Categories: From the Farm This Week
Date: Jul 5, 2012
Title: 5 July 2012
Can you believe its July yes July 2012 and yes winters here snowing down south. And before i start on our week let me tell you about MacDonald's fast foods. They have come out supporting imported pork. Now don't that just tell you heaps. Nuts bonkers .......These fast foods are not about Us at all ARRRRRRR
Sorry i will get on with our week....
Our week has been busy as usual starting with Stella one of our Canterbury blue sows having 7 piglets.
Been on the road a fair bit, driving to Fielding with Beate for a delivery to Jason and calling in on Rachel Rose on the way, then off to Kate's to look at her pigs.
Beate really loved them Kune's and Kate has some for sale if you are looking for nice pet pigs that won't grow huge. Kate and Peter's farm was an interesting stop and it looks as if they are going to certify with Organic Farm NZ.
I did a trip down to the poultry abattoir with a large load of ducks. Ruth had caught them the day before and i covered them up real well on the trailer and a good job i did as in the morning it was a hard white frost out here, the tops of the trees were white. It subsided a bit once i was out of our valley but a real winter trip even when it got light down the line it was still white. Unloaded and helped the boys at the abattoir, they really like Ruth's ducks as they are in good feather and clean and healthy but giving me some lip about them all covered with blankets and tarps and warm on the trailer and how no one else will do that. I then dropped in to Aarons who had picked up some fantastic English game chooks sent up on the pet bus from Julian - 4 hens and two cocks, black and brown red but a very interesting stain resembling Samara Game. I love em.
Came home to see what i take to be a test run of a rail cart on the line on the way to Whangamomona, the real start is in October i think.
Ian called in to say there was a lamb stuck half way down the bank on the river road so i grabbed a shepherd crook and drove down to see a Dorset Horn lamb stuck half way up a CLIFF so with a spade from the Gipsy i cut foot holds and, using the crook like an ice pick around the odd manuka sticking out, up higher all the time i got up to the ledge (really a job for Justin as he is good at that stuff). The lamb had eaten everything green it could reach and came up to me like i was its mum. About 3 weeks old and i would say been where it was for 3 days. Would have been damn cold in the frosts as the place got no sun and still had ice around. It was a bit hairy getting down but all good. So now Beate has a pet ewe lamb drinking well. Tough those Dorset Horns.
We towed the David Brown Tractor out of the shed so we could fire the hammer mill up. The tractor had not been started for 2 years and the hammer mill we had not run for 15 years at least. With Ruth on the Tractor and I'm towing with the gipsy she burst into life in 20 feet ......... pulled the hammer mill out as its set up on a trailer, tyres flat and looking very tired and old But with CRC here and there, pumped the tyres up, greased the bearings and a good brush up we got her onto the power take off and off it went. Not a problem. On our last farm we used to mill everything for stock feed grain, straw, hay maize stalks. I even used to run newspaper though for bedding. But today it was all for a different job. Greg came out with a bale of hemp stalks to give it a try. So in it went and i have to say it was the toughest material i have ever put though. What a fantastic natural product of unbelievable strength. We are working toward growing it in the spring and with a few adjustments to the mill I'm sure we can process it for stock bedding, mulch, feed, building material and more. We will also be running courses on the whole deal. I will keep ya posted on every step.