Baupal Park Farm My Organic Odyssey

20 Jan 2019

Wading through couch and rye grass, I made my way up onto the bank of the lower dam to collect my female goat. “Off to bed for you missy”, I said, as a little white tufty tail greeted me with joyful excitement. This was my evening routine and had been for last 12 months or so, at sunset every night, 365 days a year.

Had it been that long? I looked behind me at the tiny cottage I had once lived in for nearly the same length of time. Cold as hell in winter and roasting in the height of summer, this two-room worker’s shack had been my sole accommodation upon arriving on the farm in March 2017. Freshly discharged from the Army with PTSD, I was in a scared and frail state of mind.

Now I watched with amusement as the once living room/kitchen I occupied was busily housing a gaggle of geese, noisily eating their evening dinner grain. The same shack had also housed the goats I was currently collecting, to take to their shed for the night. Now determined to get off her tethering chain, the young female was pulling and bucking to get to bottom of the bank to find some tender new shoots to devour.

I had employed the same routine for them every night since acquiring the goats, purchased to be used as my mobile lawn mowers, they were definitely doing their job. A neat clipped circle of 20m diameter was evident around the base of each chain tether, fastened to a sturdy star picket, hammered into the bank as they ate their way around it every day. The male, also referred to as the 'neutered boyfriend', was always close behind. Matching nibbled circles. He was always first to go to bed though. Now snuggled up in his pen he was bleating to get the female to join him. Not that it would do him much good.

 

With the sun setting behind me, the female goat was keen to get her last share of whatever she could, ripping, chewing, shredding, swallowing. An audible masticating chorus, on her way to bed.

“Come on, ...come on,” I coaxed her gently along. Her initial bucking subsided, and she now acquiesced to higher authority, and off to bed we went.

Since the arrival of the goats, the grassy banks have had little to no mowing applied, a sure saving on fuel costs. The geese have also added to this routine, but still get some grain for dinner each night. As total herbivores I must avoid walking in the myriad of pooh that is now collecting in the small area about the cottage and surrounds. All magical stuff and totally organic. Once a month it is collected up into a mixture destined for further magic. Everything is reused here on the farm.

 

This morning I was alerted to another magical event. The arrival of new life in the chicken coop. Despite attempts in vain for a year or more, (I actually thought John Wayne the rooster was not performing), we finally had the newest arrivals emerge from their shells. At least 15 eggs were being incubated by my best broody hen, and this morning they began to hatch. Such beautiful perfect balls of fluff. A true joy to see and hold. My Farm Hand worker and I moved quickly to remove the hen and her hatching eggs into a quieter and safer coop, one we keep as a nursery. That way the other hens won’t attack the chicks. I can’t wait to see how many actually hatch out. Looks like we will have plenty of eggs once they are all at laying age too, but as a farmer I have no hesitation to extract the males from this batch. They will be put to soup. Sorry.

 

Last week there was a small rescue mission on the farm. As the harvest season is nearly upon us, we have been racing to get the orchard floors cleaned up. That means brush cutting back all the weeds that have been allowed to grow over spring. In the event a small baby Hare (wild Rabbit) was injured by the blades and was found bleeding amongst the grass. Not sure if it would survive, we put it into a small disused birdcage and nursed it for 24 hours. Shock or dehydration being the most common course of death in injured wildlife. With a small dropper feeder of fresh cool water it survived for 48 hours, and then I started supplementing feeding with a proper lactose free powder formula from the vet.

72 hours in and it was recovering well. Feeding every 4 hours and the bleeding had stopped, and it didn’t seem such a bad wound after all. But then I noticed the uninjured leg was at a right angle, a clubbed foot in fact. The Hare was effectively lame and most likely had been abandoned by its mother. Hence why it didn't run away as the blades approached. Mother nature gives life one day – then removes it the next. By day 5 the Hare had died. Well we tried.

Good news has come again though and yesterday I had the approval from the original Breeder of Ruby, that we can progress to officially breed her next year. So only another heat to get through in June (oh more sleepless nights) and then she and Rex can become parents next Xmas. Oh, the joys of new life on a farm. Not sure how 8 or more puppies will be for sleep patterns though! Time will tell.