Dawson Valley Free Range

Dawson Valley Free Range

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Regional Food

As anyone who knows me, would know - I am very passionate about local food. I'm involved in the local food industry as a producer and as a consumer.  My purchasing decisions tend to be based on Local first, Regional 2nd, Queensland 3rd, Australia 4th, and then if I really must......oversees grown.
Regional makes sense in a place like Central Queensland and my idea of regional would be from Bundaberg to Mackay and out to Emerald.

Relish Capricorn is an organisation that is putting our local region and the food from it on the map! I strongly recommend that you go and have a look (follow the link above) and see what they are all about. It's still a work in progress, but the more people that register - both consumers and producers, the more valuable the information on the site will be. The idea is that it will link the consumer to the producer.

There is quite a bit of food produced in this region and we really need to have some sort of distribution centre in Rockhampton for that food to then get to the consumers around here. We are known as the beef capital, but it's not easy to buy a local bit of beef! We need to change this! It annoys me when we try to reduce our carbon footprint and reduce food miles that most of the food produced here goes to Brisbane and then back up the coast. So get on board and give support to local farmers. You can do this by registering as a member on the Relish Capricorn site.

Some of my thoughts on this were aired on the local ABC this morning. Follow this link to here or read what I had to say.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

May, and what's happened to winter?

The weather has been unseasonably warm lately. This is quite a good thing really because our summer rain came very late and so there's been more time for grass to grow - a little more rain wouldn't go astray, and as I type this, there's a faint pitter patter on the roof! Not much hope for anything meaningful though!

This photo was taken late the other afternoon......

We've got three French Backpackers with us at the moment. Two of them are chef's. So what does one do when one is hosting a French Chef? Kill ducks so that they can cook them! We killed them one afternoon and the next evening we are eating duck confit and duck breast - absolutely delicious!

The photo below shows our (current) pig pets. D'artagnan is the big black fella and he's our biggest pet, and is quite loveable. The little black one hasn't been named, as he will go back to the mob when he's a bit bigger. Missy Higgins is the white one and she will probably end up a breeder. They are cute and very interactive, but they do try my patience when I go to milk my cows in the mornings!


Just a reminder to all that we have the following markets and deliveries:
This weekend (23rd to 25th May) will be Middlemount, Dysart, Moranbah and Emerald.
The 31st May and 1st June will be Yeppoon and Rocky again, and then 1770 on the 9th June - we'll do Gladstone orders that weekend too. Please get your orders in this weekend for those two weekends.

I'm planning on heading to Brisbane in the last week of June, so if you live on the Sunny Coast, Brisbane or the Gold Coast and aren't already on my email list, please send me an email and I'll put you on it. anabank@bigpond.com

For our Sunny Coast customers, we are currently going through the process of working out if we should set up a stall at one of the markets there - which would be the best one for us? Love to get some feedback. Maitland our son will be taking on that job, so stay tuned for more info on that.