We have been so busy making the house at Lantanaland big enough for a family of five (damn that is a scary sentence right there) that for the last few months the bare necessities have been done and no more. While Joey was down helping move the big furniture around we banged in a heap of star pickets for a bit of expansion of the Free Kikuyu Paddock and I raced round in between urgent jobs and ran an extra 100m of electric fence.
But it needed to be checked, because chasing a cow and the cow equivalent of a teenager at schoolies all over lantana covered hills is a lot more work than fixing a loose or broken electric fence. The paddock is looking amazing after just a small amount of rain really. The part they had eaten right down has a nice coverage of new grass and the new section looks like it is growing faster than they can eat it. The top dam has no appreciable increase in level though, the storms have greened everything up rather than saturating the ground. Still, I'm estimating that I should get another 8-10 months out of that paddock with a bit of expansion, which gives my home paddocks a full summer to recover from the thrashing I gave them.
My neighbour who bought the boy calf and had taken Laf for company came round a few weekends and gave him back. He had a bad accident not long after they came to his place and he couldn't keep the feed up to them. I'm learning there is difference between a bit of grass and a well established, diverse pasture. Laf was looking a bit on the thin side, and I took her straight down to my back neighbour, The Real Farmer. He will take Laf off to get in calf again and I'll give the boy another six months or so before he becomes steak dinner.
With things calming down a bit I'm looking to inject a bit of variety into the cooking around here with a view to expanding my list of 'things I can cook without thinking'. My Cheeeeesy co-host Tastetrekker has give me a pork risoni recipe, I have some pork hocks I'm going to play round with and I picked up a Feast Mag for a few sweet ideas. If you have anything I should learn though, throw it my way. Especially if it contains a strong flavoured stock, I have a pot of pork trotter stock that has been barely simmering for over a week, I'm just too lazy at the end of the day to deal with it!
