Leatherwork

 

A leather sheep's hide tanned some time ago has had many uses. A hatchet resurrected with a new handle and a sharp blade needs a cover. Michelle sets to work with the leather punch, strong cotton and a pair of sharp scissors. A few minutes later the cover is done - tight enough to stay on and loose enough to be removed easily.

 

 

There is not much leather left among the scraps but Michelle makes a knife cover to go on a belt with one of the remaining scraps. Practical, real and truly homemade.

 

The Northern Hemisphere Spring

 

For three weeks in May I was in England - twelve thousand miles away on the opposite side of the world. Leaving a climate with decreasing daylight and temperatures we arrived to see people walking about outside in shorts eating ice creams at 9.30pm in daylight. Even though the English start to celebrate when they actually see some sunlight cast on the ground and throw all their clothes off when the mercury hits 15 degrees the difference was marked.

 

 

The other main difference was the profusion of growth. The soil is more fertile than southern Australia and the growing season short so the plants go crazy. The constant drizzle that clouds the days was surprisingly absent while we were visiting but the rainfall before and after was sufficient to give the plants enough to boom. The trees had just come out in full leaf (except for the tardy ash trees) and there were flowers everywhere. If, like two of my daughters, this was the only time you visited England you would be forgiven for thinking that it was a very pleasant and abundant place. We saw it at its best.  

 

 

Returning to a Snowy Mountains winter was quite a shock. However it didn't take long to get used to it and enjoy the sunshine in the middle of the day that was still not much colder than all but the warmest that England had to offer.

Extending the tomato harvest

 

Despite a couple of months of frost and cold we are still getting ripe tomatoes. These were removed from the bushes as trusses after the first light frost tipped the leaves. They have been sitting on trays in a darkened hanging shed since then. Once the tomatoes gain a tinge of orange they are brought in the house and put up on the windowsill to ripen fully.

These tomatoes are to be cooked up with some pumpkin and zucchini, onion and garlic to make a spaghetti sauce. A couple of the nicest looking will be kept aside for a salad.

Blacksmithing Practice

Michelle's turn to have a go with the forge. She wanted to make a camping tool - one of those devices for lifting pots out of fires. It was to be a present for a friend. We cranked up the blower and heaped up the charcoal.

I decided to see what I could do with a 100mm nail. By holding the nail in a pair of tongs I could heat up the end and then shape or bend it.

 

 

Michelle hammering on the anvil. We alternated between the forge and the anvil and had to be careful to follow the same path between the two to avoid hot metal singing soft flesh.

The result of playing with nails and making swirls and 'koru' shapes. It was very satisfying to transform the utilitarian nail to an aesthetic hook. All good practice.

Samhain Pumpkin Feast

 

Samhain in the Northern Hemisphere has become identified with Hallowe'en - the evening before All Souls day. It has always seemed strange in Australia to follow the same calendar. Last year at school they carved pumpkins in October and the local supermarket had to order some in especially as no one had any left in Spring.

So we like to celebrate Samhain - the Celtic festival that marks the end of summer and the start of winter - at the end of April.

At our local show in March my youngest child won the largest pumpkin. It seemed fitting to use this for a family carving and the centrepiece of a homegrown meal.

 

The kids took to the pumpkin with knives and spoons and each carved their own design. With tea lights inside and the light off it looked pretty amazing!

First-time Firing of the Forge

 

My Christmas present was an anvil and a forge. It may have taken four months to get these items set up in their own dedicated space, but there was no shortage of enthusiasm to get the forge fired up. First I needed some charcoal. I sourced this from a forest coupe that had recently been burnt. This seems to work well and saves a lot of hassle than trying to create charcoal myself.

 

 

The anvil is sitting on a wattle stump with a piece of recycled workbench top nailed level. As the anvil weighs many kgs it was a slow job to lift it up there using stacks of concrete bags as steps.

The forge is a 44 gallon drum with a bowl in the centre. Air is blown up through holes in the base of the bowl by an electric blower powered by a battery charger. The blower is situated to the left so that the coals fall straight down and not into the blower. The circle cut to fit the bowl is ready as a lid to restrict air to the charcoal when you finish. All homemade by Michelle's son and passed on to me. 

 

A small fire is lit in the centre of the bowl and charcoal heaped on slowly. Once well alight the blower was turned on and the heat started to roar.

 

I started with a simple rod offcut and heated it in the bowl.

 

 

 

Lot of hammering the end to a point and then I started to put a bend in it.

 

A nice curve to make a hook. The coals certainly seemed to be hot enough to make the steel glow.

 

Once I was happy with the hook at the end I cooled off the rod and could work on the other end.

 

 

A very satisfying start to my blacksmithing. Lots of possibilities and lots of questions to be answered.

Garlic Planting

Our tradition is to plant the garlic as close to Anzac Day (25th April) as possible. So this year on the 26th it is time to clear the bed of its assortment of lanky tomatoes, overgrown radishes and beetroots and a weed or two and ready it for the garlic.

 

 

After weeding and forking the bed, my daughter (who miraculously decided to be helpful) separated the cloves. Lines were raked and the garlic placed carefully and regularly.

Five rows with a path down the middle should be enough for this bed. A similar amount planted at our other property should provide us with enough garlic for the next season. This variety is an early one which means we can pick it in November when the bed can be used for some later summer crops.

Ear Tagging the Pigs

The pigs are getting fat and the weather is turning cold. Time to take them for their one bad day. In order to identify them they need to be eartagged and branded.

 

 

The ear tagger is a simple device that locks a plastic tag through the ear making the hole with the connector. It is a swift procedure once the ear is in place.

Having missed the first time the pigs were not that keen on having their ears held for long enough for a sharp plastic tag to cut through their lobes. BoBo was definitely unwilling and is seen here backing away squealing. It took a few minutes being patient to find the right moment and the deed was done.

 

Food is always a good distracted for pigs. I have parked the trailer in their pen and begun to put some food on it. The pigs are learning to leap on which will make it much easier for loading them up. It is always sad to say goodbye to the pigs as they are such characters with very knowing eyes but it would be hard to feed them through the winter. At last measure they are about 65kg each so there should be plenty of pork about in a couple of weeks.

 

Watering the Pigs

 

Some years after we purchased Opportunity Farm we found a well. We knew that there might be one but had not sought to find it. Anyway its location was pointed out and we investigated to find a beautifully constructed dry stone well - about 3.5m deep - that tapped into groundwater that flows into the boggy area below our property.

After cleaning up the rotten timber and leaves that had been covering it, we raised the sides to above ground so we could put an effective cover on it.

 

Then we put in some concrete stumps nearby to make a tank stand and assembled a tank which is filled by a submerged pump powered by two solar panels. Once the tank is full the pump turns itself off.

 

 

The tank gravity-feeds via a hose to the pig pen. The pigs nudge an automatic waterer and have a drink whenever they want to. When we go down to feed them and the weather is hot we can use the water to fill a trough so that they can have a bathe and cool off. It was a reasonable expense in money and time to set up but we now have a piece of infrastructure that makes raising the pigs much easier and the pigs much happier.

The waterer and the pig trough. Before the pump was put in we had to fill the trough up twice a day by bucketing from a nearby dam. The pigs would then jump in and spill much of the water leaving either none to drink or just an unappetising or healthy muddy puddle.

Artichoke Harvest

We have one bed in our garden that grows Jerusalem artichokes. At this time of year all the plants are dug up and the soil carefully checked for tubers. Despite this attention the bed is full of artichokes the next autumn. We sometimes eat them ourselves and they taste like a nutty potato but they are hard to clean and too knobbly to peel effectively. It is also important to remove the skins or they have a tendency to cause bloating.

We use them as pig food. With only a short while left before the pigs are slaughtered these artichokes will make up a considerable part of their diet. One bed 2m x 1m yielded this trug full and two more 10litre containers. Not bad when you don't have to plant them.

 

Preserving in Mid-Autumn

It is past mid-autumn and so far no frosts. There is still plenty growing and plenty to preserve. We had some nashis picked so these were split between eating and bottling. I looked up on Sally Wise's website (she has written an excellent book on preserving called 'A Year in a Bottle' and she recommended using an apple corer and peeler and then putting rhubarb sticks in the hole. It seemed like a good idea to provide an aesthetic contribution to my preserves for next year's show but apart from a couple of jars I would just peel and chop them.

 

The nearest rhubarb was a little small for the hole so several sticks sufficed. It certainly looks fancy though the kids thought it looked like eyeballs! Eighteen jars later and I have run out jar rings so preserving will have to wait until I replenish. However I also made some more jars of tomato sauce, a jar of kefir, two bottles of kombucha, and a loaf of bread. The photo below shows some of the jars and bottles next to the merlot wine and the barrel of cider. It's a fine life.
 

Harvesting the Potatoes

 

Last year we grew enough potatoes to last our large family for about ten months. This year I was hoping to make it the full year. We planted in two patches - each on one of our two properties. One had a warm climate and regular watering, the other more fertile soil but colder and more sporadically watered. Both seemed to go well but that in a warmer climate seemed to die off much earlier.  

 

 

Four ten litre ice cream containers came out of the patch. There was one section still to be dug as there is a pumpkin growing on the top. It was still a good haul and will be packed away in the dark hanging shed in Styrofoam boxes filled with layers of sawdust. The really small ones will head to the pigs rather than be left to sprout again.

 

This year's patch ready for raking, manuring and preparing for the garlic crop to go in before Anzac Day.

How to Measure the Weight of a Pig

Our three piglets are getting pretty big. The fallen and excess fruit is beginning to diminish. This means that it is time to plan turning pig into pork.

The ideal weight is about 70kg for a porker. This would mean over 200kg of pig and that translates to a whole lot of pork. So measuring them is important to be able to work out when they have their one bad day.

I imagine that there may be scales that could be used and also that experienced pig growers can tell just by looking but I rely on a length of plastic tape. This is used to measure the girth (the width of the pig measured behind their front legs). A table on the reverse of the tape then converts the girth into estimated weight.

 

 

The pigs are very friendly and curious and will come right up to me if I enter their pen. These three are still a little wary and haven't yet taken to nibbling my trousers. So to distract them I pour some food into their trough and quickly pass the tape under their belly. When I pull it up to mark their girth they move away quickly but I have enough time to take a measurement of 85cm. When all three pigs come out with a similar girth I know I must be close. Using the table this translates to between 52 and 55kg. Not quite big enough but with enough food put in front of them they should be close to 70 in about three weeks.

We will have to clear some more space in the freezers!

Spoon carving and turning

 

"Made in the Woods" is a biannual event where traditional skills are taught and practised in a bush setting. I have attended three over the past few years and I find I am always drawn to spend lots of time with the spoon carver, Jeff. He is the one in the traditional terry towelling hat. He spends about half his time earning money from teaching spoon carving workshops in Australia and this year will be presenting at Spoonfest in England. Check him out at www.spoonsmith.com.au.

Anyway, the basic skill is to split a log into about four or more sections. This is shaped roughly with a very sharp axe or tomahawk. Finer cutting is done either with a draw knife on a shaving horse or pony or a sharp hand knife. I love the shaving horse so I tend to hog that for making my spoons. The horse is the device to the right where the guy is seated. His feet are pushing a slide that grips the wood near his hands so he can shape it by drawing the two handed draw knife towards him. For protection from these sharp tools he is wearing a leather apron.

 

 

The final part of making the spoon is to use a hook knife (one with a specially made curved blade) the helps to gouge the concave bowl of the spoon from the wood. This gives you blisters but makes the spoon come to life.

 

Another traditional tool used by Jeff is the pole lathe. Following my first time at "Made in the Woods" I returned to Opportunity Farm so fired up with enthusiasm I constructed my own shaving horse and a pole lathe. I haven't made much time to use it since so on this workshop I was determined to have a go.

 

 

The lathe is powered by your foot that pushes down on a pedal and turns the wood which is pulled back up traditionally by a springy pole (hence the name) or in a more modern way, an elastic cord. The trick is to scrape the turning branch with a sharp tool on the downward push and then ease on while it is turned back by being pulled upwards.  Here I made a ring by cutting in from both sides until the ring came clear but was trapped by wider wood on each side.

 

This is the wood after being removed from the lathe. The bolus has been sawn off above the shaft ready for gouging out with the hook knive. The ring is purely decorative but it was a good exercise in using the lathe. Since my return to Opportunity Farm I have set up my lathe and have a turn whenever I make the time.

Making Bush Furniture

I spent an weekend with a bunch of amazing people all interested or skilled in traditional crafts. Set up in a clearing in the bush we five crafts: blacksmithing, weaving, spinning and dieing, spooncarving and bush furniture making. I spent time with most of these but this post focuses on the construction of bush furniture.

 

 

This is the start of a rustic bench seat. First a slab was hewn with a hand saw from a dry log. then four short legs were cut and the ends shaped with a draw knife to the same diameter. Four holes were angled in the base with an auger. Each leg had a split cut in the shaped end and a wedge placed in the top of the split. When the legs were fitted and driven home the wedge caused the leg to grip tightly.

 

 

The bench now has its legs and two slots were augered into the top for the back of the seat. The slots were made with two auger holes side by side with the middle chiselled out.

 

 

This lady made a ladder out of green timber. The frame was made by splitting a straight length of branch in half. The ends of the rungs were all shaped on the shaving horse (below) to the diameter of the auger holes. Once these were fitted a peg was hand made to keep the ladder together.

 

 

A ladder rung being shaped on the shaving horse.

 

 

This guy made a stool. The seat was cut as a slab from a dry piece of hardwood. Three legs were shaped with the draw knife and slotted into holes augered all the way through the seat. Three other pieces of green wood were cut to keep the legs apart and rigid.

 

The legs were pushed up through the holes to sit proud of the seat. A slit was cut in each one and a wedge driven into to seat level. The slits had to be cut perpendicular to the edge of the seat or the corner could snap off.  Any part of the leg still above the seat level was cut off.

 

The completed stool.

 

Ploughing with a Pig Tractor

We keep our three pigs - Target, Sir Oinkers and Bobo - in a twelve metre by six metre enclosure with an electric wire at nose height. Inside the pigs have a small house, some shade and an automatic waterer that gravity feeds from a tank attached to the well. Over a few weeks the pigs will plough up the patch the enclosure is on. When they are piglets it may take two months but when they are larger they can plough it up in a fortnight especially if it has been wet. The pigs have been in this area for just over two weeks are almost ready to be moved. 

 

 

This paddock has a sedge type grass that is not very palatable, even to the goats that live in it. The pig tractor is designed to slowly replace this grass with sweeter varieties, both by improving the fertility and by physically removing the grass. The photo below shows the next patch to be ploughed up.

 

The patch below is the result of last year's pigs. We fatten them for about six months during summer and autumn when there is plenty of excess produce about. So it has been almost a year since the pigs were removed from this patch. The sedge has gone and the new grasses colonizing the area are much favoured by the goats. Often thistles will seed on the more compacted parts but the goats love them too. It is slow work to alter the vegetation one enclosure at a time but it works without the use of chemicals or tractor diesel.