"Balmoral Park" farm garden

Its been a long time between posts but after a few weeks of having all of the family here at the farm I thought it would be nice to start posting regularly about what we are doing here to keep people up to date in between visits. 2015 was a busy and challenging year in many respects as I continue to work full time and mostly away from home, I am away a couple of days each week. The garden has certainly suffered as I have has to be realistic about what I can manage. Nevertheless it was a pleasant surprise when everyone was here to realise how much of our food still came from the farm, meat from the goats and sheep, eggs, lots of fruit and a few vegies, lots of herbs, it provides motivation to keep on with it all. During 2015 Peter finally built the long awaited Pizza oven. As with everything he does it is a masterpiece and has worked perfectly since the first day we lit it. We are still figuring out how to cook in it but so far we feel we have mastered the art of pizza, done some sl...

Our goats have been very prolific, almost all multiple births! Genevieve had triplets two months ago and Brie had twins today. Reluctantly we have to sell some of the young does that we cant use. Haloumi, Daphenoise, Ricotta and Curds, I wish I could keep them all, they are beautiful girls. Daphenoise is my favourite, or maybe Haloumi who was born out of season in a blistering hot summer and I really thought she wouldn't survive. Daphenoise is the really colourful goat and Haloumi the closest to the right. Below is baby quark, just born today.

Well its been a long while between posts but thought I would post about my favourite breakfast of the moment, Purple Sticky rice and Quinoa Porridge. I think I started making this before it was on all the cafe menus but maybe not! The other day in the supermarket I saw a packet of rice and quinoa already mixed! What I do is cook one cup of purple sticky rice, or any sticky colourful rice would do, red or black, by absorption method and just replace half the water with coconut milk and throw in a cinnamon stick, ten minutes before its done stir through 1/3 rd cup of quinoa, I used a mixed one today, also add a tablespoon of coconut oil. When its nice and sticky and chewy stir through a bit more coconut milk and some grated palm sugar or coconut sugar  if you want. While this is happening toast off some almond flakes until they are a nice colour. Serve with yogurt and fruit. I had rhubarb today but segmented orange is very good as well. Enjoy. 

Our roses are spectacular this spring! Mind you they don't bear too much scrutiny they are covered in aphids and there is quite a bit of black spot but the overall pictures is amazing. I don't worry about the aphids too much as pretty soon the good bugs build up and take care of them. I would like to find an answer for the black spot thought. Jemima's Garden       We have some chickens just hatched out in the incubator, we really need some new hens so hopefully some of these are, we also have some very cute silkies just hatched. Chickens We have a great crop of broad bean this year, broad bean hummus it the way to eat it! Broad Beans Peter is putting in the new pool, so far he has built this lovely retaining wall.

Last night for dinner we had a slow cooked lamb shoulder, ( our lamb), seasonal vegetables form the garden and vanilla ice cream with meringues and mulberries. Almost everything from the farm!

Kim asked yesterday how my goats are going, the answer is really well. We have four mature Does now and a buck. Genevieve kidded in the middle of the summer heatwave and poor little Haloumi got off to a rough start, she soon made up for it though and is a lovely little kid. The others all had multiple births, two sets of twins and one of triplets. So now we have Curds, Whey, Ricotta and Daphinoise as well as three boys, all Cheddars as they are destined for the table. The girls we plan to sell with kids once they are about eighteen months old as trained milking goats. We have some interesting colour combinations and they are all very friendly. Peter has been milking Brie and occasionally Feta, we have let Elisabet be as she is quite old and feeding twins. Brie and her twins The Triplets Haloumi

Well I'm on a roll, two posts in two days! We were sitting on the verandah eating our breakfast and admiring the view this morning and Peter said he had found a photo of the front garden when we first moved here. from this to this It is amazing what we have created in six years if i do say so myself, those years have included three of drought, a couple of major illnesses and generally working full time. It is a joy to see the progress.