin told us his story and demonstrated as he walked about the room how the rods moved and swayed. Each of us had a turn and were amazed at how the rods swerved and we were not able to control it. It is very hard to understand and though there is plenty of documented anecdotal evidence, I don't think there is any scientific specific evidence. 

It was a really interesting and fun way to top off our night. This is a new venue for us too and I am pleased to say that it was wonderful having a large quiet room all to ourselves. We would not have been able to have the cleaning demo or the water divining demonstration as well in the pub. The lighting is good and it is heated and we have our own toilet amenities too.  

Our next meeting is 27th June 7-9 at the Workers Club in Launceston

We'll be discussing winter remedies and bee keeping and possibly fruit tree pruning.

Domestic Dwelling Design and Food Sovereignty

Our first guest speaker at last week's Living Better meet-up was Wendy Fountain.

Wendy is currently completing a Phd with the University of Tasmania and undertaking a study of the design of dwellings and gardens and the relationship to food systems and practices. Coincidently our group touched on this very subject in January when we discussed the inadequate design of kitchens for food preserving purposes. Wend's study aims to identify designs that better support local food practices and compliment growing, producing, preserving and storing of food with an eye to the future and the implications of increasing urban population density.

More and more people are embracing food sovereignty and this includes those living in apartments and flats. They have unique challenges again because of the paucity of space. ( Have you read about Izaac's garden in the series "Gardening In Small Spaces")

What I would like you to do if you have a moment is think about the way your house and garden is designed.   How your garden is placed, is it easily accessible to from the kitchen. Do you have unique systems in place for compost, watering and animal husbandry. 

What about the kitchen and the utensils you use. Have you noticed your equipment is different from your friends kitchens. I'll be you could even find a different definition of the role your kitchen plays.

Some would define their kitchen as a meal preparation area where as others would define it as a food resource centre or a small food processing plant! What is your favourite piece of equipment? What is your vital tool? How do you store those "tools of trade" let alone store all that food? There is a whole process at play from growing the food and sourcing food in season locally, then preserving and storing that food and even the management of the resulting waste.

Thinking of all of that....

now see it in relationship to how your house and garden is designed.

Interesting huh?

I would like to relate to you one interesting story that came from our discussion.

One of our group had moved to an old house and wondered why the kitchen was placed at the back of the house and lamented that it was dark and segregated so they decided to open plan and incorporate it with the lounge dining, open it up and cheer it up. The renovation was very successful and provided them with just what they wanted, a bright warm sunlit area that brought everyone into the one space.

It wasn't until they had lived with this new layout for a season or two that they realised the original kitchen design was actually cleverly suited to cool food storage and preserving. The new layout has meant that they have had to apply lots of extra insulation to pantry and walls and they are also investigating some passive air flow methods to vent hot air from the cupboards.

And so it is that we realise many modern homes and renovated homes have swapped functionality for fashion. They have become great spaces for "entertaining" in a society that is eating out and "doing coffee" at an ever increasing rate. They are suitable for meal assemblage but not so much for food preservation. I suspect I am not alone trying to store umpteen large boilers and funnels of various sizes, never mind the bottles and jars. Heck, my stove struggles to accommodate the Fowlers pot on the hot plate!

Wendy has sparked quite a bit of food for thought on the home front. Her goal is to also take these ideas to the wider community too with small local groups. Her research will also encompass the sharing within the community of resources and ideas and knowledge. It embraces the make do and adapt and re-purpose methods. 

A great topic and full of ideas. Thanks to Wendy for coming along and "sowing some seeds"

So has it got you thinking? What are your thoughts?

Definition of Food Sovereignty

Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation.

From here 

Using The Whole Animal

A little while ago we purchased a whole pig from a farmer we know in a town not far from here. They were not heritage breed pigs, just plain old Landrace but well bred and ethically raised in a paddock with somewhere to wander and snuffle. 

There are many cuts from the meat and they are all frozen into portions in the freezer.

As I did last year, I made Fromage de Tete (see above) from the head and trotters and you can read about that here. It keeps for up to a month in the fridge and is delicious for cut lunches and carries a robust chutney or pickle very well.

The left over liquor from the simmer makes a wonderful pork jelly with creamy rendered fat on the top.

This is the leftovers to give you an idea how it looks stored in the fridge.

Pork jelly is the solidified rich stock that naturally occurs from using the trotters. This is very nutritious and a real treat heated up as a broth or even a couple of tablespoons into a mug with boiling water to fill and stirred to dissolve makes a nourishing drink and is very good for when you are feeling poorly. 

The fat is easily scraped off the top and is spreadable on bread if you are so inclined or may be used in place of cooking/frying oil.

( Read an interview here with Sally Fallon author of "Nourishing Traditions" about animal fat. Even better, by the book)

I wish I was a big fan of offal but I'm working towards it but the dogs like a lot of the stuff I don't. I do favour the cheap cuts too though and you can read how to enjoy ham hocks here.

The extra fat is cut and rendered for soap and we have talked about that here before.

The advantages of getting to know producers in your area and being able to buy a whole beast and honouring that beast by using the whole product. I am supporting local producers who raise ethically AND living frugally. It is a fallacy to say that eating organic is always the most expensive route. If you live in a city you may have to look to a small town for a producer or approach a butcher for a better deal for a whole beast, fat and all! 

Curtain Close For 2012

As we close the door on 2012, I'd like to thank you all for sharing it with me and contributing your wisdom, comments and support. You were all particularly adorable and loving when my husband went away to work for the first six months of the year. It was your thoughtfulness and steadfastness that made it so much easier to bear.

I would have to say that was the most significant thing for me this year. It was so good to be able to SKYPE and see his face every day. He is home now and getting plenty of work here now thank goodness.

The most viewed post for 2012 remains the waffle blanket tutorial which still averages 300 page views per day! Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy knowing there are millions of people in the world getting their crochet on. Declining craft? I think NOT!

The most read post of 2012 was the review I did about "Why I Bought A Thermomix" and the second most popular is my Nan's Green Tomato Pickles

Living Better With Less continues to be a popular topic and I am so very happy that after the class groups finished in April this year we went on to form an interest group that meets on the last Thursday night of each month (and on special occasions in my kitchen!) to share and learn from each other. I'm even happier that readers in other states also decided to form their own groups and continue supporting each other too.

2012 seemed to be the year of the cordial round here;

In summer we made rhubarb cordial

In autumn rosehip cordial

in winter lemon cordial

and in spring elderflower cordial

Our most topical life post this year was "What Would You Do" and we talked very candidly and frankly about depression and suicide in the post "The Secret Of Happiness" and it was also the post that attracted a lot of comments second only to "Breaking All the Rules-Pavlova" which proves my point that you guys are with me through thick and thin!

We learned how to knit socks, make Christmas cakes, rescue echidnas and how to use pintrest.

We learned all about cutlery, clove oil and Tasmania.

We debated the environment, ditched plastic wrap, seed raising, animal husbandry and the value we place on food.

We talked our heads off about Christmas gift ideas again this year.

If you want to revisit any of these stories I suggest typing into the search box that I have over on the right in the side bar there somewhere.

Creating my cookbook was another big achievement this year and it has been a huge success this Christmas with the family and friends. If you contemplate doing one for your family I suggest you start now. It takes many, many months to get it to print stage so don't leave it to November!

There is still so much I want to do but one of my resolutions for next year is to say "no" more I'm afraid. I

have let some volunteer work go that wasn't quite fitting with my life style anymore and I am now setting my eyes towards more local community groups like National Trust and the CWA.

It's been a huge year and a fun year.

Thanks for being along for the ride.

What will we get up to next year?

What is your next focus for the new year ahead?

Lunch Room Standards

"Exhausted retailing staff battling frenzied Christmas shoppers finally took a break only to find that their lunch room had no hot water and no kettle to make a drink, even though they had carried their own tea bags, sugar and milk to work. There was no soap and nowhere to wash off the grime before eating their packed lunch, lukewarm by now because there was no fridge to keep them cool. The milk was turning. They had realised it was a risk bringing chicken sandwiches on a hot day like this. They traipsed outside to have their sandwiches in what shade they could get from the adjacent building because the tables and benches were covered in rat droppings. Unfortunately no-one had cleaned the place for at least a year now...."

A above is a piece of fiction.

Could you imagine if these were the standards at your work place?

We could be ridiculous about expectations given a free reign but what are the very least we would accept?

Somewhere to wash before eating?

Somewhere to be able to prepare your lunch?

Perhaps a kettle to boil water could be considered a luxury.

I think faeces free areas are the very least one could hope for.

What if the above were true?

Would you be happy if your son or daughter was treated this way?

This is the reality of my husband's lunch room.

He works in sheds but I don't think it is too much to ask that their eating environment is cleared of possum and rat urine and droppings. 

You expect things to be rough and perhaps hoping for a fridge to keep lunches safe and cool is a stretch but for goodness sake a kettle?

The place was so filthy that the men had to go outside and squat in the shade of the shed to eat their lunch after working their guts out taking off shitty dags from sheeps backsides.

And before you start thinking perhaps the farmer is doing it tough, think again, this is a large property doing well for themselves in the northern midlands.

Wonder how you would feel if your workplace couldn't even provide you with scant basics. 

Would you feel as outraged and affronted as I do?

Dishwasher/Hand Wash

This is my new cutlery draining basket.

It's from my dishwasher, now defunct after a mere five years, with a "notorious for that model" circuitry defect. It's had very light use as there is only the two of us extending to entertaining once a week I guess but really it all still looks brand new.

This is the stuff of "Planned Obsolescence" in consumer product.

It's too expensive to replace the electronics and better to buy another one apparently.

This is now my new "under the bed rolling rack/basket storage unit"

It's like brand new too.

So is the metal cabinet that houses the whole dishwasher.

But all that is junk now. I could take the metal to the scrap metal guy for recycling but there is still a lot of pieces that are just landfill.

I don't know that in all conscience I can keep buying stuff that is purposely built to fail within a few years so we buy more stuff.

This blog recently posted a lengthy analysis here at Growing Things and Making Things about hand washing vs dishwashers. My hands have become quite roughened and dry with the extra water. Craig said he was missing the dishwasher, but yesterday he told his mother that he didn't really mind not having it (and I mouthed to her "because he hardly ever has to wash up")

I do miss it for jar and bottle washing but I always had hand washing every day anyway.

So I find myself wondering if I will "do a Rhonda" like here, and just pull it out and make a little curtain over the cavity and use it for potato and onion storage instead?

I think to myself, if we were a large family then I think we would need a dishwasher, but then I remember we once were a large family and washing up was what we all took turns in. It was an opportunity for camaraderie between siblings who didn't spend much one on one time with each other. Everyone did it differently, some haphazardly spilling lots of water, some slow but it taught patience and team work. I have lots of memories of my different brothers foibles washing up.

Do you know why people think they need dishwashers? The old "Time" gets trotted out again here. But do they really save you lots of magic time? I'm not so sure of that. I'm not convinced we are as time poor as we make ourselves out to be. I think dishwashers are a part of the whole breakdown in family time schedules. Once upon a time, everyone ate together, including breakfast. There was no parade of plates, bowls, cutlery at any old time of day. Having a dishwasher aids and abets the haphazard schedules and negates the need for people to be with each other.

I do like the way a dishwasher can hide the mess till I'm ready to deal with it. I like the way I can shove everything in quickly when visitors are coming and give the impression of ease and elegance (heaven forbid anyone should find out that my life is not the mirror image of Home and Garden) and I do think it saves my hands and paper thin fingernails that keep shredding and desiccating. But is this enough reason to buy another one. Without any calculations of soap or electricity or water, forget all that, just purely for the fact of it physically sitting in my kitchen, it cost $160/year ($800 machine over 5 years). 

I'm not preaching one way or the other for anyone else's household but it's been a month now and I'm still not inclined to go shopping for another. Never say never though hey!

And if you want another dishwashing story then here is my all time favourite post by Calamity Jane on the Apron Stringz Blog, it's called "Germaphobes and Cleanfreaks Look Away Now"

Living Better in October

We talked about 

Christmas gifts

Making decorated candles

Making home made paper hanging ornaments

which led to memories about 

saving foil milk bottle lids for decorating

and stories of painting pop corn for stringing.

(Milk bottle top bells image from here)

We talked about making simple salves from Calendula in the garden

soaps,

herbal tea bags for bath soaks

We talked about 

simple Christmas traditions, each family member taking a turn to stir the pudding for luck and the hidden objects in a plum pud.

We talked about the overwhelming amount of "stuff"

Georgia's family give the children coupons for fun things to do together. It's about spending time with children rather than buying more "stuff". They have coupons for going to the movies or an afternoon at the swimming pool or a trip to the beach.

We talked about broad beans;

The difference between planting in autumn or in spring,

their tendency to get rust, a fungal disease, as the weather warms up, 

About not composting affected plants.

About not trying to squeeze that last 6 pods from the crop and knowing when it is time to harvest and call it quits, ready for the next crop.

We talked about artisan pasta making and Brad is going to share his recipe for beetroot pasta and roasted capsicum pasta.

Gemma shared her recipe for Beet Leaf Ravioli. 

A great way to use the leaves from beetroot, both thrifty and nutritious, not to mention delicious.

Filling for Ravioli:

500g Beet Leaves (stalks Removed)

Maldon Sea Salt

1 small red onion

100g unsalted butter

4 tblsp marjoram leaves

1 garlic clove (finely chopped)

150g Ricotta (lightly broken up with fork)

100g Parmesan

1/2 nutmeg (freshly grated) or just use nutmeg spice!

Gently fry onion in butter until onion begins to brown. Add marjoram and garlic and stir for 1 minute then add beet leaves. Cook together briefly, season then allow to cool. Stir in Parmesan and ricotta. Add nutmeg and season to taste.

Make fresh pasta to your favourite recipe (or buy fresh lasagna sheets) Cut pasta into squares. Add small amount of filling to each square. Top with another square and pinch around edges to seal (ensuring you have removed as much air as possible - to stop them exploding in the water!).

Add to boiling water. Allow them to float to the surface but ensure they have had enough cooking time so that filling will be heated through.

We talked about poultry;

laying hens,

different breeds,

free range turkeys,

quail and their housing,

incubation,

chicken raising

We talked about growing up in small communities

outback towns, the syncronisity of life and the bravery of those a little different who swim against the current of life's stream.

We talked about Killiecrankie Farm's Open Day

We talked about Mount Gnomon products and Langdale Farm pork (also at the Killiecrankie open day)

we talked about Eliza's great video and that ham ordering had begun.

We talked and talked and reminisced and talked some more.

I probably have forgotten to mention lots more.

The most important thing is that everyone shares and brings knowledge of some sort with them and we all leave a bit richer for the experience.

Thank you everyone for a lovely time

xxx

Make it Possible - Imagine a world without factory farming

Make it possible

Yes some of your supermarket purchases perpetuate this practice, especially cheap chicken meat. There is nothing crueller than purposely breeding meat chickens to grow so quickly and so big that they can't stand up and can't even get out of their own excrement.

If you say you don't know about the misery of caged egg producing chickens then you are living under a rock because that has been exposed for decades and thankfully the consumer trend is changing.

You may not be aware of the plight of caged pigs though and this video is very gentle and doesn't tell you the half of it.

Yes some of your supermarket purchases attribute to this inhumane set of practices

BUT

it is most definitely your choice of fast food outlet that contributes to this.

For every chicken nugget pack you eat, several meat birds have died suffocated in their own hot smelly rank conditions with broken legs.

For every bacon and egg burger a chicken has had it's beak ground off so it can't peck. It only wants to peck because it is slowly being driven insane by the unnatural conditions and over-crowding.

A pig is penned so that it can't turn around, it has nothing to look at day in day out and all natural inclinations are curbed. It too is slowly going insane.

Our chickens are free ranging in a large yard and sometimes into the garden proper too. Even so we know a happy chicken needs change and variety. We change the landscape of their yard with blocks of wood, bales of straw and old tyres, giving them something to jump on or through. We hang bunches of greens from baling twine so they are pecking a moving object and being mind stimulated. 

A happy chicken produces good eggs.

Please consider ALL your food purchases carefully and consciously. 

It is not fair to blame a farmer who is responds to consumer demand. If you demand ethical food, they will produce it. 

Tasmania is phasing out sow stalls by 2014.

Tasmania banned battery hens in 2012. If you are still buying caged eggs in Tasmania then they are coming from the mainland.

We are so lucky in Tasmania, most of the meat produced here is ethically raised and it is easy to meet your farmer and your food face to face. We (Craig and I) buy pork (Landrace and Wessex Saddleback and sometimes a bit of Tamworth)  from farmers we know and they are often pigs we have met and patted in the paddock. 

I believe in eating meat and I believe in the consequences and the responsibility of that decision.

Ginseng and Salmon Farm

I am so blessed to have a wonderful mother-in-law and I enjoy her company very much. Sometimes I get to go on the monthly bus excursion with her and the local Probus Group.

 This week we visited 41C South Salmon Farm and Ginseng Farm.

I have a friend who owned a salmon farm and visited her on many occasions including the stripping time so I was feeling a bit blasé but was surprised to learn about the unique way this farm was run.

  

The farmer has a waterfall at one end of the property which feeds the fish growing tanks by gravity. The water is then passed through a series of ponds till it finally reaches a wetland for the final process in the cleansing chain finally draining into the river system as cleaned water.

It even feeds through this water wheel which in turn provides power to the farm house.

There are also solar panels on the house so the whole energy of the farm is self sustaining and ecologically friendly. 

As you can see the wattles are still in bloom.

I was very surprised to discover they grew ginseng as well. It is incredibly slow growing and required a very shaded environment. 

The farm has produced a diverse range of products using the herb.

Ginseng is said to have a very wide range of beneficial effects including aiding the metabolism, blood health, positive endocrine assistance and healing properties.

Definitely worth a visit if you find yourself on the road between Deloraine and Mole Creek.

It's been an eye-opener for me going on these trips with the "oldies". You may have seen coaches of retired people tripping around before. They are doing more than filling in a day, they are learning about such a diverse range of things in their environment and they are also doing their bit propping up the economy, spending a little bit everywhere they go. Where they stop for lunch is a boon for some of these small out of the way hotels.

I am so blessed to have the opportunity to trip around with them a few times a year.