This farm is an educational experience in where food comes from, how it grows and what it really tastes like. If you like you can learn how to do it all yourself. I was a 'city slicker' who went on an adventure to produce my own food and in the process became self-sufficient farmer. For all ages, this is a fully integrated working farm with animals, vegetables, orchard and bush tucker. Visitors welcome but by appointment only.
Can you love animals too much when you're a farmer?
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My answer is yes. I try not to but the answer is yes you can be too attached.
Now I'm not a primary producer, I'm a self sufficient hobby farmer. If I had 1000 head of cattle I would probably know 5 or 6 of them pretty well and the rest would be somewhat indiscriminate and come market time, off they would go. For me I just have 5 miniature black angus, 4 of them have names Wholey Moley, Hepburn, Zulu and little Nelson. The 5th, whom I'm challenging myself over, his name is Meat, well it's Inyama which is the Zulu word for meat. I figure if every day when i talk to him I call him 'meat' it will remind me not to become attached.
I do have a plot/area on my farm called the, Great Pet's Graveyard, and here is where I've buried my favourites, 2 dogs and 1 chook so far. It's up on the hill where they can overlook the farm and keep up-to-date with the happenings and I often go past and call them all by their names - Sam, Olivia and Bob. I've lost a cow and an alpaca since I've been here, both in birth and I've had to have them buried. I'm such a softy, I've shown the excavator driver where to put the hole then excused myself I just hate seeing them go in the ground.
But I'm not a total loss. I do kill my own chicken, turkeys and geese - not ones I've given a name to but indiscriminate ones. When you see 4 or 5 young roosters rearing into the same hen mating with her several time and ripping the feathers from her back until she is bleeding it become easy to take their heads off. It's necessary to take their heads off. I just apologise to them, say sorry their only crime was to be born a male then down comes the axe, quick and fast. Thats the thing about breeding animals it's pretty much 50/50 when it comes to the male and female mix and too many males leads to chaos.
Describing myself however, I'd say I'm just a softy that will always struggle with having to do what needs to be done, but I get it done.
I don't know if this happens else where around the world but an old bath tub makes a good size water trough and you can usually pick them up from renovators for free. Unfortunately they are often just tossed in the paddock and the water is attached through a hole drilled in the wall of the bath. That's what happened on my farm and a few years on now the bottoms are rusting out of the tubs and the constant leaks are becoming a concern. I like to to things a little different. A mate of mine who renovates old houses had a bath he didn't want so I used it to replace the worst one I have. I put some plumbing in so it could always be drained and cleaned then poured a slab of 2 barrow loads of concrete over top. I then built a frame around the bath like you would when installing it in a house. A bit of 3 ply wood as the cover on the sides and a few layers of paint I now have a great looking water trough -- very swish indeed.
First my circumstances; I'm retired, knocking on the door of 60 years old. I live alone on my small farm which I purchased for my retirement to keep active and health. My initial purchase of the watch was encouraged by my daughter concerned about what would happen if I had a bad accident, who would know? I'm sometimes up a tree with a chainsaw, sometime on a mower on steep slopes, my farm has its share of deadly snakes - you get the picture. Security This gets a big tick from me. The Apple Watch has 'Fall Detection' built in and a simple internet search shows it has saved lives. The concept is that if you fall down it detects your fall, activates the watch with vibrates on your wrist and asks if your ok. If there is no response within about a minute the phone rings emergency services and your emergency contacts. Now I've set mine off at least a dozen times in the last year so I know it works and each time i've been able to answer the question "Are you o...
The primary reason for having a vegetable garden is to produce food, to be truthful it’s the only reason to grow your own fruit and vegetables. There is certainly an element of online gardeners desperately trying to build their followers for ego stroking or financial gain that have a garden, or fake a garden, for show rather than the resultant produce. In my previous profession as a marketeer I learned that social media was a channel to market which marketeers had within the range of all possibilities, TV, Radio, Direct Mail, Billboards, newspapers …….ect. Like all channels to market Social Media has it’s benefits but also many pitfalls for inexperienced players. A marketeer must look at each channel and understand who is the audience that can be reached and is that the audience that ultimately that can be converted to purchase your product and/or service. When looking at a magazine advertisement, as a marketeer the magazine will give us the number of ‘paid’ subscribers the...
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