After this week’s easing of restrictions on the Covid-19 lockdown I started seeing people complain on social media sites about the number of people coming to and travelling around our small towns of Dayboro and Mt Mee, especially the number of motor bike riders. So I started wondering, why do people live where they live.

Joy and Sorrow Sit Together (Part 3)

In September and October 2014 I wrote on this Blog about joy and sorrow being inseparable.  The twins have again returned to Em Nau farm in a big way over the past week.

The joy has come in the way of four new kids, two does and two bucks and two new lambs, one ewe and one ram. 

On July 26 Heather and I were preparing to have dinner when we heard a “scream” coming from the goat area.  Having recently put Kapuk in the kidding enclosure we thought sh...

In April I wrote a bit called “The Last Three Years – A Recap”.  In that scribble I mentioned that we buy in a couple of pigs twice a year to raise to six months before dispatching for meat and that we do chickens and ducks for meat as well.  I thought over the next couple of blogs I would explain how this is done.  This one I will talk about processing our pigs.

As I said in the April scribble we get the pigs in a couple of times a year to raise to about six or so months.  This is about...

The Last Three Years – A Recap

We brought Em Nau Farm in late 2011 as a lifestyle change choice.  We planned to produce our own cheese, jams, sauces and breads from our kitchen and breed chooks, dairy goats, sheep and cattle all whilst keeping up our ‘day jobs’.  

We started out keeping chickens on our suburban block after Brett contracted cancer in late 2008.  We progressed into making our own cheese, sauce and breads and with our children finishing school and moving out we decided...

We got Wal as a wether at the same time we got Cyd back in 2012 – he was an extra as he was going to the freezer if his previous owners could not get find a new home for him.  Wal was going to be a “keep for ever” goat as he was affectionate from the start and, I must say, wormed his way into my heart straight from the moment we met.  I loved big ol’ Wal, he was gent...

A New Addition to the Family plus the Great Sinkhole.

New Addition

Looking back over my sparse writing since the beginning of the year, for which I apologise (for the sparse additions to the blog writing not for looking back over it), I noticed I hadn’t made mention of the most significant addition to our family, that being the birth of Heather and my first grandchild, a little girl.  Our granddaughter (for privacy reasons for all concerned I will call “little Em”) came into the world...

Em Nau is part of “Land for Wildlife” 

A recent visit to a property that is part of the Land for Wildlife program got Heather and I thinking of what we could do to improve the habitat for native animals on the farm.

We have many native animal visitors that wander through the place from time to time, the ‘roos and wallabies, the echidnas, wild ducks, kookaburras, egrets, parrot and galahs just to mention a few. 

As over half our property would be covered by native vegetation we thou...

Welcome to 2015 

The New Year has brought both heartbreak and joy to Em Nau farm. 

On New Years Day we feed the animals in the afternoon as normal and there seemed nothing untoward.  About an hour and a half later, when we went to put the animals away for the night, we found one of the recently born kids lying stiff as a board beside the goat shed.  The kid, a wether, was born with its twin about 3 weeks ago to Numbawan so we gave them the temporary names of 1.1 and 1.2 so we could refer t...

Hot……damn hot

Over the past weekend most of the Brisbane City Council (BCC) area had a public holiday to coincide with the G20 summit that was being held in the CBD.  This enabled Heather and I to have a day off from our paying jobs even though the farm is not in the BCC boundary – a bonus for us having to travel the hour to two hours each way each day.

The weather forecast was for 40 degree days over the Friday to Sunday and to make the most of the day off we went on a duckling run to ...

Joy and Sorrow Sit Together (Part 2)

About a month ago I wrote on this Blog about joy and sorrow being inseparable.  The twins have returned to Em Nau farm in a big way over the past month.

The joy has come in the way of new calves – Temple (born to Shirley) and Mocha (born to Latte) who were both born about a week after Jenny (Daphne’s calf) was born and Daphne died. 

The other joy has come from the arrival of a new ewe (Saira Rose) who we got for free from a property who could no longer ...

Hatching, Matching, Dispatching

In the past month, we have had two of our goats pass, both suddenly, both prized milkers and both sadly missed.  The first one who died was Scarlett, our only goat that was still in milk, who went from being fit and healthy one day to passing less than 24 hours later.  We believe that it was either something she ate or something had bitten her, either way she went quickly and didn’t seem in to much pain when she died.  Heather first noticed that she was sc...

Young Animals

Over the past two months or so we have had three lambs born at Em Nau Farm.  The original plan was for each new arrival, once of a decent size, to go in the freezer.  This plan went west when the first one born lost its mother a week after birth.  Shadow, as he is now called, is destined to be a pet and was born in early May 2014.

The other two (and as I write this there is probably another one or two imminent) have been born over the past week or so and the first of these, a ...

Dingoes and Wild Dogs

Well didn’t I stir up a hornets’ nest last week when I posted the picture of the dingo on the website’s “Picture of the Week” page.

NOTE:  At various points I am going to class dingoes and feral (wild) dogs as different in this blog.  As dingoes have been around for 4000 years and wild dogs have only been introduced in the past 226 years they need to be considered (in my opinion) differently in some respects.

It seems that dingoes (and to a much less exten...

We were asked recently about milking our goats and cows and why we drink raw milk.  I thought I would go through a typical milk and give you an insight into what happens to the milk after it comes out of the udder.

When we milk the goats we have them up on a milking stand.  It is possible to milk without having them up on the stand, in fact that’s how we did it before I built the current stand, but it is more difficult to milk a moving goat.

The stand I built was taken off plans that were i...

There are photos of animals being butchered below so if you are squeamish or offended by animal carcasses please refrain from viewing them.

May Begins

With the beginning of May we had a couple of big things happen at Em Nau.  Firstly we had the home butcher come in and dispatch the two resident pigs on 01 May.  The butcher was due to arrive at about 0630 so by then I needed to have the fire lit and the water in the bath heated for the sow (more on why later).  We also enlisted the help of...

A typical week at Em Nau

I was asked recently what a typical week was like for Heather and myself.  The answer to this question was “there is no such thing as a typical week for us as things can change without notice – and often do”.

Pressed further I came up with the following answer.

During Monday to Friday I wake at about 0345 and go through the morning routine of shaving and preparing to head off to my “day job”.  I normally leave between 0410 and 0420 to travel the 60 odd km int...

Where has the First Part of the Year Gone?

Here we are in autumn – the first sixth of the year but a distant memory – where has the year gone so far.  Since my last jottings we have sold Dobbs and Duffy at the Woodford sales.  We tripled our money on them in the three months we owned them so in that respect it has been good.  We have also decided to only milk Daphne and Beaudette in the mornings, leaving the calves with them during the day and separating all bodies at night.  This seem...

Tupela Years on top long lik-lik mountain

Over the weekend of 08-10 Feb we notched up two years on the farm.  My how time flies when you don’t have any spare time <insert big belly laugh here>.

Looking back on the past couple of years we have achieved a lot but looking forward we still have plenty of plans to bring into fruition.

This time last year we were up to our knees in soggy ground after the big dump from ex Cyclone Oswald this year we are looking to the skies for rain as the da...

Christmas is a Distant Memory

Here we are at the end of January 2014 with the past two months flying by.  To think we only have 328 days (at the time of writing) until Christmas 2014.

Plenty has happened over the past couple of months. 

Firstly, and sadly, we lost Benny the bull calf on 16 January.  He was looking a little forlorn for a couple of weeks and we thought it could be worms.  We gave him some medicine and “pour-on”, which perked him up a little but on 14 Jan he stood down...

November was a Busy Month

Well December is here and we have (at the time of writing) only 138 days to Easter.  November was a busy month at our little farm as we had two new calves born, we purchased a dozen ducklings and we acquired three new sheep (abate this was on 02 December).

The New Calves

Beaudette had a little bull calf on 07 November.  Heather and I actually got to see the birth, which was a first for both of us I think, We went down at about 8:30 to check on her (for about the m...

NOVEMBER is not called heartbreak month in the bush for nothing – it’s a time when early summer storms begin building on the horizon and lightning starts crackling in the heat of the afternoon.

It’s also a time when we watch anxiously at the build-up, hoping the storm has got our name on it, and trying not to feel too disappointed when it takes off in a different direction.

It’s likely to be the scenario for many people around Queensland over the next month as they await the drought...

Pigs and Calves

The past weekend Heather and I spent a large amount of time constructing an enclosure in what was originally going to be the veggie plot.  The enclosure, 12m x 6m, with a 3x3m lean-to, was built to house the two newest inhabitants of the farm “this-one” and “that-one” our pigs.  Both are about six weeks old with one being a boar and the other being a gilt (or young sow).  We have procured them with the plan that in about 6 or so months we will dispatch them and get ...

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Following on from our last blog “The Benefits of Vitamin C” I can report that Red has had an up and down week or so.  He seemed to be getting better then had a minor setback only to push through that to start looking a bit better.  We can only hope over time he continues to improve and makes a recovery.  Below is a photo taken on 22 October as he came to meet one of the farms new inhabitants.

This leads me onto talking about two new members of the Em Nau Farm family.  Firstly t...

We experienced the full circle of life at Em Nau Farm over the past week.  Our birman cat “Tazo” passed away after 17 wonderful years on this earth and we had three more kids born.

Tazo was a great wowa. He was with us for many years and was a widely travelled wowa to boot.   He passed from old age on the 4^th of July.

Tazo moved with us from Sydney, to Darwin, then onto Brisbane, and then finally here to Ocean View. He always settled in well, and always slept on our bed. Just show him whe...

.............. and still it rains.  We have not had more than two or three consecutive days without rain and it is starting to get a little dreary on the soul.  The saving grace has been that during one of the infrequent dry spells we had the driveway “bobcat-ed” and it now is holding up pretty well to the rain. 

We also picked up a new house cow whom we have named “Daphne” and Doug the Droughtmaster bull has finished his passion holiday and went back to his previous owners.

The th...

Since my jottings in February we have had another couple hundred millimetres of rain to help keep the dust down.  This has lead to H and I having to spend most weekends shovelling gravel on the drive way to rebuild it – we have another couple of week-ends to go to complete this task.

We also lost Ruby (the first calf born on the property since we took over) to either a snake bite or to a disease called “black-leg” (is a highly fatal disease of young cattle caused by the spore forming, ...

We have just celebrated 12 months on the farm and in March last year I wrote:

We have now been on Em Nau for about six weeks and we have been extremely busy with repairs, new construction, more repairs and stopping the driveway ending up in the paddocks. Like most of the east coast of Australia, Em Nau farm has not been immune to the torrential rain that has fallen.  Over the past six weeks we have had to resurface our drive way at least twice with a third time looking likely.  The gradient ...

What the Difference a Weekend Makes

Over the Australia Day long weekend (26-28 Jan 13) we went from being in drought to massive floods.  Ex tropical cyclone “Oswald” dumped 722mm (about 28 inches) of rain on Em Nau farm .

We went from having an empty dam and half full tanks to massive overflows from all storage areas.  A week or so before the long weekend we had the bottom dam cleaned out of the silt and mud, so it went from being empty to full (and overflowing) in the space of 24 hours...

December is a Busy Time

Over the past month we have acquired two very handsome gentlemen at Em Nau.

The first arrival was Sam, who along with Julius, will be our resident bucks.  Sam came to us from NSW and on his first day was put in with the does as the buck’s pen wasn’t quite finished.  Brett showed him his sleeping accommodation and where the water and food areas were BUT he went straight to work and mounted one of the does – much to our amusement.  We now expect a large in...

Em Nau Continues to Grow

The farm has had an explosion of inhabitants over the past few months.  We started out back in August with Frank and Shirley (see previous blog “Shirley and Frank Arrive“).  Shortly after they went from our poddy pen to a larger paddock we were lucky enough to be given another couple of calves who we originally called Esme and Bob (continuing the ‘A Country Practice’ theme) but shortly after they arrive we discovered that Esme was a bull so “she” became C...

Since our last jottings – has it really been 2 and a bit months – a lot has been happening at Em Nau Farm.  We now have a few more goat after a road trip to Baan Baa (between Narrabri and Boggabri in NSW) where we brought two anglo-nubian goats – one that is in kid – this brings our goat family to six – three of which we know are in kid – so we could be a lot bigger goat family in a few months.

We also have had a couple of losses over the past few months one being Irene the chook...

We have now been on Em Nau for about six weeks and we have been extremely busy with repairs, new construction, more repairs and stopping the driveway ending up in the paddocks.  Like most of the east coast of Australia, Em Nau farm has not been immune to the torrential rain that has fallen.  Over the past six weeks we have had to resurface our drive way at least twice with a third time looking likely.  The gradient of the drive way and the lack of maintenance of the spoon drains has caused ma...

Well the eve of settlement has arrived and tomorrow we “officially” take over EM NAU Farm. 

H and I went up to the farm last Saturday and Sunday where we started to repair the old chook pen and have been busy every afternoon over the past week up there trying to get ready for the influx of inhabitants to the pens.  The solid rain in SE Qld over the past month hasn’t really helped much as the grass in the paddocks is “as high as an elephants eye” and there is mud all through the ol...

As the day the property settles approaches the Child Bride and I can’t hold in our excitement.  In about five weeks we will have the “keys to the property” and start moving in.  We will of course need to do a number of things before we can – like fixing the chook pens – so the girls (along with Richard the Rooster and mates) can have somewhere to lay their heads at night.

We will also need to take a five bedroom house full of furniture and accumulated odds and ends and fit it into ...

As we (the Child Bride and myself) prepare to set out on this new adventure I find myself both a little excited as well as a little scared about what is about to unfold.  We made this lifestyle choice for a number of reasons, not the least being the need to “get away” from a neighbour who has made our suburban existence a little less that positive since we started keeping chooks.  The neighbour was only too happy to get free range eggs at the start and instead of letting us know they had ...