Agrarian treat

The company I work for gives employees one day of 'birthday leave' every year. Nice, huh? Not that it's different to any other leave, but you just have to take it, because, well, it's your birthday! David booked a special treat birthday lunch at the Agrarian Kitchen Eatery in New Norfolk. Housed in a building inside the former Willow Court mental asylum, the restaurant has received many rave reviews since it opened in 2017. It lived up to expectations. It's a hard call, but I think the dish I liked most was salt baked beetroot with horseradish, kefir cream and saltbush. My leftover bread ice cream and David's pavlova were also sensational. And the staff were lovely. We've both done cooking classes at the Agrarian Kitchen down the road in Lachlan, before so we have seen where much of the produce served in the restaurant is grown. People watching was pretty entertaining too.

Surprise chick

We've had a few broody hens in the shed over the past few weeks, including one that was found to be sitting on 49 eggs!! Needless to say she couldn't keep those warm enough to hatch and they were removed. Then a week ago, I went down to let the chooks out in the morning and heard cheeping coming from under one of the hens, and a healthy chick emerged from her feathers.

It was a complete surprise, as I didn't think any of them had been sitting for the 21 days required for eggs to hatch. A week later and there is still only one chick and some interesting co-parenting arrangements between the three sitting hens. If nothing else happens in the next week, I'm going to remove those hens from their eggs and move them to the 'summer shed' (see previous post) where the nest boxes seem more conducive to happy brooding.

Chook jungle

Over winter, the chooks were housed in the lovely old pickers-hut-converted-to-henhouse which is warmer and drier and better able to cope with snow than our fancy new chook mansion (above). The soil in the mansion's yard had turned into a barren clay bog, so over winter we added wood mulch and grass clippings, and I added handfuls of 'green manure' seeds - a mixture of grasses, peas and beans designed to add nutrients to the soil. Then spring hit, and the grasses, peas and beans took off, creating a small edible forest for the chooks to move back into last weekend! In one week they've managed to flatten most of it, but it has given them a lot of nice insects and tasty leaves to peck. The only downside to having them in the lovely clean and new house is that it's closer to our house, and we can now hear Mr. Vladimir Putin the rooster crowing at sun up. Which at this time of year is pretty early. Oh well. Meanwhile, we still have three roosters disguised as Barnevelder hens. I'm hoping that by moving the dominant male (Vlad) into a different house, they will start to show their true feathers.

The year of the echidna

Last week a neighbour gave me a lift down the road to the monthly movie night at the Palais (we saw The Merger, a terrific Aussie film, you must see it). He remarked that he's seen many more echidnas this year than in past years. You almost can't drive up or down our road without seeing one of them trundling along or digging into the clay bank on the side of the road. David and I had said the same thing only the day before. We've seen lots of them at our place too, making their way across our front paddock or across the road. One evening we saw our dog Gretchen sitting and staring at something in the corner of the yard. It turned out to be an echidna happily digging its way into an ants nest. This week, I managed to snap a few close ups of another one in almost the same place, pulling up tufts of grass and digging a hole. Echidnas in Tasmania have more fur and fewer spikes than their mainland Australian cousins. Aren't they just gorgeous?

Christmas pranksters

When we go away for a night, our dear friends and neighbours kindly pop over to feed and pat the dogs, and let the chooks out on the day we return. They also like to play a prank and see how long it takes for us to notice! Clearly we aren't very observant, because it took us several days to spot that they had swapped out several album covers in our wall display the first time around, and replace them with such tasteful classics as Ripper (1975).

This time it was one of the "robot family" in our front paddock that copped it. David made them from old computer parts and there they sit in all weather, greeting the (very few) people who drive past. Sometimes people stop to take photos of them and kids hug them! Since our recent trip to Melbourne to see Smashmouth, one of the family has taken on a distinctly Christmassy look.

Fledgelings

Photo: David L. Moore

Each year, we track the progress and parenting success (or otherwise) of the beautiful pair of welcome swallows that nest under the back deck each year. This year our visitors are very efficient. They arrived early in the season and promptly started building a clay nest, lined with material including Bernese Mountain Dog hair and Huon Blue chook feathers. Today the first batch of three chicks reached the fledgeling stage and headed out of the nest, while their anxious parents swooped around and chirped loudly to warn us off. David managed to snap a few photos of all three babies with their typically wide mouths and scruffy new feathers, sitting in the sun on our garden furniture. Next comes the more difficult task of flying back into the nest! We love watching and listening to these beautiful little fellows. Never mind the pile of poop on the back deck.

A moment in time

Almost two years ago, we were among the first to experience long table dining at the newly opened Fat Pig Farm, run by Matthew Evans and Sadie Chrestman, at a local business dinner organised by the Kingborough & Huon Community Enterprise Centre (KHBEC). Last week we were back, for another KHBEC dinner. Paddock to plate has become a cliche these days, but you can see it with your own eyes at Fat Pig Farm. Sadie told us about the philosophy of Fat Pig Farm. It's about a moment in time: the produce harvested and cooked that day is different from any other day. It's also about community: the local producers, growers, winemakers and staff who share a love of real food, as well as the people who come together at the table to eat it. The meal was truly special, from the lemon and ginger hot toddy served on arrival to individual desserts served in glasses to make standing up and networking easy. The Fat Pig Farm team knows how to cater, that's for sure. David and I have wanted to visit for a Friday Feast for ages. We've held out, thinking that friends or family visiting from the mainland might be keen to join us, but to no avail. We'll just have to book it in for ourselves sometime.