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
Our lovely Wiltipoll ram ‘220’ or ‘toots’ for short, died today. We don’t know how or why, but it is likely he disturbed a tiger snake from its slumber when the sheep were let into a new paddock. He was a great ram, and fathered great lambs. Finn the dog will miss a good mate too, when he is able to run around once more.
Finn whispering sweet nothings into toots’ ear!
Well, what a surprise to get home one day to see Finn, one of our three dogs, on the the wrong side of the gate. That turned to dismay when it was obvious he was injured. A trip to the emergency vet confirmed a badly broken leg requiring surgery to insert a pin through the thigh bone (which was in three pieces), a plate and 11 screws holding it all together. Now he needs to be confined to a cage for 12 weeks to allow it to heal- and that is no fun for a big, active farm dog! We have a 1.2 x70 cage in the bathroom for while we are at work and overnight, and this smaller one in the lounge so he can be with us and the other dogs in the evenings.
Finn, looking sorry for himself!
We don’t know how he got out- he could have jumped the fence or gate, but however he did it meant he got out onto the road and was hit by a car.
After the last harvest of honey, we washed and melted down the wax cappings…….ready to make…..lip balm! It worked really well following this recipe. It made several tubs and tubes, and is just perfect for dry lips! The recipe has 4-5 drops of peppermint essence, but it really doesn’t need it- just the honey flavour is wondereful enough!!
Beeswax and Honey Lip Balm
The warm weather in Perth has meant quite an extended growing season for some of our edibles, so the produce room is filling up! We had to rearrange shelving to enable us to fit in more jars of produce on one side, but gave us space on the other for our beekeeping gear. We also purchased a ‘wine’ cooler in which to keep produce that needed refrigerating, as the main fridge was getting too full!
Produce shelves filling up!
Another honey harvest this week gave us over 3 litres of honey from two frames. We were a bit more ‘vigourous’ with scraping the capping off and left it to drain a bit longer than last time. Also this time, we cleaned up the wax capping to enable us to use the beeswax!
Plenty of honey and some beeswax ready for making lip balm!
Our first harvest was a great success!! All the frames in the super were laden with honey and were well capped, so we removed two of the centre frames for harvesting.
Brushing the bees off a frame of capped honey
We used a very simple drainage system- the top bucket has a large hole through which the honey drains through a filter and into the bottom bucket which has a tap in the bottom.
Bucket honey draining system
After scraping the capping off, we let the honey drain for at least 24 hours, then poured it into jars. These first two frames gave us 2.3 litres of honey!
Once each frame had drained, we returned it to the super for the bees to tidy and rebuild! As our super was so full of honey, we also added an empty super for them to move in to.
After the continuous heat of a Perth summer, we are now enjoying ideal growing conditions! We have had a bit of rain, plenty of sunshine, and reasonable temperatures, so everything is growing well. The herb garden is looking great- partly due to the weather and partly due to attaching a sprinkler to the top of a windmill stand so they could be cooled down more easily.
Herb garden
Herb garden with sprinkler on top of the windmill stand!
This area has been so successful, our next ‘project’ (there is never nothing to do!) is to bring the pumpkin palace and two large raised beds to this area too. This is for a number of reasons-the raised beds are certainly successful; being near the back door is also beneficial; the area currently being used will revert to a ‘clucker tucker’ (poultry food) area for the poultry to get a good source of greens without damaging the paddocks too much; and concentrating the vegetable growing areas really just makes managing it all much easier!
Also growing particularly well are the bananas in the atrium! It will be interesting to see how they go over winter, as it does get quite chilly in there, but they have grown amazingly over summer!
Bananas in the atrium (glass roofed entrance)