Wordless Wednesday

Banana bread with Mr Thermie

I bought some almond milk as it sounded so delicious, in truth it's the nastiest stuff I've ever drunk. Who in their right mind drinks such a horrid concoction I'd rather starve.

Got me thinking on needing to use this horrible yuck and thought it might go alright in some Banana bread.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup Rolled Oats
• 150ml Milk
• 150ml Almond milk (or 300ml normal milk if you too think almond milk is nasty)
• 3 overripe bananas, mashed
• 240g Self Raising Flour (You Can Use Wholemeal)
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/3 cup Soft Brown Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Mixed spice
• 3 tablespoons Honey
• 1 Egg
• 100g of nuts I used almonds, cashews and macadamias

True Thermomix style (or is it Tracey Style?) chuck in all in the bowl in the order listed then mix on 6 for 30 sec. Use a lower speed if you want chunkier nuts but I have kids so wanted things well blended. Add the oats at the end and mix slowly if you want them whole.

If you don't have a Thermie well you miss out. No not really you may need to soak your oats, mash your banana by hand and chop your own nuts but then you should be right to mix in a bowl. Sweat and love makes a cake taste better right?

Pour into greased and lined loaf tin and bake for 45mins on low to moderate oven try around 180C

NB I forgot the weigh as I went so I will update the recipe with weights next time I make it.

I hate foxes

Last week we found the most beautiful cockatiel in our vegetable garden. After contacting the neighbours it become our new bird. Igloo named it K Air Puff. It was such a lovely friendly bird.

We had one day before we had to go away for a week, so I rushed around like mad and found a nice sized cage that we couldn't afford to keep her in. I spent far too long setting up a lovely home for her when I should have been packing.

We test the cage we get the kids to test the cage and it is steady and sturdy.

Fast forward to Saturday, the day before we get home from our trip. The day before K Air Puff would be in a safer position. And a bloody horrible nasty creature of a fox knocks his way into the cage. The poor terrified bird tried to escape and met its fate into foxes mouth.

So now we have a cage that we couldn't afford sitting empty without the money to fill this cage with a new bird.

I am so sick of these foxes. They come in the day time up to our back door. They walk up to Damien while he is outside. They get so close that he can kick them.

While it would be illegal to use fox poison without a license we did try and google a recipe. But apparently there is a cocktail called fox poison so we got no where. Thanks Mr Google :/

Eventful Day

Today started like any normal day, the sun was peeping through the clouds and fog. I figured the weather was done and the drama was over. Oh how wrong I was.

These two photos are from Saturday morning.

These photos are from this morning.

Our waist high letterbox is underwater roughly in the middle of this photo.

This is the tree that decided to fall down, just missing the house, swing set and cars parked out the front. One car which had just been unbogged from the driveway. Not our car. Needed a tractor to get this one out. We have a lot of holes to fill in once we dry out.

3hrs + 4 x 4WD + 8 people = 26 Sandbags

I had been wondering what I was going to write about for farming Friday. I had nothing prepared. Nature kicked in and helped with a story.

The carport.

The carport 1 hour later. It did get higher but I was far too busy by then

Where it flows after the carport.

The carport again after I wasn't so busy and the water had gone down a little bit

Our Road

Driveway

A few of the many trenches we had to dig to divert water from the house. This first trench is about 50cm deep. It took some digging to the water rushing over the pavers and into the laundry and sewing room.

The garage floor level is lower than the level of this water. There was about an inch of water in the garage.

4WD 1 to bring us sand bags

4WD 2 to save 4WD 1?

4WD 2 being saved by 4WD's 3 and 4

The mess 4WD 2 left

4WD's 2, 3 and 4 set up to rescue 4WD 1

4WD 1 half way out

The sandbags now doing not much as the rain stopped before they got there. Much more rain is predicted so I am sure they will be needed overnight.

I ♥ Wednesday

I ♥ bubble wrap, cardboard and a straw for an hour of rainy day fun

Guinea fowl

We have four guinea fowl keets. They were about a week old and were tiny, extremely cute and amazingly fast when we got them. They are not like any other type of poultry that I have ever dealt with before. They seemed to be very afraid of us and almost seemed to hate us. They are extremely skittish and flighty. From what I have been told this does not change as they grow up, they are meant to never be truly tame. When they are older we plan to free range them and let them eat insects and grass seeds, we will only feed them so that we can put them away safely at night.

Guinea fowl are meant to have an innate dislike of snakes, foxes and other intruders. They are supposed to scream at any intruder, and have even been known to attack and kill snakes. It is difficult to know when there is anything around that should not be here, so the guinea fowl should help alert us when things are not right. To me they sound like the perfect watch dog. They will be cheap to feed, should let us know when things or people are around, and should also lay tasty eggs if any are females.

As they have grown I have noticed that they still do not particularly like us even though they will eat from my hand. I handle them often to try and tame them and I weigh them once a week out of curiosity. They are still very fast and I am scared to let them out of the cage in fear that I will never see them again. When they are older I plan to let them share a house with the chickens, hopefully they will be happy with the arrangement when the time comes.

If anything different is put on or near the cage they scream until it is removed, this gives me hope that when they are older they will let us know when there are intruders around. They have also always had a fear of thunder, even if they can hear thunder in the distance it makes them cry. Sometimes I know that there is a storm coming because they carry on, I assume that they can hear the thunder from far away long before I can hear it. These are truly fascinating birds.



When they mature they change colour from the brown that they are now to grey with amazing white spots on each feather. Now that they are a little older you can start to see this adult colour coming in. This is meant to be the most common colour of guinea fowl but I think it is the most beautiful colour.

I ♥ Wednesday

Today I ♥ sleeping children, even if it is on the floor. I have managed to get the two youngest down to sleep at the same time. Woohooooooo!!!!!!!!

Fruit Fly

When we moved here we have no idea how incredibly infested this farm infact the whole town is with fruit fly. The numbers here are unbelievable. It is heart breaking throwing out more than half the fruit due to infestation. I hate it, I really really hate it. We moved in during peak fruit and therefore peak fruit fly season. It was too late to do anything so it all went to the bin.

This year we knew we have to do something. Having a handful of different types of trees makes commercial sprays tricky as different trees need different poison. We are also not particularly keen on using those chemicals on our farm. The alternative, organic sprays, baits, traps and bags. We researched, we read, we discussed and came up with our action plan.

Eco-Naturelure
This needs to be applied weekly, and reapplied again if it rains. It attracts both male and female fruit flies and poisons them. It is sprayed on the trunks of the trees. We instead decided to sray it into cups hanging in the trees so rain would not wash it away and apply twice a week.



Verdict: Trees with two cups hanging were completely lost to the fruit fly every single fruit gone. Are these cups the cause? are they attracting the fly to the tree but not to the cup? Is the poison too dry to kill them instead the just act as a lure? Next year I plan on putting some disks of felt into the cups so the lure can be soaked in and dried out slower.

Fruit Fly traps
These are designed to attract the males and kill them in trap. It is suppose to help give and indication of how infested you are with fruit fly.



Verdict: Very very few flies in these traps but very large numbers of fly maggots in the fruit. Are they worth the money I do not know.

Exlcusion Bags
Place them over the fruit tie them off and keep the nasty little critters out.



Verdict: They work wonderfully. The fruit is free from the fruit fly maggots. Keeps most of the fruit safe from birds and fruit bats.

But can I bag an entire Quince tree? Can I bag our entire 200+ tree orchard. Likely not



Chooks and Ducks
Fruit fly pupates in the soil, once they hatch it takes 24hrs for their wings to be dry enough to fly. Having chooks and ducks free ranging under the trees should mean a significant amount of fruit fly eaten.

Verdict: We have a couple of acres for them to roam, 200+ trees and not enough poultry to make a great deal of impact. We are sure they helped to what degree is particularly hard to assess.

Where to from here? Have a bit of a cry, a little more of a cry then try and come up with a new plan. Do we use commercial sprays next year? Maybe. Will the fly just be blown in from elsewhere? Most likely. Will we ever beat the fruit fly?

Do we pack up and move? Yes. But we cannot, we cannot afford to move only 12months after moving in and Damo having not had a full time job for almost 3 years. This move has turned out to be one giant massive expensive mistake for many many reasons, the fruit fly being just one. For now we must knuckle down, bear with it, and turn this farm into the most productive farm we can, try and make improvements where we can so when we sell the place will sell quickly.