New Additions - Part 3

It's been a little while since I posted anything about our beloved new calves and upon reflection on my blog NEW ADDITIONS - PART 2, it sure has been an experience.

There is a lot to learn with calving as there more risk than I thought there would be.  Learnings:

1. All our heifers are fertile (which is good for production). 
2. All our heifers produced good size calves (which is good ... but very bad if you're not prepared).
3. Have a holding area close to the house with all the equipment when the heifer is ready to calf.  Simply pulling the calf to assist won't cut it and it keeps mother and calf safe once its all over.  We lost 2 calves (which is bad .. and sad). Rua was born late at night and fell through the fence into the nearby drain and drowned. Waru was stillborn as she got stuck during birth.
4. 4 out of 6 surviving calves are female (which is good for further production ... and great because males will grow larger).  Now we just need to decide what to do with the 2 males.  Turn them into steers OR keep them as bulls.
5. A heifer that has lost their calf goes through some trauma and still has good milk so there are still some risks.  Decide whether to place another calf with her.  We gained a calf from a local farmer to replace Waru.  We called her Iwa and after covering her with the scent of Waru, mother embraced her as her own - although it was a tough couple of days to begin with.

I managed to capture some early photo's of some of the newborns. All calves were born over a period of 7 weeks.

5 of our 7 calves we have gained.

It has been a few months now adn the calves are growing fast and eating grass and hay.  Now the challenge is to manage the feed for them all over the summer & autumn periods.


All 7 calves, with their mama's

Although this was a whole different experience to calving that I blogged about in  NEW ADDTIONS. The risks were far higher, but in comparison, I still believe that this is the best option. 

I still don't claim to know everything about beef but one thing is for sure - it's great living, loving and learning on the Ponderosa!!

Happy learning people!!

Homemade Xmas Presents

With the weather today being wet and windy and xmas around the corner it's time to start thinking about what ideas we will do as gifts for my whanau and friends. 

For the past few years now, we've made the extra effort to give a gift pack filled with a number of goodies I've blogged about including LIMONCELLO and ICE CREAM PACKS as well as sugar scrubs, cakes, cookies, chutneys, smors, chocolates, sauces, slices and the list goes on.

The month leading up to xmas day is pretty full on trying to bring the gift boxes together, but it's definitely all well worth it when they are all given out.

I'd really like to look at doing something slightly different this year and there are some fantastic ideas on the internet if you are wanting to look at doing something like this.  The gifts don't need to be very expensive either - I encourage you to give this a go!

Happy living people!!!

Linda - Gets Chic

A second project that provided an opportunity to renew an old home that was lacking some charm & sophistication.  I loved being apart of this project and learnt more than I every thought I would.

This was an awesome exercise and I am forever grateful for this opportunity.

Happy living people!

A Super Cake For A Super Hero

Every year I have been asked to make a birthday cake from a very special person for her wonderful son.  Every year is a new design so when I was asked to produce an Iron Man mask for her little super hero, I was more than happy to oblige.

As always, I'm keen to take on a new challenge, and decided to capture the entire process of putting the cake together. First thing was first though.  I needed to buy a mask to ensure I knew what the final product was suppose to look like.

My husband was extremely enthusiatic to help with this cake.  He came up with the idea of having LED lights placed inside the cake so that the eye's light up just like the real Iron Man.  He even went out of his way to ensure the edible paint was the right shade and painted the entire mask! 

I am really happy with the final result - especially when the eyes were lit up.

Happy living people!

 

Awaiting The Fruits Of Our Labour

The Ponderosa sure does look wonderful this time of year and with the weather being so lovely I found myself wondering around looking at all the fruit trees we have planted over the past 12 months.  I blogged about these in HOMEGROWN FOOD.

To my excitement, they are beginning to show some really positive signs of our expected summer crops.

The property has 5 plum trees now with all of them showing great produce. The Japanese plum tree is a mature tree that was on the property when we arrived with its fruit having a lovely sweet yellow flesh with ruby skin. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good photo of the tree to show all the fruit.



4 of our 5 plum trees.  The tree in the top left has a wonderful yellow flesh & skin which we bought with us from our previous property.  The other 3 are black doris plums.

All 5 of our cherry trees are showing great signs of fruit and I'm very determine to get some fruit before the birds beat me to it.  Fingers crossed I win!!!

3 of our 5 cherry trees.  I'm determined to get some fruit this year before the birds get to them.

We have planted 7 peach trees.  4 of our favourite variety - Golden Queen and 3 dwarf peaches which have a lovely red skin.  I expected it would take a few years for our golden queens to establish themselves before producing the volumes we wish for because we love this variety so much.  Imagine my surprise to find that they were performing better than anticipated.  Although we won't get dozens of fruit, just to have a taste for a couple of days will be suffice for now.

Our dwarf peaches on the other hand are coming along leaps and bounds.  These are the same trees I shared in my blog SPRING BLOSSOMS.  For small trees they are loaded with fruit and I'm so glad I didn't move them like I had intentions to.


3 of our 7 peach trees fruiting well.  Fingers crossed our Golden Queens produce the goodies

Lastly is our nectarine tree.  I've never had much success growing nectarines so this tree is special.  It sits pride of place between the homestead and our shed and last year it produced one lonely fruit - yes ONE.  Every day we would inspect the fruit to see if it was ripe and it was a race between the whanau to see who got to try it first.  Husband 1 - Rest of us - 0.  In fact he devoured it all by himself.  This year the tree is showing signs of at least two nectarines.  :-)Fingers cross my husband shares this season. 

Our nectarine tree.  Not a good photo of the tree, but the pooch looks cute!

Given it's only been 12 months for alot of these fruit trees to establish and we aren't talking production that will "feed the multitudes", I'm still pretty happy with where we are at.  In fact, I'm pretty excited about it!!

Happy living people!!



BBQ'd Chilli Corn

I had a couple of friends who went to Mexico for a holiday and came back raving about this chilli corn snack they had on the side of the road.   I just love sweet corn and after listening to their stories I just had to experiment with some ingredients and the results were just fantastic!!

If you’re not a chilli person, the sour cream helps to kill the heat and I guarantee you’ll find yourself wanting more and more.  Just make sure you have lots of napkins on hold because it can be a little messy, but is truly worth the mess!

Ingredients

4 ears of sweet corn
1 cup of sour cream
¼ cup of mayonnaise
½ cup of coriander
¼ parmesan cheese
¼ Colby cheese
Lime juice
Chilli powder

Method

Remove the husks from the corn and grill on the BBQ evenly until cooked.

While the corn is cooking, combine the mayonnaise, sour cream and chopped coriander and set a side.

In another bowl combine the grated cheeses together and set a side.

When the corn is cooked, smother the mayonnaise mixture over the corn generously, followed by a squeeze of lime juice, then the cheeses and lastly finish with a sprinkle of chilli powder.

Makes 4

 

Happy living people!!

New Chicks Get The Chop

Back in December we went down the track of raising chicks to see how they would work out compared to us purchasing grown chickens nearly ready to lay.  I blogged about this back in May - New Chicks On The Block. 

5 of these 8 chicks were roosters.

The process was relatively stress free and our broody hen took to the new chicks well, however .. the down side of this was we ended up with 5 roosters!!  Not a very productive turnover if we were aiming for more laying hens.

It was time to change the plan of attack.  We decided to keep the roosters until one of the hens became broody again which took until September.  Time to see if our eggs were fertile.  Success ... 2.5 chicks hatched!!  I say 2.5 because one of the chicks didn't quite make it out of the hatching process.  Then we lost another of the new chicks when it drowned in the small water container.  I was starting think raising chickens from fertile eggs is more hard work than I thought.

The roosters have proven to be more than a nuisance than anything else, and I wasn't keen to keep all five roosters considering they are quite agressive towards the hens.  So, given my mum wanted feathers for her korowai, we decided to enter the next stage - The Stock Pot.

My mum & husband plucking, while my siser watches on

The birds themselves were enormous and although going through the process of "putting them in the stock pot" wasn't something I looked forward to doing, it is part of the journey we have chosen to take on the Ponderosa.

We still have 2 roosters left and we plan to keep them until after christmas at least. It still doesn't resolve the issue of having more laying hens for next year, but that's for another blog I think.

Happy living people!!

A Special Frangapani Cake

I haven't made many cakes in the past few months but I was more than happy to oblige my good friend who had recently lost her beautiful mum.  She wanted a cake for her daughter Stephanie, who shared her birthday with her nan.  Like always she left me to design the cake and here are some of the stages of the design.

The cake was designed as a symbol of Stephanie's special relationship with her mum and her nan.

The top tier represented her journey through life. The bottom tier being Stephanies mum and signifies her ability to provide Steph strength and stability in her life.

The texture on the cake symbolises the many trials ...and successes throughout her life and reflects how they are dealt and celebrated together as a whanau.

The pedestal represents the need to find strong balance in life in order to achieve positive outcomes.

The whole cake is brought together with a spray of frangipani flowers.

The flowers represented Stephanies nan, her culture and her legacy she has left including sisters, brother, niece, nephew and future generations.

They are sprayed around the cake as a symbol of her nan's love for Stephanie and a reminder that she will continue to guide her through her life.

 

I really loved this cake and I am so happy how it came out.

 

Happy living people!!