2 December 2008
Saturday afternoon we got to work on the cold smoker again. After a couple of hours we had it finished. As always it didn’t go completely to plan, but we got there in the end. We hung 3 of the salamis inside the barrel and then I set the fire in the firebox. Initially I left the chimney open on the barrel but the fire went out too quickly. I set it again and put a lid on the chimney. For 3 ½ hours smoke billowed through small cracks in the barrel. Woohoo, success! Souz arrived early afternoon and so we finished up outside for the day.
How To Cook Flounder
Some time after 3pm Aaron went out with Frank to pull in Frank’s flounder nets. Frank and Marge were coming for dinner and Frank would be providing the flounder. I was a little nervous about the prospect of cooking flounder for 5, having only cooked it once before the weekend before and not too successfully. Still, I’m not exactly going to turn down a free meal if it’s offered.
As a starter I wrapped prunes in our homemade bacon and cooked these on the cast iron griddle. The saltiness of our first bacon attempt was nicely balanced out by the sweetness of the prunes. They were deemed a success and so I started dinner.
I’d Googled a recipe for pan-fried flounder in a lemon and caper butter sauce. Ahh, blessed Google. Dinner was a success. Sunday it was my turn for a sleep in. Aaron wasn’t particularly impressed I’d only slept in until 7am. He’d been up half the night watching sport and would have liked a lie in. However, he’d had his long sleep in on Saturday morning so it was my turn on Sunday.
After breakfast I started another fire in the smoker. For some reason I just couldn’t get it to work as well as it had the day before. It took me a good hour of playing around with it before I got a steady but not particularly strong smoke going. In fact I end up prodding the fire most of the day just to keep reigniting it. Like I said to Souz, I’d suck at being an arsonist.
More Rats
Aaron did some more work on the fencing and gates for the new duck paddock and I hedgeclipped the knee-high grass in the dog run.
Poor dogs, getting in and out of their run was a bit like tackling an obstacle course before I got in there and cleared it. Mind you, Coppa had caught at least 2 rats hiding in the grass in there in the last few weeks so it wasn’t all bad.
Speaking of rats. My god we’re being inundated with them. While I never see any alive, between the dogs and the one rat trap we have set inside the chicken coop we’ve been catching at least one every two days for a couple of weeks now. In fact the boys caught an enormous one this weekend, which lay on the driveway in the hot sun for a day before I picked it up and hurled it into the bush.
There was a smaller one I discovered on the verandah Sunday morning. When Aaron took the dogs for a walk I picked it up by the tail and hurled it into the bush behind the house. Or at least I tried.
I went to hurl it and part of the tail came off in my hand. Euwww! The rat dropped to the ground so I had to pick it up and hurl it again. There’s something incredibly satisfying about seeing dead rats everywhere. I just worry about the obvious population explosion.
Fortunately, now the boys sleep on the verandah at night there are no rats or mice getting into the house. Unfortunately the rats are getting into the shed at night and literally chewing their way through the plastic buckets of food we have for the pigs. They’ve destroyed 3 buckets already, which means I’ll have to buy some more soon.
I started to think about what other affect it might be having on our place. Native birds get hit quite hard by rats but our tui population has suddenly increased. And then I realized the fantails are missing this spring. Usually we have half a dozen of them flitting around the house, constantly twittering but this spring they’ve been missing. The wood pigeon’s are also in short supply. I might need to invest in some more traps.
We’ve taken to praising our boys as much as possible for each rat they catch. The praise seems to be working. We’re also encouraging bunny hunting and it’s one of their favourite games when I take them for a walk.
There's Lots Of Bunnies As Well
There are bunny holes in various locations around our property and Gary's nextdoor and as we get near a hole the boys will look at me expectantly and poise themselves like sprinters waiting for the gun. “Find the bunnies!” I’ll yell and they take off like rockets, racing to the holes and under and around bushes and scrub nearby.
Whisky especially seems quite addicted to the instant adrenaline surge that comes when I yell “Find the bunnies!” Every now and then they’ll be lucky enough to spot a bunny and the race is on. Not that I usually see it but I’ll definitely hear them crashing through bush and waist high grass and there’s no mistaking the high-pitched “I’ve found it! I’ve found it” yelps as they race off in hot pursuit. Unfortunately they don’t catch a lot of bunnies but the exercise they get chasing both real and imaginary ones is all good.
While they may not be working dogs I think they earn their keep with pest control.
Fowl Intentions
Sunday afternoon Souz left and Aaron and I did some more work on the dam for the new duck pond. The water level is at least knee high at the moment but we’d like it a bit higher. Overall I think it’s going to be a very nice living area for the ducks. There’s heaps of space for them. Although we’re only getting a dozen of them, depending on how they cope we maybe be able to increase the number later down the track.
As for the chickens, we were going to put them in with the ducks but I worry about the aggressiveness of our chooks. Instead I have decided they can go in the orchard paddock, below the dog run, on the other side of the duck fence.
We are going to open this up to the pigs as well but I’m sure they’ll all manage to get along. We’re also going to build a proper chicken coop in the hope that the chickens might go a bit broody and hatch a few babies for us.
Our chooks are absolutely loving the free range lifestyle but this has started to become a problem for us. For a start the chicken poop on the verandah is getting out of hand but also the chickens have decided to revert to their ancestral calling and have taken to spending most of the day in the bush.
Initially this was great, there’s bound to be heaps of yummy insects for them to gobble up, they’re safe from any overhead predators and the hot sun and it also means less shit on the verandah right?
Unfortunately we have been without eggs for 2 weeks. I had thought initially the girls were off the lay. Perhaps they’d had another attack of lice? And then it occurred to me, those girls are laying their eggs in the bush! Twice I scrabbled up and down through the bush looking by tree roots and under ferns and damn it, I couldn’t find the eggs.
The problem is the chickens are lower to the ground than me and therefore can access more hiding spots than me. Then there’s the rats. What rat wouldn’t steal off with a chicken egg if it found one? Aaron was pissed off about this latest development. “That’s it. Their heads are coming off and they’re going in the freezer.” I suggested we just lock them up again for a while. Aaron reluctantly agreed.
Saturday afternoon we got to work on the cold smoker again. After a couple of hours we had it finished. As always it didn’t go completely to plan, but we got there in the end. We hung 3 of the salamis inside the barrel and then I set the fire in the firebox. Initially I left the chimney open on the barrel but the fire went out too quickly. I set it again and put a lid on the chimney. For 3 ½ hours smoke billowed through small cracks in the barrel. Woohoo, success! Souz arrived early afternoon and so we finished up outside for the day.
How To Cook Flounder
Some time after 3pm Aaron went out with Frank to pull in Frank’s flounder nets. Frank and Marge were coming for dinner and Frank would be providing the flounder. I was a little nervous about the prospect of cooking flounder for 5, having only cooked it once before the weekend before and not too successfully. Still, I’m not exactly going to turn down a free meal if it’s offered.
As a starter I wrapped prunes in our homemade bacon and cooked these on the cast iron griddle. The saltiness of our first bacon attempt was nicely balanced out by the sweetness of the prunes. They were deemed a success and so I started dinner.
I’d Googled a recipe for pan-fried flounder in a lemon and caper butter sauce. Ahh, blessed Google. Dinner was a success. Sunday it was my turn for a sleep in. Aaron wasn’t particularly impressed I’d only slept in until 7am. He’d been up half the night watching sport and would have liked a lie in. However, he’d had his long sleep in on Saturday morning so it was my turn on Sunday.
After breakfast I started another fire in the smoker. For some reason I just couldn’t get it to work as well as it had the day before. It took me a good hour of playing around with it before I got a steady but not particularly strong smoke going. In fact I end up prodding the fire most of the day just to keep reigniting it. Like I said to Souz, I’d suck at being an arsonist.
More Rats
Aaron did some more work on the fencing and gates for the new duck paddock and I hedgeclipped the knee-high grass in the dog run.
Poor dogs, getting in and out of their run was a bit like tackling an obstacle course before I got in there and cleared it. Mind you, Coppa had caught at least 2 rats hiding in the grass in there in the last few weeks so it wasn’t all bad.
Speaking of rats. My god we’re being inundated with them. While I never see any alive, between the dogs and the one rat trap we have set inside the chicken coop we’ve been catching at least one every two days for a couple of weeks now. In fact the boys caught an enormous one this weekend, which lay on the driveway in the hot sun for a day before I picked it up and hurled it into the bush.
There was a smaller one I discovered on the verandah Sunday morning. When Aaron took the dogs for a walk I picked it up by the tail and hurled it into the bush behind the house. Or at least I tried.
I went to hurl it and part of the tail came off in my hand. Euwww! The rat dropped to the ground so I had to pick it up and hurl it again. There’s something incredibly satisfying about seeing dead rats everywhere. I just worry about the obvious population explosion.
Fortunately, now the boys sleep on the verandah at night there are no rats or mice getting into the house. Unfortunately the rats are getting into the shed at night and literally chewing their way through the plastic buckets of food we have for the pigs. They’ve destroyed 3 buckets already, which means I’ll have to buy some more soon.
I started to think about what other affect it might be having on our place. Native birds get hit quite hard by rats but our tui population has suddenly increased. And then I realized the fantails are missing this spring. Usually we have half a dozen of them flitting around the house, constantly twittering but this spring they’ve been missing. The wood pigeon’s are also in short supply. I might need to invest in some more traps.
We’ve taken to praising our boys as much as possible for each rat they catch. The praise seems to be working. We’re also encouraging bunny hunting and it’s one of their favourite games when I take them for a walk.
There's Lots Of Bunnies As Well
There are bunny holes in various locations around our property and Gary's nextdoor and as we get near a hole the boys will look at me expectantly and poise themselves like sprinters waiting for the gun. “Find the bunnies!” I’ll yell and they take off like rockets, racing to the holes and under and around bushes and scrub nearby.
Whisky especially seems quite addicted to the instant adrenaline surge that comes when I yell “Find the bunnies!” Every now and then they’ll be lucky enough to spot a bunny and the race is on. Not that I usually see it but I’ll definitely hear them crashing through bush and waist high grass and there’s no mistaking the high-pitched “I’ve found it! I’ve found it” yelps as they race off in hot pursuit. Unfortunately they don’t catch a lot of bunnies but the exercise they get chasing both real and imaginary ones is all good.
While they may not be working dogs I think they earn their keep with pest control.
Fowl Intentions
Sunday afternoon Souz left and Aaron and I did some more work on the dam for the new duck pond. The water level is at least knee high at the moment but we’d like it a bit higher. Overall I think it’s going to be a very nice living area for the ducks. There’s heaps of space for them. Although we’re only getting a dozen of them, depending on how they cope we maybe be able to increase the number later down the track.
As for the chickens, we were going to put them in with the ducks but I worry about the aggressiveness of our chooks. Instead I have decided they can go in the orchard paddock, below the dog run, on the other side of the duck fence.
We are going to open this up to the pigs as well but I’m sure they’ll all manage to get along. We’re also going to build a proper chicken coop in the hope that the chickens might go a bit broody and hatch a few babies for us.
Our chooks are absolutely loving the free range lifestyle but this has started to become a problem for us. For a start the chicken poop on the verandah is getting out of hand but also the chickens have decided to revert to their ancestral calling and have taken to spending most of the day in the bush.
Initially this was great, there’s bound to be heaps of yummy insects for them to gobble up, they’re safe from any overhead predators and the hot sun and it also means less shit on the verandah right?
Unfortunately we have been without eggs for 2 weeks. I had thought initially the girls were off the lay. Perhaps they’d had another attack of lice? And then it occurred to me, those girls are laying their eggs in the bush! Twice I scrabbled up and down through the bush looking by tree roots and under ferns and damn it, I couldn’t find the eggs.
The problem is the chickens are lower to the ground than me and therefore can access more hiding spots than me. Then there’s the rats. What rat wouldn’t steal off with a chicken egg if it found one? Aaron was pissed off about this latest development. “That’s it. Their heads are coming off and they’re going in the freezer.” I suggested we just lock them up again for a while. Aaron reluctantly agreed.
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