We have babies !!!

Since our last dry visit up to the farm, we have anxiously watching the weather, but alas we have had not a drop of rain in the last 3 weeks and we made the decision to make a hasty trip back up with a trailer load of  lucerne  hay for the sheep that we were able to purchase here in the Hunter Valley off a property near the river that irrigates.There is very little hay around  the farm area and what is there is ridiculously expensive, so it was cheaper for us to purchase some bales   on route and cart it  up there.

The sheep eagerly watched us arrive and waited patiently for Brian to unload the hay and give them some. Our next door neighbour does feed the hay out for us at regular intervals when we are away.

Our neighbour had sent us a message to tell us   that we had  babies, 2 single births and 1 set of tiny twins. we had decided to only put 6 ewes in with the ram as we were trying to  control our numbers,So far 3

ewes have had lambs, 3 still to go.They are just the cutest little babies.Looks like we scored three girls and one boy( but we left them alone and didn't do a closer inspection.

We really thought by this that we would have had some decent drought breaking rain, and under normal circumstances we would have done. So these mums and bubs will do it a lot harder  then they would have in normal times. Our neighbour has  agreed to feed out extra feed for them in our absence.
They were very grateful for the hay and  gobbled it up very quickly.

While were were there on our whistle stop visit I decided to spend a morning sorting out some of my  empty Fowlers Vacola preserving jars that I had stored down in the shed. They were filthy and in need of a different storage solution. So I washed them all up and sorted into sizes. ( We share about half of our empty jars with our neighbour(my husbands brother and his wife to preserve in as they have an orchard, but no preserving gear.)

I then had a thought.. we had an old defunct chest freezer and I mentioned to Brian that it may be useful storage for some of my jars.

This held about 110 jars, could've held more but I kept sizes separate. I put the bigger taller 4" jars in a pantry in my laundry room. Our Fowlers are a little more bulky than mason jars and therefore take up more storage room.My laundry room is already crammed full of empty and full mason jars.
While there we also decided to dig  the small potato crop that we had put in. We  suspected that we would get nothing much from it as  there had just been no where near enough rain, but even so were still disappointed with the outcome.

At least it is enough for a couple of meals. We realize that we are really at natures mercy  until we live at the farm full  time and can control the water situation onto the gardens.
Often as we sat on the verandah  or were going about our jobs, we would see the sheep standing at the fence, looking wistfully(or should I say enviously) at bits of green inside the yard around the shrubs where the water  drip system works. I feel really mean, but if you let them in they would devour any and everything in sight.

Also doing a lot of verandah guard duty is my blue mate Tilly, she sits a lot these days as she gets older. She has been suffering a bit of conjunctivitis in her eyes this week, We will have to keep a watch on her.

When we woke yesterday morning ,ready to head off, the sheep looked like they were relaxed and had full tummies.I never tire of this sight.

Brian threw out 2 bales of hay for them to make sure those mums with bubs had  a chance to keep milk up to those precious bundles. It looked like they were taking turns at baby sitting. At this point the mum with the tiny twins seemed to be watching after all four babies.

As  I was shutting the gate at one point I noticed that the sheep are cutting deep ruts into the dry ground., Brian said he will run the ripper along them when we return next time ,to make the sheep walk around them to reduce further damage to the paddocks.

We said  farewell to our little place for the time being, hoping to return for a month long stay(which will be wonderful) in about 4 weeks time. Hopefully there will have been rain by then.
On our trips to and from the farm we always stop at the same spot. It is a four hour run, so we stop roughly halfway off the road in the pretty spot to give Tilly a toilet break and a run around while we have morning tea/lunch/afternoon tea, depending on time. We really love this spot, nearly always green no matter how dry it is, and it has these two really unusual rock formation. Totally natural and apparently only seen in a couple of places in Australia. This off road picnic area is called "Battery Rock"

As we got nearer to home at an old disused service station, we noticed a pile of 1000 litre plastic water cubes for sale, so we called in.(we have been looking for some more of these locally and at a reasonable price but hadn't found any)We decided to purchase 4 of them at $75 each and loaded all four up onto our empty trailer and strapped them down. We have brought them back to the coast and will take 2 at a time up to the farm at a later date. Our next trip up will probably  require us to take up  another load of hay.

So , hopefully  there will be rain soon,(nothing predicted though for the next week), But who knows, Mother Nature works in mysterious ways.
So until we meet again, hope everyone stays healthy and happy,
Cheers,
Jane.

Bread and butter cucumbers.

We tend to celebrate happy hour a lot(maybe too much) when we are up at the farm, not so much here on the coast.
People tend to pop over up there for a cuppa  or  a drink, and I just can't resist putting out a plate of nibbles. I  tend to  sway more to the cheeses and pickles,olives ect and most of our friends and neighbours  seem to enjoy those type of snacks too.
One of the most popular ones is bread and butter cucumbers. I got the recipe from my next door neighbour Stasia, who is  Polish, she  and her husband Rolf who is German  have shared some wonderful recipes  and food with us over the last 15 years or so that we have been neighbours.
We planted a small raised bed of bush type cucumbers this year and they have produced very well, this is the third batch of bread and butter cucumbers that I have preserved from them.

For this recipe, I slice up 4 kilos of cucumbers on the mandolin and also slice up 2 kilos of onions and add to the cucumbers in a plastic or stainless steel container, I then add  1 cup of salt in total(I divided my cucumbers and onions into two containers, so adjust to what ever you decide to do)
I set the containers aside and leave to soak overnight.
Next morning I drain the cucumbers and onions and rinse them under cold running water to  reduce the saltiness, and pack them into my freshly washed mason jars.

In a large stainless pot I then  make the sweet brine solution, this consists of:
10 cups of white vinegar,6 cups of white sugar,3 teaspoons of celery seed,3 teaspoons of yellow or brown mustard seed, and 3 teaspoons of turmeric.  This is brought to the boil, cooled a little and poured over the cucumbers.

Once  the jars are full, I then de-bubble and adjust the liquid height leaving a final head space of about 1/2 inch. I wipe all the rims with a paper towel soaked in white vinegar, place lids, that have been simmered onto the jars, and cap with  the bands to finger tight.

Once this is done, I then place all the jars into my trusty electric water bath and  adjust water level so that the jars are covered by a couple of inches of water, place the lid on and set to hold boil. When it reaches  boiling point, I hold it at that level for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes has elapsed, I then turn off the  water bath preserver, remove the lid and let the jars sit for a further 5 minutes. Next I remove all the jars out onto a towel covered bench to protect it and the jars from heat shock.

 When the jars have all made that lovely popping noise, you know that they are all sealed, but you must wait  24 hours and then remove the bands.

After removing the bands, washing them and storing away until the next preserving job, I then washed the jars, and will  soon label and date them and store them away with my other delicious preserves in the pantry.
This makes over 40 pint  jars of these that I have preserved this year, I am fairly sure it will be the last as our cucumber garden is on it's last legs, and we will probably now only pick fresh eating cucumbers until the end of the season.
We have had a really productive  year here on the coast, and hopefully next year we will have a more established garden up and running at the farm as we  spend more  time up there and less down here.
These  pickles will be popular fare over the Christmas  holidays and my supply will quickly be eaten into.

So until we meet up again,
Best wishes to you and yours,
Stay safe over the holiday period,
Cheers,
Jane.

And then I discovered Pressure Canning !!!

I had ordered some of my Fowlers Vacola  jars from my supplier and when they arrived they had sent me a "new " type of bottle to try in the preserver. It was a Ball Mason jar, I had never seen one before. My girlfriend who hails from Wisconsin in the USA had told me about them  and her type of preserving she had done with the 4H group and with her Mum and Grandma.
I started using these jars to water bath and  also did some research online only to be introduced to the big wide world of Pressure Canning.
We decided to purchase a pressure canner and my kids all put together and bought me my big baby, a big All American .

It is amazing, it holds 19 pint jars or 14 quarts. I just love the large loads it can do, and I can accomplish so much in a day.
How wonderful to be able to do, vegetables, soups,stocks, stews,and meats and store away for  later meals. I especially love the ready meals and meats.

Above we have curried sausages in quarts, then Chicken stock and raw packed chicken breasts and finally below we have chicken and vegetable soup.
I am so addicted to canning, I am sure many of my friends who have never heard of it think it is a little odd, but to us it is just the most practical, sensible normal thing to do  with what we produce and can buy cheaply.At least I know that we will always have food and know what's in it..
Anyway I am sure I will be posting many more canning exploits in the future,so hopefully you all don't tire of them.
Cheers from Aus,
Jane