inner pickle

kale chips, dairy goats and flatbread

When I first started this blog a hundred years ago, I was living in Sydney with two children, not three, and Adam and I would foray down to Gerringong periodically to visit my parents, and we'd wonder on the way home what was keeping us in Sydney. 

We toyed with the idea of moving out of the city and down to the farm for years before actually having the guts to jump, and just do it. 

I mean, what an offer. A family farm, debt free, if we wanted to have a go. It was circumstantial that none of my siblings were able, or interested, to take the farm over, and Dad eventually sold off a big portion of the farm and paid everyone else out in order to allow Adam and I to confidently invest in the 18 acres we were left with. Amazing. I thank my lucky stars every day. 

But once we got going, and once we started to run on-farm cooking workshops every weekend, that was the end of this blog. With three small children (not that small anymore) and gardens and chickens and farmer's markets and sauerkraut to make and administration and bookkeeping and marketing and workshops to teach, I was able to get dinner on the table every night but had absolutely no ability to write a blog post about it. More's the pity, I'd at least then remember them. 

It's been an incredible ride. If you were here three years ago, you'll know we nearly hit the wall after a few fairly major chicken losses to fox attacks. I'd say we came perilously close to the wall pretty regularly for a few years. Even now we occasionally consider what our world might look like if one of us took a job off-farm. But then we get back to it because we love working for ourselves, we love living and working here together, and we can't really imagine being happy doing anything else. And there's kale to pick and workshop participants to email and bone broth to make for the market so a little less naval gazing and a bit more action! Move!

 

If you know a better way to eat kale, please tell me. We think that fresh kale scrunched with good olive oil, sprinkled with salt and baked in a moderate oven (170 degrees C) for about 10 mins until they're flakey crunchy chips is the best way on earth.

One of the big new additions to the farm in the last year was dairy goats. 

 

Goodness me we love them so. 

 

I milk them every morning, by hand at present, and I've milked up to four but we've dried three off now in anticipation of them kidding in a couple of months. We get on average 2 litres of milk per goat per day (one milking) and we love it. We make cheese. We walk them out to pasture from the hayshed every morning and bring them in every evening. They hate the wind and passionately hate rain (princesses) and the cheese is good. More on that later. Suffice to say it's kind of a dream come true. 

 

In other news, what are we eating? 

Lots of sourdough, goats cheese, bone broth, fresh veggies, eggs, homegrown chicken and beef and pork and traded lamb and bartered trout. 

And about once every two weeks, in some form or another we have flatbreads. 

 

 

You can whip these up with whatever flour you have on hand, but I keep a nice organic unbleached self raising wheat flour around for this purpose. 

FLATBREAD

Ingredients:

2 cups self raising flour

1 cup natural yoghurt

2 tsp salt

 

Method:

Mix all ingredients together, roll into 8 balls, roll out thinly into circles. 

Throw into a very hot dry pan and cook for about 20 seconds each side. 

Wrap in a tea towel to keep warm and soft while you cook the rest. 

You can halve or double this recipe - just keep the proportion of half the volume of yoghurt to flour.

Extremely delicious spread with fresh goat's cheese. 

xxxx

well hello there

I'll be honest, I have no idea if I even remember how to post anything. It's been so long in between postings that I don't think people even call them 'blogs' anymore, I think they've morphed into online 'journals'. 

Do I even remember how to upload a photo?

 

Ah, like falling off a log. But more fun. 

We've all gotten really good in the last three or so years at the micro-blog, the instagram moment, the quick Facebook summary. It can be a little superficial though, very one sided, and ultimately for me pretty unsatisfactory. The thing is, blogging used to be one of my favourite things to do. Of all. A nice combination of creative writing and journalling the busiest days, I loved the discipline of it, the scope, the conversations, the record. And I miss it.

Although I've been using the Inner Pickle recipe index as my personal online recipe source for years. 

So much has happened. 

There's so much to tell you. 

Shall we make a pot of tea?

And do you think I've filed even ONE photo in the last three years? Not a one. My filing sucks. It's amazing we manage to run a small business at all, with the state of my filing. 

 

Pic by Katherine Wilson

 

We've been doing some planning for the future here, some decisions about the next few years, and when we thought about what the farm looks like in five years from now, all I can think of is that I'll have one kid in her last year of primary school, one in his last year of high school, and one in year ten. Holy gazooly. It's hard to be in the moment when the moments zip by in such a furious rush.

I'm sure it's the same for you. 

Well, it's Wednesday. And the reason I'm sitting here at all is because I thought I might make a slice. I have half an hour, the prep for this weekend's workshop is underway, Adam is at the Farmer's Market for the afternoon, I've done a morning of admin and we'll need afternoon tea. All those slices of Wednesdays, sitting in the recipe index here, looking edible. I thought I might quickly put together a passionfruit slice - I spied a tin of condensed milk in the pantry and there's passionfruit on the vine outside. Shall we? 

 

xxx

the flame

 

In our font yard there is a magnificent tree.

 

 

It's an Illawarra Flame Tree. I remember it blooming only a couple of times in my life, but when it does, it is spectacular. The leaves all fall off and it's covered in dense red blooms, it's a bit magic. 

Last week the milk truck hit the tree. I was in the study which has a window looking out the front, and I saw it happen, it made a massive noise. I saw the whole enormous tree twist. I wondered for a second if the hit was fatal, then remembered the enormous ENORMOUS root system this old tree must have under the ground. 

The milk truck (delivering the milk we use to make our custard and yoghurt and the cream for butter and  ghee) was injured. The driver was out, inspecting the damage when I got out there, there were bits of the truck on the ground, and a huge injury in that low hanging branch you can see off to the left. 

The next day I told Dad, I know this tree is significant to him too and we would all be somewhat less without it. A slow smile spread over his face. I was very alarmed. 

"Maybe now it'll bloom," he said. 

Huh? 

"The last time it bloomed was ten years ago, after I rammed it with the tractor. On purpose."

"You did not," I said.

He took me out and showed me the mark on the trunk where he'd run the tractor into it a decade ago. The following spring it had come into bloom. We still have the photos. 

And two days later, guess what happened? 

 

 

The next time the milk truck drove in I rushed out to thank him. I think he thinks I'm an idiot. Truly. Following him into the kitchen rabbiting on about trees in bloom and thanking him and how exciting, and obviously I don't get out enough, he backed out of the commercial kitchen as fast as he could. 

An Illawarra Flame, according to my Dad, will bloom when it feels threatened, usually when a branch of a taller canopy tree falls on it. 

Bloom, Flame, bloom. 

 

 

We're watching.

xxx

 

this place

We were very lucky to have the lovely Luisa Brimble visit recently (accompanied by the equally lovely Emma Bowen). I've been admiring Luisa's gorgeous photography for ages and was thrilled when she offered to visit on a workshop day and take some shots for us. Hooray! 

When you've got your eyes to the ground pulling out fireweed and you're running through clouds of flour every day and are too busy worrying about fences to actually look at the paddocks, it's absolutely wonderful to see this place through Luisa's eye. 

 

Yeah our office really sucks. 

 

Is it windy where you are? All our infrastructure is portable (and we live on a hill) so big winds kind of freak us out. We've been battening down hatches, moving chicken caravans into sheltered spots, keeping the brooders covered. We lost the trampoline, I believe it is in the hedge on it's way into the coffee grove, but the windmill is standing, the chicken caravan doors haven't blown off and all the children are accounted for. So we're winning. 

You? 

xxx

All images today by Luisa Brimble. 

Happy chickens brought you to by Tim

 

Last night our friend Tim O'Sullivan (Timbo Rural Contracting) showed up with some extra friends and they took out four foxes in an hour. Four. 

Happy, happy, happy. 

I don't know if that's solved the immediate problem, but I suspect it's put a dent in it. 

We know Tim well, and he knows us, and he offered to trade his time for our choccy bikkies which he's pretty fond of. 

I can do choccy bikkies. 

I always make these in double batches, it just doesn't seem efficient to only make 15 at a time. 

In case of foxes, or bad days, or just to celebrate an excellent cup of tea with, I give you Visitor Biscuits. 

 

 

VISITOR BISCUITS

Ingredients:

125g butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 egg

2 cups self-raising flour

1/2 cup choc pieces. (Or more.) 

 

Method:

Cream butter and sugar with salt and vanilla.

Add egg, then add flour and chocolate. The mix will be quite stiff, work it with your hands to bring together into a solid dough. 

Ball up into about 15 bikkies and bake for about 15 mins in a moderate oven (180 degrees celcius).

 

Enjoy in the dark with a beanie on and a spotlight, or with a late night hot milk to celebrate a job well done, or as a morning treat after turning over a very, very hot compost. 

Will possibly work as hard currency. 

xxx

Photos by Luisa Brimble.

brass tacks

You know that moment when you think, oh well, it can't get worse than this? 

We lost the remainder of the mature batch of meat birds last night, the ones due to go for processing tomorrow, the fifty we hoped might at least pay for the feed and incubation costs of the lost birds. 

We think we're up against more than one wiley fox that's figured out the electric mesh fence, the tested and trusted fence which has kept all our birds safe for two and a half years so far. The shooter we hoped would come last night couldn't. We double-fenced, used the fox lights, and set the fox trap. I left very early to visit my Mum in hospital in Sydney, recovering from an operation (she's doing very well, thank you), and I checked in mid morning to find Adam pretty much sans sense of humour. There's just no words really. So that's not why I'm writing. 

This happens to farmers all the time, all over the country. Whatever you're doing and on whatever scale, you find yourself down to small change and brass tacks. The difference is this. 

I got to bring home the cavalry. 

We tried to say no thank you, obviously stay with Mum who isn't being discharged for a number of days, but the combination of the two of them, my parents, when they've made their mind up, is formidable. And it's Dad. He's awesome in a crisis. And has a gun licence. And can find fox tracks in the grass like a magician and has all sorts of solutions we'd never think of.

He's home for the night and the shooter arrived as well (with extras) and the layers are locked down and everything's going to be OK. It really is. 

Because the other major difference is that we're not doing this on our own. Many, many farmers feel like Robinson Crusoe. Like lonely solo worker bees, incredibly vulnerable to guilt and despair and a sense of failure. What you've given us, every one of you reading this, every comment here and across social media, is a feeling of community. Like this really does ultimately effect all of us, every dairy farmer who stands over a cow down with milk fever, every market gardener looking at a crop of cabbages that were perfect yesterday and lie shredded after last night's hailstorm, everything that effects the person trying to grow the food we eat effects all of us.

And that is the sound of the food revolution in motion. 

 

We don't want to eat industrially produced food that suppresses animals into systemic misery and ultimately poisons us all. We don't want vegetables that have to be washed in bleach to remove the poisonous chemicals they've been doused in to reduce bugs and maximise shelf-life. 

The change is here. People are growing food differently, on small and large scales, and people are connecting with it. 

 

 

So over here we are held up by the wave of compassion you sent at us. Friends and strangers have offered help and advice. We're a tiny little farm. But it turns out people seriously care whether small farms fail or succeed and this can only be marvellous. 

And when it comes down to brass tacks, we've got the cavalry here. 

We won't be eating chicken for a bit but we've got veggies. We'll never be hungry. I hope you won't be either. 

 

 

Just when you think the sweetness has gone out of it and your heart is a drone, how about that, you find oranges at the back of the coffee grove. 

 

I am so, so thankful for oranges. You rock. 

xxx

who'd be a farmer, eh?

Photo: Luisa Brimble

It's something Adman says, 'who'd be a farmer, eh?', when stuff goes wrong, or, you know, gets out or dies or doesn't grow or gets eaten or breaks or we hit the wall financially. 

He always says it wryly, as if he's the farm kid and I'm the townie and this farming idea is a permanent forgone conclusion. Like he's in it past his boots, and we might have had a disasterous day but he'd still rather be here than anywhere. 

He said it yesterday morning. After we'd gotten over the initial shock of losing another batch of meat chickens to a fox. 

Not quite the whole batch this time. Two weeks ago it was the whole batch. The whole mature batch. That were due for processing the following week. That we'd paid for up-front (of course), paid for all the feed, all the infrastructure, and now receive zero income for. Which is not what it's about for us anyway, but it does drive us closer to that wall. We have to call Feather and Bone, the lovely sustainably-raised meat providore that we supply in Sydney, and explain that we'll be letting them down. We have to remember to call the abattoir and tell them we won't be coming. We have to compost all the carcasses, because a fox doesn't actually eat a hundred chickens, it just eats a few and kills the rest. 

 

It's brutal. And I debated whether I should publish this photo. I didn't, initially, after we lost the first batch. People really would rather not hear the really dark side of farming. Mostly it'd be better to know everything's OK, not because people are not interested, but because they are! And because they want it to all be OK.

But then we lost over half the next batch. Same fox, I suspect. Of course we took measures after the first loss. We checked and double checked the fences. We invested in fox lights. We investigated alpacas and determined that when we can afford them, we'll buy a pair. We know people have had great success with Maremma dogs but we already have one dog and hoped she might help keep the fox away - she has up until now. But the fox somehow got over the electric netting fence. 

We won't bait on this farm. Although that's what the Department of Primary Industries is strongly recommending we do. It only takes one person to have a living memory of losing a dog to 1080 poison to make it impossible to bring that poison onto our land. Dad, in this case. Aside from the fact Adam objects to baiting ethically. 

So we went and picked up a humane trap this morning. We'll see what happens. 

We choose to raise our birds in open range paddocks, because this environment is significantly healthier for the birds, but because they are not safely locked in an enormous stinky shed, inhaling toxic poop air and needing antibioitics in their feed to survive, they're potentially vulnerable to predators, however diligent we are. 

Raising poultry on pasture is risky, and the farmer carries that risk. The providore who hitches themselves to that farmer does too: they have customers they'll disappoint as supply fluctuates. Customers share the risk by supporting the pastured poultry farmer and buying product at a premium price, priced that way to reflect the costs in doing things on a smaller scale, the hand raising, the bucket feeding, the water-checking, the fox-lights, scarecrows, fake owls, and late-night head-torch-wearing circuits of the meat chickens, checking the fences in the winds, checking when it gets too hot, checking when the temperature drops, and picking up a hundred small birds and putting them under the hoop house shelters on the first few nights they're in the paddock. 

If you think pasture raised poultry is expensive, you're damn right it is. 

Who'd be a farmer, eh?

He would.

I would.

Chin up, let's go.

xxx

 

 

around here

 

Hello! 

Around here we are:

.. holding onto the fun we had with the beloved Milkwood Permaculture team here this weekend, running Serious Backyard Veggies. We tried to encourage them to move in by feeding them delicious food (and hiding their keys) but to no avail. The class was lovely, and stoic in the rain, and relieved, I think, when the sun finally came out!

 

.. excited about some cherry tomatoes that came from Mudgee with Kirsten, and we're planning to make as much of them as we can - more tomato jam or pizza sauce?!

 

..watching chickens grow, as you do, when you grow pastured chickens. Tory and I can be seen running at high speed out of the farm kitchem if we spy Goshawks near the chickens in the paddock. The Goshawks are beautiful and enormous but can be seriously problematic for free ranging chickens. Having said that, we haven't lost any birds to Goshawks this week, but one chicken died a couple of days ago when a crow dropped a golf ball on it. That's not a risk we've planned for.

 

.. gearing up for a double-market week: Wednesday's farmers market and an Easter market on Saturday in Gerringong. We'll have bone broth, sauerkraut, whole-egg custard, muffins and cakes, bread, pate, and bacon jam. Come and say hello! (And take home something delicious!)

 

.. running a series of workshops on Thursday nights! We started last week with Introduction to Fermentation which went really well - this series is being run by Tory who started as an intern then came back for a month to work with us, a nutrionist and wholefoods chef - and this week we're doing Grains and Legumes, how to prepare them properly and include them in your diet. There's a couple of spots left in this week and a couple next Thursday ("Wheat, Dairy, Sugar - Friends or Foes?") More info here. 

 

.. breathing new life into an old table, in Dad-style-MacGyvering. I mentioned this morning that I'd really like to raise the height of our kitchen table, it's too low and impractical, what did he think? This table has been in the kitchen for as long as anyone can remember. Dad has seen it get laminate tops and seen them stripped off. It's endured endless children and stabilised endless very early morning cups of dairy farmer tea (white with one, in an enamel mug.)

 

 

He took some measurements and went away and came back with what I think is irrigation pipe, perfectly cut to size, which he put on the bottom of each leg, and it fitted perfectly. The table is completely stable and the ideal height. Unbelievable. What a legend. 

Hope your week has started well too?

xxx

 

 

beautiful

It's been a beautiful weekend of favourite Milkwood-people adventure and rain and amazing shared cooking with a brilliant cook (Tory) and red wine and cuddles with small children and slooooow cooked lamb. 

Adam took this photo this morning. Lucky stars, I'm thanking them.

xxx

the flipside

For every story there's another one.

For every earnest heart wishing for a small farm in a friendly town with an orchard and room for chickens and a big veggie garden, there's an orchardist lying in bed tonight wondering how he's going to pay his water bill and how he'll keep those damn chickens out of the veggie patch.

For every exhausted working mother facing down the long fortnight of a school holiday juggle, complete with guilt and deadlines, there's a stay at home mother itching to do something else, tired of quiet coffee in a clean house, feeling frustrated and undervalued. 

For every nasty comment I get, I get three delightful emails from people who might be on the other side of the world but feel a connection in this little corner of the internet. Thank you, it's funny how we can fixate on the negative and find one critcism can overwhelm any sense of achievement. Actually all I wanted to achieve this week was a habit, almost daily blogging, and I think I've achieved it. It's a habit I've wanted to re-form for months, (even if it's late at night!) because I expend an enormous amount of energy getting stuff done at present, and THIS place, this little corner, I do this just for fun. 

For every workshop we pour our hearts into, and hang on by the skin of our teeth hoping the whole idea will fly, we suddenly discover a magical transfer of energy. The amazing people coming through here are energising the hair off our heads. 

I was sent a hand-drawn gift today, from a workshop participant. 

 

Amazing. Thanks Fiona-Kate. It's absolutely gorgeous.

For every down, there's an up and I hope you're on it too. Thank you so much for dropping in here, and for keeping me up.

xxx