What do you do with Round Steak?

The offending cut: Round Steak

One of the problems with having a business that sells food products, is that you get left with the stuff no one else wants to buy. And for us, that means that we're forced to learn how to cook that cut of meat. In this case, it's Round Steak from our side of beef. There are loads of things you can do with it - and I think this is a completely under-rated cut, but it was unfamiliar to me until we were left with the stuff that wasn't selling at the market. So I got inventive and inspired. I have been working on this recipe for a little while, and I'm now pretty happy to share it with you.

WARNING: it's simple, and you already have all the ingredients in the cupboard.

ADDITIONAL WARNING: it tastes bloody good, and if you're anything like me, you'll over eat because of this!

Round Beef Steak and Lentil Pie

Ingredients:

• 850g (or so) of Round Beef Steak - diced
• 1 brown onion - diced
• 2 beef stock cubes (better still, you're own stock)
• 1 jar of passata (the jars in the supermarket are 690g) or 2 tins of diced Australian tomatoes
• 1 cup of whole (puy) lentils (you could use tinned chickpeas or beans instead if you don't have any lentils in the cupboard)
• 1 tablespoon of coarsely cracked black pepper (less if you're feeding littlies too)
• 3 large spuds
• 1/2 head of cauliflower
• 1 cup of grated cheddar
• dash of milk
• butter/olive oil for cooking

Method:

1. Fry off the onion in some butter and olive oil.
2. Brown the diced Round Steak - best to cook in small batches and the remove from the heavy-based pan and cook the next batch. This way, you can properly brown it (it's worth the extra effort for the better flavour and satisfaction you get).
3. Return the browned beef and onion back to the pan, add in the passata, the stock, the lentils and the tablespoon of pepper. Top up with a bit of water if required (should be covering the meat).
4. Cook for about 90 mins on a low heat - until the meat is tender (I use a Le Creuset heavy based pot with the lid on).
5. Peel you spuds, dice and boil, and steam your cauliflower at the same time.
6. Mash the spud and cauliflower together (add the milk and some extra butter until you get a consistency you're happy with) and add in half the grated cheddar.
7. Put the meat combo in a pie dish, layer the mash over the top and sprinkle the rest of the cheddar over the top.
8. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees until the top is browned, serve with a fresh salad or some lightly steamed green beans.
9. Try not to go back for more. 

Things we've learnt so far....

• How to pull a calf (that's stuck during labour).
• A picnic with goats is a recipe for disaster.
• Don't ever bother wearing nice clothes.
• We never thought we'd have to deal with so much shit. Literally.
• Don't listen to your wife when she says you need to check on the goat babies at 1am in the morning (then she locks you in their little house in attempt to get all of them inside, which they were before you checked on them). It's a very noisy affair.
• With great joy comes great sadness (the births are great, stock loss is always sad).

Goat cuddles.

• Always accept goat cuddles.
• Full moon = crazy animals (the cows go slightly "doolally").
• Goats love eating thistle flowers, just before they burst into bloom.
• Spring is ridiculously busy, especially when you have newborn (human) babies too.
• Toddlers "helping" aren't really helping.

Helping.

• Wine and cheese go well together, beers and cheese go well together, wine and beer also go well together.
• There is no point about crying over spilt milk in the dairy. Best to just get over it and clean it up.
• Dogs love to share the poddy kids' milk. It makes them somewhat portly.
• Hamish loves to share the poddy's milk.
• Weeds. That is all.

He touched the electric fence.

• Don't touch the electric fences. (I've lost count how many times have I said that!)
• Bulls can be scary. Cows can also be scary.
• Hand-raising a calf with the goats leads to a very big, funny-looking (cow)goat.
• Plant more trees.
• There is always fencing to do. Always.

Fencing. And more helping.

• The best weather for fencing in is in the wind and sleet, according to Iain.
• How to build a website.
• How to build sheds.
• Blackberries. One for the bucket, one for me.
• A wise man told us that "a big dry is broken by a big rain". So far, so true.
• Bushfires are scary.
• All children should visit a farm.
• The day you make a time-dependent plan is the day the animals decide to change their routine.
• We live in a wonderful community, and are so thankful for all the support we have received and continue to receive.

A picnic with goats.

Yearling calves not being scary.

Spring madness. Lots of newborns and kids.

More helping.

Dear Georgie (resting now) getting portly (on blood and bone).

Daddy Jacob posing with yet another sunset.

Bringing the girls home after evacuating for the bushfire in January 2013.

Sunsets and sunrises in our part of the world.

Once-a-Day Milking

One of the benefits of coming into farming at a later age is that you aren't bound by conventional thought processes or ways of doing things. Some of the practices we have at Leap Farm are met with disbelief by some farmers, and milking once a day is one of those.

Once-a-Day milking has been adopted more widely in New Zealand than in Australia, and is becoming attractive to cow dairy farmers over there. Many of the producers there have found that, after the transitioning process from twice a day to once a day has occurred, productivity is hardly different - 98 % of twice-a-day volumes in good herds and broadly 80 - 85 % of twice a-day volumes across all herds (New Zealand Dairy Exporter, October 2016, www.farmersweekly.co.nz). But what is different is the health of the animals: once a day (cow) milkers have less lameness and higher "in-calf" rates after 6 weeks (that is, they fall pregnant more easily because they are in better condition). The added benefits come in time saved by the farmer (and frees up time and money to make improvements on the farm elsewhere), less costs running the dairy twice a day, less water use, less effluent to manage, and on it goes. In other words, the cost structure is so much lower, with equivalent volumes of milk production, so profitability improves, and animals and farmers are less stressed and tired, and less likely to burn out and suffer other mental health issues.

There is limited research into Once-a-Day milking for cow diaries, and even less for goats, but that hasn't stopped us. We made a decision right at the beginning of this journey that we would be once-a-day milkers. Partly because Kate was working off-farm full-time and unable to help out on the farm except on days-off, and partly because it fits better with our ethos of ethical and sustainable farming. Interestingly, we have found that our production is equivalent to, and sometimes better than a similar goat dairy that milks twice a day. We also crunched the numbers, and found that this is more profitable as well as more sustainable for us, largely due to the lower input costs and reduced labour hours.

So how does it work?

The goats and their kids free-range in our paddocks (through which they rotate, depending on the time of year) during the day, all together. In the evenings, the herd returns to Home Paddock, at which point we open a gate to let the Mums in, keeping the kids and non-milking goats out in the paddock, where they can access shelter overnight if they want. The Ladies head into their shed where they get a feed of micronised barley and then settle down on the composting hay floor for the night. In the morning, we milk the girls, and then after we're done, they go out and join the youngsters, and then head off into the paddock en masse. And so it starts again.

Feeding the kids each morning. I realised that I had finally found my perfect job.

Tabby's kid has been fed, and basks in the sun, waiting for the next kid to join him in the paddock.

The benefits for the kids are that they get mum's milk, and seem to grow better because of it. It also means that we don't need to feed them, which is both an expensive and time-consuming operation. It would potentially add about 3-4 hours of work to the day, not to mention the actual costs associated with feeding. Understanding mammal physiology helps: the multiple suckles that the kids get during a day stimulates the cells in the udder to produce more milk, increasing milk production.

Other advantages include less animal-animal caused injury as the kids are integrated into the herd from the beginning. We are also able to keep the boys and allow them to grow, rather than getting rid of them at or soon after birth. We divert them into meat production once they reach adequate size (around 12-18 months of age). Allowing them to have a (good) life, rather than being an unwanted by-product of the industry that is removed as soon as practicable, is integral to our ethical and sustainable manifest.

The kids rush up the laneway to wait for the gate to be opened and reuinted with their mums.

One of the disadvantages, that we have learnt the hard way, is that the kids can become very flighty. Unless they are handled by humans from an early age, their instinct, as with all animals that are predated upon, is to stay well clear of us. Which is not ideal when you need to milk them! So we have worked hard this spring to tame them up. For the first 4-6 weeks, once separated from their mother overnight, they would snuggle down together in the old dairy building. In the morning, while Iain milked, Kate would give them all a feed of milk. This daily handling (and food on an empty stomach) has resulted in calm, tame kids, that love nothing more than a scratch behind the ears. We are a lot more confident that the little girls from this years' drop will be far easier to manage on the platform.

The morning greeting - all those little stripy faces!

Currently, this system is working for us. Whether this will be sustainable in the future remains to be seen - when we get to 100 milking does, we'll be looking at feeding 200 kids each morning. This year we were feeding about 60, and that process took about 45-60 minutes. It will be interesting to see how we develop our systems to maintain our operation in the future.

Kidding Around

About a week ago, Lulu kidded - she provided us with 3 lovely little girls! Over the week since we've had 10 girls kid - 4 sets of triplets (so far) and lots of twins. Thank goodness we haven't had quintuplets this year (poor TInky had 5 last year, only 2 this year, much to everyone's relief). And so far, 60% are girls. That's great news for us: we have a closed herd (we only get more goats through our own breeding program). We made the decision to have a closed herd policy very early on, as it means that we don't introduce animals infected with goat-specific diseases into our herd. It can be very difficult getting rid of some of these diseases from your herd, and goat health and happiness is our core business afterall. So more girls means more milk, and more cheese in the years to come.

The problem of being one of a triplet - there are only 2 teats!

Hamish gets up close to one of Tabby's kids.

Lulu's triplets hang out in the sunshine.

Phryngo with her 2 little boys.

For those of you who have had children. I'm sure you can empathise with poor Myffy here - I know we can!

Hamish starts the domestication process.

With all this new life, we've also had a death - our dear best mate, Georgie. George made it to 16 years of age (he was going to be 17 in 3 months time) after being rescued by Kate from the Lost Dog's Home in Tasmania in 2000. He was a kind, gentle dog who provided a lot of laughs and a lot of vet bills. One of his specialities was managing to need a trip to the vet for some expensive reason, the day before we would be going away. I swear he knew! He was the best listener and ally. He was also the Best Dog at our wedding in 2005, having chosen Iain from a series of suitors that courted Kate in the early 2000s. We miss him keenly, as does Sammy, our other dog, but we are so grateful to have had such a wonderful character in our lives who brought us so much joy.

Georgie loved to hang out on the beach while we kitesurfed.

George and Sam hanging out and helping with fencing.

Enjoying our local, Marion Bay Beach.

Helping Iain in the early days on the farm.

Spring Clean

It's about 3 weeks until we're expecting the first kids to be born, which means it's time to spring clean the girls' quarters! We had accumulated almost a year's worth of composting-hay flooring which we cleaned out with the help of the excavator. 

The digger, having a break for morning tea, sitting atop a year's worth of hot composting floor.

The floor was then transported to the top of one of the paddocks, where it was wet with water and will continue to compost down. In about a year's time (after it's been turned over and wet down again at least twice more), it will be spread over the paddock, and so provide a nitrogen boost. It's a great way of recycling carbon on the farm, and puts all that goat poo and wee to good use too.

The pile begins to take shape.

And so it grows.

We love our compost floor - it acts as a great insulator from the cold concrete flooring of the shed, and it's also quite comfy for the girls to lie down on (so comfy, that during milking season, we often have to wake them up in the morning). It's a sensible way to utilise the hay that the girls don't want to eat (they pick out the best bits and toss the other stuff around - often onto the floor or ground). They stay warm and dry - the combination of poo, wee and hay starts the hot-composting process (seriously, it's well over 50 degrees C deep in the litter), and the hay is sitting on a graduated floor that has a drain in place so any wet stuff filters down and is able to exit the shed into the effluent system. We open up the roller doors when they're out in the paddock, and the wind and sun dries it out a little more. Then, before they get tucked in at night, we scatter more hay to ensure a clean and dry layer is on top.

The 2015 compost pile, turned and wetted on several occasions over the course of the year.

The 2015 compost close-up.

The finished pile from 2016! Approximately 26m x 3m x 1+m - that's a lot of poo and hay!

Clean floor - now to get it comfy again....

Prepping the floor each evening.

5-star accommodation, if you're a goat!

The girls rush in to check out their new bedroom.

Delicious Award - Tongola a State Finalist

We were delighted to discover last week that Tongola's "Big B" (a 1kg washed rind, semi-hard goat cheese) has won a coveted state finalist Delicious Magazine award. We're pleased that our milk was used in the making of the Big B. So from here, it's fingers crossed that they go on to win the national division of "from the dairy". 

Mmmmm - Big B....

Baby Season, again.

One of the wonderful joys of living in Tasmania is the ability to be immersed in the seasons. Living on a farm intensifies this privilege; spring heralds the arrival of the babies, summer's long, long days exhaust us as we sit down to dinner at 9pm after the light has faded and the jobs are done, autumn brings crisp, cool mornings that see the goats eating more hay to "get their rumens going", and then there's winter...

The valley at Copping sparkles with frost in the early winter light.

Zoe, the newest baby on the farm.

Winter is bliss here on the farm - the days are short, the wood-stove is on, the slow cooking fills the house smells that "go round your heart like a hairy worm" (a Scottish saying, for the uninitiated), and the goats are dry - no milking for 2-3 months! Bliss! Which should mean sleep-ins - but then we have a toddler.... and now a new-born. So despite it being winter, there is a new baby on the farm. And she's settled in well and is thriving.

2 years ago we had our first winter baby - and it was during his early months that the dairy was built. Since then, we've had 2 very successful seasons producing goat milk. This winter, the arrival of the baby has coincided with the build of our dairy processing factory. We are hopeful that we will have everything in place in time for the kid-drop in mid-late September so that we can start cheese production on farm at the start of the season. So while winters are usually a time for rest, recovery and getting outstanding jobs done (like fencing - the eternal, bloody fencing), this winter is once again frantic - as we build again with another new addition to the family.

Their work done for the year, the boys rest in the sun, on a fresh hay bed!

Eli shows his love for the girls, giving the the "top lip".

And as we try to squeeze as much as we can into every short day, the cows and goats quietly continue to gestate while the bull and the bucks sadly realise that their work is done for another year. The grass is slowly growing with all the rain and the mild temperatures we've had, which is a reprieve after the last 3 dry years, particularly the summer just past. The magpies greet the sun every morning and the kookaburras cackle at the setting sun every night, and slowly, but surely, their songs are getting further apart as the days lengthen. 

One of the last milkings of the season.

As we start our 5th year on the farm, we've had a chance to reflect on this new life we've started. We can't believe that 4 years (in one place!) has gone so quickly. We've managed to take this land in a new direction, successfully producing ethical, pastured, yummy beef and goat meats and goat milk. And so it's onto the next adventure: raising a young family and producing artisanal cheese. We'll keep you posted. 

Short days, long shadows.

A quick run down on the Small Farms, Big Ideas workshop in Copping, June

I promised a quick run down a couple of months ago (!) of the Tasman workshop held on June 18th this year. Where has that time gone?!?!?

The Small Farms, Big ideas workshops were a series of day long meetings, pitched primarily at women involved with small holdings. It was part of a great initiative by Annette Reed of Tasmanian Natural Garlic and Tomatoes, Tasmania's Rural Woman of the Year. This workshop was supported by NRM South. I also discovered the Tasmanian Women in Agriculture not-for-profit organisation. Membership is free - follow the link to become a member online.

Annette had an opportunity to tell her story, and invited some other local women to provide some of their insights and knowledge. I personally found it quite an inspiring day. Invited guests included author and land holder Rachael Treasure, Local Produce Melanie Leesong of the Coal River Farm, Hilary Hartley of Grown for Taste, and me.

A brief synopsis of the themes that were (briefly) explored by the guests and the audience:

• Whatever you do, you MUST have passion for you product. This translates immediately to your customers, and I'm certain it makes your produce taste better! I know from experience that I explain our product again, and again, it I still get excited about it every time. If you don't think you will, don't do it. I guess it;s also about pride in your product.
• Utilise social media (and webpages) for marketing. This is free, and can be done efficiently.
• If you can't do it, find someone who can: recognising your limitations and outsourcing parts of your business (or even your social marketing) is incredibly important for your business, the product and your own sanity.
• Try and vertically-integrate and value-add to your product. Vertical integration is about control of the basic unit of produce (eg the goat milk) to which you value-add (on farm) (eg cheese). You have control over all stages of the development, and you also have control over supply.
• Long-term sustainability needs to include emotional, psychological, financial and also physical aspects. Design for body sustainability - after all, it's hard to pull weeds or plant garlic with a bad back. And you only ever get older...
• Soil management and weed management have huge impacts on your product. Look after your land, and your land will look after your product.
• Future-proof for adversity.
• Too many ideas is as big a problem as too few - make sure you don't bite off more than you can chew, refer back to the sustainability point!
• Agritourism is a new(ish) industry - harness the interest people have in where their food comes from.
• Know the regulations and legislation surrounding your product - design and plan to those regulations.
• There is a huge conflict which I have realised over the last 3 years that affects all producers: there is a conflict between sales and production, and the juxtaposition can be hard to to manage. It is so easy to get caught up in improving your product (or fixing the fences to keep your product in) that you forget to sell. Without money, there are no tools or materials to fix that fence - so you have to spend time on selling your product also. It can be difficult.
• Think about how you can pool resources with other produces local to you - I see that co-ordinating transport, forming co-operatives and working together is going to be key to long term success for smaller producers.

I discovered a couple of interesting resources through this workshop - Stipa is an organisation that promotes and demonstrates the profitable management of native grasslands for resilient ecological health. Perennial pastures are an important and sustainable way to manage land and produce good quality animals. Mark Shepard is an American Farmer interested in Regeneration Agriculture - click here for more information. Definitely another thing I need to look into!

Thanks to Annette Reed for her passion and for developing the workshops, and the other (inspirational) guests. A huge thanks to the audience for their interest, enthusiasm and kindness.

Cheers,

Kate.

Winter musings

It's been a while since we've posted on the blog! Life has been busy, and Fresh Cuts is usually the first thing that get's postponed. This post is a brief rundown of what we've been up to on the farm for the last couple of months and what's going on over winter.

The dairy season concluded for the year in the middle of June - the girls went from first time mothers and milkers, who were wary of even getting on the platform the first time, to gaily trotting up the ramp to get stuck into some breakfast. Iain also survived - although he is glad that he can have a little lie in in the mornings when it's bitterly cold outside!

Hamish shows Amelia how its done.

Speaking of cold, the girls are having a lovely time sleeping inside the shed at night. The composting hay floor is working really well, providing insulation from the ground and some extra heat from the composting process. They seem to enjoy it so much that sometimes they lay about sun-baking themselves in the morning sun, and refuse to forage for the green stuff. Too comfortable, I think!

The 18th of June saw the Small Farms Big Ideas Tasman Peninsula workshop at the Copping Hall. I was invited to speak at this workshop, followed by a tour of Leap Farm. I'm working on a summary of the day which I will post soon.

We've already had some new additions to the farm - a couple of months earlier than anticipated (care of some visiting bulls 9 months ago!). We have had 3 calves born, and all 3 are doing well - the mums are happy and there's plenty of tucker on the ground and shelter available for the bad weather days. Such cuties! I am looking forward to seeing the calves sired by our new bull, Hector.

One of our new calves for the season.

Speaking of calves - little Buttercup, our poddy calf from last spring, has finally left the company of the micros (the baby doe kids born in spring) to join the cow herd. We suspect she thought she was a goat - she certainly still likes to hang out with her friends, although they're on the other side of the fence. She is also hanging out with some of her half-siblings now, which is lovely to see. 

Buttercup and the doelings enjoy some extra tucker.

It's our quiet time on the farm, when all the animals are gestating and the grass isn't growing too much. It gives us a chance to recuperate, and to get some of those outstanding jobs done: like fencing. We have so much fencing to get done before the spring is here again, and the babies are arriving and the girls need to be milked... and then it'll be winter again before we know it! 

The goat burger at Criterion St Cafe. Highly recommended!

A few local restaurants have been stocking our goat meat: try Criterion St Cafe's goat burgers, Andy the chef has done a great job on them. Also, Smolt and the Italian Pantry do very wonderful things with out meat from time to time. 

So for now, we're staying warm care of the wood-fired stove, enjoying hearty, slow-cooked beef and goat meals and having great fun watching Hamish practice his walking. Finally, a big thank you to our customers who have been giving our aged beef and goat meat great reviews. We're very happy and proud that our product is making you smile, knowing that tasty food can be ethically and sustainably produced, locally. And thanks to our customers, we've managed to donate another $200 to the Dogs' Home of Tasmania so far this year (from the gold-coins that pay for the dog bones at the market).