Bredbo Valley View Farm

Our Farm in 1995 – the good years

The weeks are going by and the jobs are stacking up. Thursday night, after my umpteenth early morning was the Bee association meeting. Various people spoke about ideas and issues they had come across in the recent past. It was all very interesting and I heard some good ideas. The Duck Herder was there and it was nice to catch up. She’s got the inside scoop now and knows what I don’t put on here.

Whilst I was at the bee meeting we had some poor chap hanging around town waiting for me to get home. He wanted to buy a few pigs for gastronomic reasons. He finally gave up and went home, but luckily called back the next day.

Friday morning was cold, and because we had evicted the last young piglets from the house the fire hadn’t been left burning all night, funny how the cook can’t wait for the piglets to leave and is then the first person to complain once they are gone. That night I picked up a load of green waste from Dave, six 44 Gallon drums full. I thought the trailer was going to pull off the car at on point, but with a little luck and at eighty KPH I finally arrived home – to find they’d already eaten dinner…!!!!!

Saturday morning started early with pigs going first thing. It’s getting a lot easier to get them loaded and away now we have a little bit of experience behind us. We trucked out six boars, the Cook sent me straight into town to buy Harry a new pair of boots and a new battery for the electric fence. I was a little shocked at the price batteries have risen since I purchased the last one, they’d gone up about 50%.

By the time I arrived back home there was just enough time for a cup of tea when Dave and his family showed up. I’d forgotten he was coming out to shoot foxes. So we toddled off up into the hills, whilst Dave’s wife and kids waited at home for the Cook to return from Cooma. We saw a couple of foxes but they were a bit quick for Dave and have managed to live another day. I haven’t been out shooting with anybody in a long time and it was interesting the different approach between a civilian and military way of doing it.

So I didn’t get home until after dark and the Cook hadn’t fed anything – so I was out until late feeding the starving hoards. By the time I got back to the house it was well and truly bed time.

Sunday morning was another early one, I took a breeding trio out to Burra. When I arrived the people asked me how I was going to unload them and get them into their new yards. Because our pigs are very trusting and haven’t been mistreated, they are very easy to handle, so we just opened up the back of the trailer and they jumped down into the paddock. After a quick sniff and graze they followed me straight into their new home. The people who took them didn’t expect them to be so friendly.

I had to be back in Bredbo by noon so I could make the dump before it shut, the Cook likes me to deal with the household rubbish, so she was very keen I wasn’t late. I got that job done and then fixed the pig fence and installed the new battery. We fed out some more green scraps, filled waters and refilled the grain bins before having a break for lunch.

The boy’s are going for a sleep over Monday night and I’ll be late home so by the time I had the feeds made up and the waters done and everything else it was after dark. By dinner time I was ready to drop, we had a late dinner and I hit the hay before 10:00 O’clock. The Cook took her usual nap in front of the fire before coming to bed late.

We were woken at 6:00am by the phone, the people who I delivered the pigs too wanted to let us know how they were settling in – at 6:00am, they thought I’d be up! But unfortunately for me it was the first morning in ages I was able to sleep in – because of school holidays, no appointments and the Cook was on days off. Anyway they were really happy with the pigs, couldn’t believe how quite and good natured they are and just love them – it was nice to know, but it could’ve waited until 9:00am.

We’ve become members of the Slow Food Movement as well. They are organising a regional group based on the Monaro and we thought it would be good to be foundation members of a group in our area.

Just found my Sister-in-Law Fiona has started a Blog about their family – check it out here http://cattle-kids-chaos.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html , it’s only new, but it looks great. You can see the difference in country between South Eastern NSW and Central Queensland – but where are the pigs????

Well I didn’t win Oz Lotto last night. But I was bitten by a piglet today – and that’s not something I don’t want to repeat too often. The little piglets were a little bit hungry when we brought them in tonight. In their eagerness to get their heads in the feed bowl one of them decided I needed a little hurry up. Got me right on the finger, no wonder the Cook screams. She spent all day in the garden building the Berlin wall around her garden to stop the pigs
The winds have been blowing all day, they are a little worse this evening, and we’ll see what it’s done in the morning.

I went it town this morning, early mornings I like to catch the first Sky News report at 5.45am. But this morning I had trouble finding the remote; by the time I managed to get the TV on it was time to go. I was in a shop in town with a mate and went to pull out my wallet, what I pulled out was the remote for the TV – can’t buy breakfast with that chirped my mate. I was wondering how long the kids had spent looking for it after I’d gone. So anyway the Cook couldn’t watch any day time TV.

Last night I had the trailer on the car full of bread – it was Tuesday. I parked the car and went off to do a job, by the time I got back it was pouring rain. Unfortunately for me, not only was it raining but the trailer had a flat tyre. So I ripped the tyre off, and found the spare was flat also, I took it to three servo’s before I found one that had an air compressor and hose that worked. After I got everything back together – in the rain, I headed home, it was about 8:00pm when I left town. It rained and blew all the way home, when I got out at the front gate the wind was blowing above 65kph and the rain was bucketing down. The unusual thing was that the moon was out and the stars were shining. The rain was being blown from about four kilometres away from the western ranges right across the valley to us. Unfortunately the rain gauge was blown over, but using mum’s feed bucket method I think we had more than 15mm.