Happy Easter!

I can't wait until Easter!!! Kim and I are going to be taking a few days off. I can hear you thinking, "oh they are going to have a lovely holiday at the beach....." Well, you would be wrong - we are going out to Aramac! Kim's brother has a property out there, so we are going to leave the tropical heat where it's lovely and green and go to the arid, dry and hot environment of central western Queensland. We both love it out there so are really looking forward to taking it a bit easier. Life is just so much more relaxed once you go past the Great Dividing Range.

Easter weekend is the first weekend of the month and as such, would normally be a Market weekend for Yeppoon and Kern Arcade so I do apologise that we are going to be missing it! We've certainly been quiet on the market front lately and some of that has been due to other things being on, but another factor has been our lack of pigs! I think I've mentioned before that demand has out stripped supply, which is great from a business growth perspective, but just a little stressful on us trying to keep everyone happily porked up. The good news is that numbers are slowly building and we should hopefully be going back to two markets a month in May.

Goat sales went very well last market and we should have more goat by the first weekend in May. The next market is 18th/19th April and we are hoping to have beef and lamb/hogget available as well as the usual pork. The lamb has been grown by a friend and has been grass fed and absolutely no chemicals used. The beef is ours and the same - no chemicals, no vaccines and grass fed only. I will confirm closer to the date what we will have available.

I hope that you all get to take some time off over Easter and I look forward to seeing you all soon.

March Markets

We'll be at the markets in Yeppoon and Rockampton the weekend of the 14th and 15th March. This will be our only market in March. We will then have only one market in April (weekend of the 18th/19th). If you want to stock up after Marcia, that would be a good time to do it. I'm offering 10% off all orders received by the 8th March. This applies regardless of size of order and you can order online, via email, text or facebook.

We will also have Goat meat available, so come along and pick up some to try.

We are planning at this stage to have beef at the Markets in April. What other types of meat would you like to see us stock?

Edmund (our son) and I went to listen to Joel Salatin last weekend, so we are really keen to expand our market and supply other meats. Beef, Chicken, Goat, Lamb......what else would you like to see? It will be grassfed and chemical free - the chickens will have grain, but it will be similar to what we feed the pigs, so no GMO's or other nasties. We are in the process of certifying the land for Organic status, so leading up to certification, we will be as good as organic! Exciting times ahead for us.

Too much of a good thing

Well, I never thought that too much green grass would be a problem, but we have come to the realisation recently that green grass makes pigs fat! I thought that it should be like a salad bar and that pigs would be lean and sexy if they ate lots of delicious salad! It turns out that grass is quite high in sugar and therefore is too high in energy, which is not something you want too much of in a pig diet.

For those customers that bought pork off us last fortnight at the markets, you will have noticed that it was a bit fattier. Especially on the bacon, shoulder roasts and the loin chops. I’m really sorry, but there’s not a lot we can do about it, except take them off the grass! That’s a pretty radical move, because after all, we are all about free range, pastured pigs. What’s a pastured pig without the pasture?

Lucky for us, most of our customers are happy enough with the fat and I've been recommending to everyone that they save the fat off the bacon and use it for cooking potatoes or other vegies. Some of our butchers aren't quite so happy! It does make it hard for them to sell the bacon when it has 2cm of fat on it! So, if you are one of our customers or one of the butchers that we sell to customers, please bear with us while we work out what we have to do about reducing the fat.

One of the reasons that we chose the country that we have chosen to run our pigs on, was that it was quite deficient soil. The pig manure and the absolutely fabulous wet season that we are having has started to turn that around. The grass that we are now growing is very lush and green, which equals healthy and full of energy! Over the last few weeks, the grass has really matured and is probably at it’s peak in terms of nutrition. We did cut back the grain ration as we could see that the pigs were eating a lot of grass and they've been gradually getting fatter and fatter. Interestingly enough, they don’t seem to be getting fat from the grain, but the grass. Seems to be the exact opposite with us humans – grains make us fat and salads make us slim!

What are your thoughts on fat? Are you willing to put up with the fat so that the pigs can be predominantly pasture fed, or would you prefer us to reduce the pasture to reduce the fat? We need to meet somewhere in the middle, so it may mean slashing the grass or (preferably) running cattle, sheep or goats ahead of the pigs. All options will mean more work for us!! But hopefully things will settle down as the season moves into winter and the grass is not so green.

Happy New Year!

Well, the month is half over already - time flies when you are having fun (or are very busy). Kim and I are currently enjoying a two week break, which is over the half way point! We are doing market research into the food trends on the Sunshine Coast. So far we have found out that there is very little free range or grassfed product. I thought that the trend was changing, but alas no..... Looks like we will have to increase production so that we can start supplying restaurants. We have had quite a few restaurants down this way make enquiries for our product, however they all want bellies and bacon - we can't supply these as it would mean that we would have none for our loyal market customers.

I have just updated the Markets and Delivery page to show the dates for markets over the coming months, so check that out. The first market for 2015 will be the 31st January and 1st February in Yeppoon and Rocky.

The South East Qld Delivery has been scheduled for March (sorry guys, we can't come sooner) and Agnes Waters and 1770 markets will not be on our schedule this year. To be completely honest with you all, we have spent the last year desperately trying to sell pigs before they got to big. We had very little interests from Butchers in the early part of the year, and there were only so many markets that I could attend, so our pig numbers got a little out of hand. Coming up to the end of 2014, we had a major turn-around and the demand for our pork outstripped supply. We are currently in a build up phase again with the pigs, with an increased focus on production to increase the numbers as quick as we can.

So the exciting thing for us this year is that we have a product that is in high demand and Kim and I, after our little time of to refresh, will be ready and raring to go to meet that demand!

A big thankyou must go to our beautiful children who have so bravely taken over the reigns of the Pig Farm to give us this break.

Merry Christmas!

Wow, the last week (or two, or three) has been pretty stressful - worrying about how many hams we would have was the main concern. And then about a week or so ago we got some rain. And some more rain.....I was stressing whether we would get out to not only deliver to all our customers, but also to get pigs out to be processed! Well, all's well that ends well! We have finished all deliveries now and don't need to take pigs to the abattoir for two weeks! And then there are no markets for a month, so life will take a slower turn (I hope!)

So, while the rain caused a little stress, it has made the place look a picture!! It's amazing what gets transformed in a week!

Thought I'd post a few pictures.

But I also want to take this opportunity to thank all our fantastic customers - some who have been with us since we started and some very new ones too! We have had a great twelve months and things are really starting to look up, as demand has finally reached supply and we now have to increase our production! So, thankyou!

We wish you all the best for a happy and peaceful Christmas and a prosperous and Healthy 2015.

Most of the pigs are happy to graze the grass and not too concerned about the grain.

 

Leauceana loves this weather!

The green is so bright that it almost hurts your eyes!

Lillies in the paddock.

 

Another turkey had chicks - only two, and a little late for Christmas lunch!

 

See you next year.......

Lucy and Kim

 

 

Christmas Hams

It's that time of the year when I need to get orders for our delicious Christmas Hams. I am still not sure if we will have the nitrate free ham available, and I may not know for another couple of weeks.

If you would like a ham this year, we will be offering the following:

Whole or Half Hams - a whole ham bone in will be somewhere between 6-8kg, boneout will be around 4-6kgs.
Bone in or Bone Out - Bone in price this year will be $16/kg but the Bone out will be $20/kg.

If you haven't already given me your request, can you please send an email to anabank@bigpond.com stating the following:

Whole or Half
Bone In or Bone Out
Nitrate Free or Conventional - please state on this if you will substitute a conventional ham for nitrate free if they are not available, or if you would prefer to not have any ham if we don't have nitrate free.

Delivery will be available for the following places:

• Brisbane, Sunshine and Gold Coast in the week before Christmas.
• Rockhampton and Yeppoon - the weekend of the 20/21 December
• Baralaba and local area to be collected from our property

At this stage I don't think we will be able to deliver to Gladstone, however it may depend on the number of orders.

It will also be first in first served, as I'm not sure how many hams that we will have available this year.

Guest Blogging

I was very recently honoured to be a guest blogger over at Natural New Age Mum. I talk about Farmers Markets from my perspective, so I would love it if you go over and have a read. Feel free to leave a comment there too! Natural New Age Mum is a local Rockhampton lady and also one of our customers, so I was quite pleased when she asked me to do a post for her.

This is the link to that blog, but she has lots of other information and interesting reading, plus some great healthy recipes!

Thanks NNAM!