August

First of all, please note that there's five weekends in August so we won't be at the markets in Yeppoon and Rockhampton until NEXT weekend - the 5/6 September. If you would like to put an order in, there is still time - I would like them before Sunday please. You might even like to get some pork osso bucco to try out this dish. I've baked the osso bucco on a bed of tomato and onion. I'll do up a recipe before next weekend and you will find it in the recipe section.

Kim and I will be away again next week, so I won't get a chance to make any bone broth, however I do hope to still get some lard done. I will also have soap available - what do people think of it? I've had some good reviews so far.

We've had a few opportunities lately to get away. Maitland, our youngest son has been home for a couple of months and will be until towards the end of October. So we are trying to take some time off while he is around.

There's been some storms around over the last week and while we've just been getting the tail ends, we've had 25mm so far. We are very happy with that, as the storms tend to start off following the same path, so we may get more yet. The weather has certainly changed and it's been quite warm lately. I suppose it is spring very shortly, so we can expect lots of growth starting to happen. We've had a pretty good year so far, good summer rains and a mild winter - I wonder what's in store for the next few months?

We are now back to two markets a month and it's been so good to see that we continually get new customers. Thank you to all our older customers who continually refer us to others. I think word of mouth is one of the most successful ways to spread the message and we do appreciate it greatly. This month is a 5 weekend month, so it will be three weeks until the next market - 5/6th September.

If you want to pre-order, please do so as soon as you can. We ran out of pork and most other meat too last weekend. I got caught short because I thought things might have been a little quieter as it had only been two weeks since the previous market. Looks like I'll have to send more pigs for next time as our meat is becoming very popular. Thanks to you guys!

Thank you too, to all our Gladstone customers that we saw on Saturday. And a few new ones too! We will be delivering again there on the third weekend of September. I had originally planned a Friday afternoon delivery, but then had to change it to Saturday afternoon. What do you guys think - would it be better on the Friday afternoon about 5-6pm or Saturday from 4-5pm?

I'm looking forward to a trip out west tomorrow. We are going out to Kim's brothers family at Aramac. Only a very short visit unfortunately, as we both love it out there!

Cheers for now,

Pork Osso Bucco cooked in beer with olives and garlic.

Paddock Walk

It's starting to get very dry here, mostly because of the frost we got a week or so ago. Where the grass is a bit taller, there is some green still in it so there is still some good feed around. In the pig paddocks there's probably less grass than the cattle country, but it's holding up okay. My milking cows are enjoying the fertility in the pig paddocks. We are resting some paddocks that I can easily put the cows in, so I have. Their milk production has increased, so that's something we want to do more of.

I went for a walk this afternoon around the pig paddocks to check on all the pigs. This is something we do each day, but I haven't done it for a while. Maitland has been doing it for the last few weeks, but he has gone today for a week off. It was a lovely walk - something I do enjoy doing, because it gives me a chance to say hello to some of the girls!  The older pigs seem to be pleased to see me and will come up grunting and looking for a scratch.

The temperature is quite lovely at the moment - cool at night and quite pleasant during the day. A little bit of winter might be coming back for a while, but it's not as cold as it was the other week.

This pig is one of Kim's pets, she's as ugly as all get out, but lovely and quiet. I couldn't get far enough away to take a photo of her and her babies, because she wanted a scratch.

This Tamworth has 5 piglets and she was just happy to lie there, but the babies wouldn't stay still......

A huge Box Tree.

Our latest litter born today. This is a first time mum. Those babies are so cute!

 And then when I got home Kim wanted a hand to pick the last of the oranges off the tree. I was very surprised that he trusted my tractor driving to lift him up! I was a little nervous!

Don't forget the markets are on next weekend. Orders close on Sunday night. We will not have a lot of pork cuts, as I'm focusing on making lots of bacon. We'll have beef, goat and lamb as well.

Markets - Yeppoon and Rocky - 1st and 2nd August

August will see the return of our twice monthly visit to the markets - yes you read correct - We will be in Yeppoon and Rocky for the 1st weekend of the month and then the 3rd weekend (1st and 3rd Sunday's).

For this first market of August we will only have pork, bacon and ham. Kim and I are away at the moment so it was too tricky to organise to get other animals over to Monto for the butcher. We will have plenty of pork! I will be increasing the amount of bacon that we do, so I hopefully won't run out this time! If I still get a lot of orders, I may limit each customer to 2kgs bacon. We will be back in the following two weeks though, so I'm hoping it won't be a problem.

I would love some feedback on our beef, lamb, and goat (if you haven't already given it). We will be continuing to offer these other cuts, but may only do them once per month, depending on what feedback we get. We did have quite a bit of beef and lamb left over last time and so we are still finding our way around stock control.

If you would like to order any pork products, please email me as soon as you can. It's so much easier for me to give the butcher the orders, and that way there's less chance of you missing out. Sometimes when I get busy on the Saturday morning, I don't remember all the late orders and people do miss out. I'm really sorry about that, but if you were to look inside my coldroom on a Saturday morning, you would understand why! Saturday's are usually busy from 6.30 to closing time so there's not a lot of time to be putting orders together.

Also, please remember that we will be selling our Dawson Valley Farm Produce soap this time, as well as the Lard, Bone Broth, Pet mince and Bones. If you want more information, please send me an email. dawsonvalleyfr@bigpond.com (this is a new address, but the old one still works.)

See you soon.

New Products

The Yeppoon and Rockhampton markets will be on next weekend. Tonight is the last chance to get pre-orders in. You can still order this week, but you may not get what you would like if you leave it too late.

I now have access to a commercial kitchen so I'm going to be making Bone Broth and Lard for regular sale.

The bone broth is made using a mixture of bones from Chicken, Pork and Beef please read my other blog for more information on how I make my stock. Healthy Farming Healthy Food. I will be packaging it in plastic takeaway containers and it may be frozen. If it takes off as a viable sale item, I will look into packaging differently. The containers are 500ml containers and will sell for $4.50.

Pork Lard will sell for $1.75/100g and the jars I've bought to use hold 430g, so that will be $7.50. I do sometimes use recycled jars, so these will be $1.50/100g. So if you want to bring your clean jar back to recycle/refill I can.

We also hope to have pork pet mince next weekend as well.

And coming soon.......(drum roll)........

Soap - I have been getting soap made for a while now out of our lard and my cows milk, and I've decided that the next lot I get made, I will add to our product lines. I may only sell these in Rocky and not Yeppoon, as the lady that makes them is also at Yeppoon and she may not appreciate the competition. It's lovely soap and quite a bit harder than the normal home made soap, so it lasts a little longer in the shower. Please look out for it at the August markets.

Quick Update

I made an error on the dates of our next market - it will be in Yeppoon and Rockhampton on the 4th and 5th July. Sorry for any confusion caused.

Also if you have wondered where abouts we are, I've done a post over at Healthy Farming Healthy Food, which is my other blog, that will shed some light on where we are in Queensland. I write posts about our life, farm and food etc, so if it interests you, feel free to subscribe via the email thingy.

Next Markets

We are two weeks out from the next markets in Yeppoon and Rockhampton. These will be held on the 3rd and 4th of July. Preferred deadline for orders - 21st June.

If you would like to pre-order, please do so by this weekend - 21st June.  You can order online or via email. Orders received by this weekend have a better chance of being filled without any "not availables" so to help me out, please consider doing this. I can't guarantee that you will get what you want if you order after this time.We will have pork, ham, bacon, beef, lamb and goat.

I'm also going to be going along to Barefoot Kitchen's Livin' Paleo workshop this coming weekend. If you are going to be there, you can fill out an order form then if you like. Read more about Jen Shaw and her barefoot kitchen here You might even be lucky enough to get one of my lucky door prize vouchers.

Look forward to seeing you either then or the following week at the markets.