Happenings of late

We've had a hiccup in our placid, farming life lately! We were rounding up the goats to take to the butcher last Friday when Kim had an accident on the Quad bike. Friday night found us sitting in the emergency ward at the Base Hospital in Rockhampton after a short helicopter joy flight. He's home now, but has a broken elbow (pinned and plated) and two broken ribs. It has meant that our goat orders aren't going to be filled in this coming delivery to Rockhampton and that I'm way behind in telling people delivery times and all that sort of stuff.

I do apologise to all our Rockhampton customers for any disorganisation that ensues from this and hopefully we will get back to normal soon.

Deliveries for October and November

Rockhampton delivery will be on the 6 October.
Gladstone delivery will be on the 27 October.

We will also do a separate delivery for Biloela, Theodore, Moura and Baralaba on the 17 November. If you live in these areas or know some who does, can you please pass on our details.

Order Forms will be emailed out - if you have any trouble opening or filling the form in, please let me know.

On the order form, you will notice that we are giving you the opportunity to buy extra pork mince, pork sausages or diced pork by the kg.

Christmas Hams
We would like to start planning for Christmas, if you would like a ham, can you please let us know via email. We will sell hams separately at Christmas time, but leading up to then, they will only come as part of the 5kg ham and bacon pack.

Goat
This time we are trialling Goat packs. We will sell them as 1/2 a goat pack, and because we don't know how much this will weigh, they will be sold by the kg. We only have a small number this time and will then have a few more after Christmas. Whether we continue after that, will depend on interest and profitability.

PLEASE NOTE: If you would like some goat and you live in Gladstone area, please respond now, so that we can make sure you don't miss out.

Real Food Festival

We went to Maleny on the weekend to attend the Real Food Festival - read more on my Healthy Farming Healthy Food Blog. We met some interesting food producers - the Sunshine Coast is lucky to have so much food on their doorstep! We bought and taste tested some Kidaman Beef. They are a fairly new business to the local food market down that way and we were VERY impressed with their quality and professionalism. We enjoyed their rump steak and sausages one night and then a Mussaman Curry with round steak the next. Absolutely Great!! We also visited a Fejoa stand. When the Owner/Producer said that their Fejoa White Balsamic Glaze was great with pork, well we just had to buy some! (I'm yet to try that) Hopefully we've also made some good contacts for our own produce. Other great products included: olives, honey, bananas, coffee, dairy, fresh fruit and veg, as well as products produced locally - jams, cheese, bread, chutney, jam and sauces - just so much food! If you're in the Sunshine Coast region, try and support these businesses and other local food producers. I also wonder if we can do something like this in our Region of Central Queensland - we also have some great food products!

Post Delivery Comments

We had a huge day on Saturday delivering our pork. We picked it up in Monto, went to Calliope via the Boyne Valley - that's a really pretty drive through there. Dropped off a pack to Travis (just before Calliope) - who has already sampled and given us some great feedback, so make sure you read his comments in the Testimonial Section of the Blog. Then onto Tannum Sands after dropping more pork packs, plus a spit pig in Calliope proper. On to Gladstone, then Rockhampton and then finally home. Finished the deliveries locally the next day. Wow, it was a big day, but so good! Luckily Kim and I don't mind driving! But the best part was meeting our new customers - I like that part the best, as it's so positive to talk to people that like the same sort of food that we like! Oh, it was also good to see our continuing customers!! Also, we met people with great attitudes - we were a lot later than we thought we would be and so a big thankyou to all those that we mucked about. It's our first big delivery, and trying to time it was obviously a lot more tricky than I had originally thought. Your patience was greatly appreciated! I can't wait for the next delivery day! Hopefully September for Rocky and then October for Gladstone - stay tuned for a more accurate date.

Answer to some Questions

We've had a few questions from some of our new customers, so I thought I'd share my answers here. Our philosophy on raising animals, is that they should live a good life - with plenty of fresh air and sunshine. They are not confined except for when they are farrowing, when we place them in a smaller pen - often a portable structure inside their existing paddock. This is to protect the babies mostly. When the sow furrows, which can take a couple of hours, she is unaware of much going on around her and it's not unheard of for other pigs to be a nuisance around the babies. It's also safer if a fox or other preditor manages to get through the outer fence, as they won't get through the portable pen. Our paddocks are quite large, although we are in the process of making them smaller, so that we can rotationally graze them better,which will improve the quality of the pasture they graze on. We are true free range, which means that they are on pasture, not just bare dirt like a lot of "free range" farms are. GMO - we don't feed the pigs any feed that includes GMO grains or other products. We don't believe in using chemicals in the feed or on their bodies. The grain they eat is not organic, so they are fed grains that have been grown with chemicals. At this early stage in our business growth, we can't afford the extra cost to feed organic feed to the pigs, but hope to down the track. We are opposed to GMO in any way, shape or form! Antibiotics - if we need to treat a sick animal we will, because we believe that it's cruel not to. However if we need to treat an animal, it will be removed from outside sale. Fortunately this is a very rare occurance, as true free range animals don't get sick very often. If anyone has any other questions, please leave a comment.

Orders Closing Soon

The next deliver of pork to Gladstone, Rockhampton and locally is getting close to filling, so if you would like to get some great tasting pork, email me for an order form.

Pork Delivery Dates

We've been busy at Dawson Valley Free Range. We've got a new order form, with changes to the packs that we offer. Please email me to get the form emailed to you. Click on the Ordering Page for more information. Leave a comment if you want to know anything!

Rockhampton, Gladstone and Local Orders - Delivery Date is the 25th August - please send your order by the 14th August.

Sunshine Coast - Delivery Date is the 7th September - please send your order by the 28th August.