We made a yummy rabbit liver on the weekend! We used the livers of four rabbits and followed a thermomix recipe for chicken liver pate and just substituted rabbit livers. It was very easy to make and really delicious!
Home made rabbit liver pate
It has been a busy few weeks, but we now have a full freezer…..of turkey, rabbit, lamb, and chicken as well as pate and various stocks on hand.
The new vegetable garden complex….we call it the ‘complex’ complex because it is full of raised beds, pallet gardens, water gardens and the pumpkin palace!
Growing well
The New Holland Honeyeaters enjoy it when the sprinklers are on too, and love to play in the bird bath under the orange tree.
This past year we have been much more successful using and preserving what we grow, and we have learnt a lot about what works and what doesn’t!! There are some great websites with successful recipes that suit what we grow, our resources and our lifestyle, so we thought we would share some of our successes in a ‘recipe‘ page- beauty/health products such as lip balm, calendula salve, aloe vera gel, calendula oil; and our favourite recipes for home grown rabbit, duck, fish, veggies etc!
Today we made Aloe Vera Gel, which is good for sunburn and dermatitis. Because of the gelatinous nature of the aloe, we made the mix in the Thermomix. This helped to blend it well with the coconut oil and Vitamin E (which is added to help preserve it- though it still needs to go in the fridge).
Aloe vera gel making
The finished product is certainly gel like, so we will see how it goes!! The recipe will be posted on the new ‘recipe‘ page once we know it is successful!
Apart from a few extra hot days here near Perth, the weather has been great for the garden and animals alike, and everything is in abundance!
We have had a great supply of nectarines and plums…
One day’s harvest of nectarines!
We have had a successful hatching of ducklings by one of our Australorp hens….
Mother hen and her ducklings!
We also had a successful hatching of duckings from a mother duck!
Cute!!
And finally…a check on hive number two showed all is well so far, with lots of beautiful coloured pollen and plenty of brood…
Lots of colourful pollen
Oh dear…the first hive (Hive 1) has really suffered. The bee numbers continued to deplete and eventually the hive died out. It is quite possible that by adding a second super in Autumn we, in our ignorance, doomed the hive to work too hard to keep warm over winter and not then be weak and vulnerable (there was some wax moth in the hive).
What is interesting though is that at the same time as hive 1 was dying, we had a swarm of bees at the back of the house. In fact quite a few got inside! We have no idea if this is the queen and bees from hive 1 who left an ailing hive, or if it is unrelated, but we decided to capture it. What an experience that was! The bees were very docile, and willingly made a home in a cardboard box that we had put a drawn comb frame in plus a bit of honey.
After a day and night of them coming and going into the box, we lifted the box with sleepy bees at night and placed it into a hive box. After another day or so of getting used to this and a different position, we did the final change over- lifting the frame covered in bees and placing it into the hive box with other frames already in place.
opening a box full of buzzing bees!
lifting the frame
helping the remaining bees
It was amazing! The bees moved quite happily, and soon got used to coming and going from the hive box. We later added a bottom board and proper lid, and they soon realised the entry was now at the bottom of the box and not the top. Today we moved the box on a slightly different angle, and will continue to move it a bit at a time to where we want the final position to be.
Well we are finally getting some sunny weather and the bees are becoming more active after a cool wet winter here in Perth. We recently purchased a second nuc which is installed in a new hive and seems very busy. The bees are coming back to both hives laden with pollen, which they are busily harvesting from a variety of different flowers.
bee on strawflower
On the weekend we opened up our original hive to find that the queen has either died or is not very effective. There is brood in the cells, but the random laying pattern shows that all is not well.
random laying but brood visible
There is also a weird peanut shaped wax extension which is an indication of a new queen being developed.
odd peanut shaped section poking backwards
But….it appears the bees are sorting out the problem themselves so we closed up the hive again and left them too it! We used the opportunity to do some general maintenance like applying another coat of lanolin to the wood.
Giving the hives a coat of lanolin
Finally the mead is bottled. It is tasting ok now, but should improve with age so is stored away for a few months.
Ready to bottle
We decided to bottle into beer stubbies as one bottle makes two glasses, probably quite sufficient! It also means there is less waste when we open a bottle in a couple of months to try it.
Well, as we said, setbacks are as much a part of farming life, even the small scale we have, as all the wonderful births and growths!
We have had our worst lambing season ever….five sets of twins to five ewes should have been fabulous, but we have four surviving lambs, all for various reasons. It has been quite distressing- we are used to having the odd problem or death, but losing 6 lambs in two weeks was most unusual.
To add to that, we had an aquaponic disaster too, where we lost a lot of trout. Water quality can change very quickly, and so it did here. We flushed the tank as soon as the fish went off their food, but next morning there were lots of floaters…another very distressing sight! We have a few left so have done more flushing, added more salt and more calcium carbonate, so hope all will be well.
Despite the death and destruction of late, there is also good news…..the vegetables are growing well, we harvested our first luffa..
First successful luffa
Believe it or not there has also been time for more preserving as it is orange season once again. The produce room is stocked up with Orange Liqueur Brandy, Marmalade and Bottled Oranges! Ginger beer and Ginger Cordial are also new favourites.
Spaghetti Sauce, Ginger beer and oranges in juice..
Pumpkin Palace moved to its new location.
Well today was the day we racked the mead….that is, we transferred it from the one container to another.
After two weeks, the specific gravity had dropped from 1.050 to 1.001. It was great to see a drop, because we hadn’t actually seen much fermentation going on. We decided to leave it another week as the weather had been very cool which had likely slowed the primary fermentation down. The following week, the SG had dropped to 0.999, so we decided to proceed with the racking. The glass carboy was sterilised and well rinsed, then placed on the floor below the tap of the primary fermenter.
Transferring the mead to the glass carboy
The tap in the primary fermenter is placed to allow the must to flow, but leave behind the lees, or sediment sitting on the bottom.
Once the transfer was complete, the stopper and airlock were put in place, and the carboy moved to the cool produce room to continue fermenting and clearing!
One of those days …….
We have had quite a busy time lately….with the robodog, now aptly named ‘Finndini’ after successfully escaping from a variety of cages, and so needing a high level of care…..and time!
Even so, we have managed to undertake a few projects, such as making mead, ginger beer, completing the establishment of new garden beds, and several preserving jobs, all in addition to the winter maintenance jobs like collecting wood, tidying paddocks and burning off.
Preparing new garden beds and a pallet garden
Sowing the back paddock
First attempt at making mead
Preserved lemons, herbs in oil, and the first batch of ginger beer!
New pool fence around the pool and aqua phonics system
Ginger cordial made from home grown ginger