This week's compendium

Here’s this week’s compendium. This week…

1. Queensland independent MP Bob Katter dismissed as ‘lightweight’ the positions held by esteemed climate change experts Sir Nicholas Stern and Ross Garnaut [1a]. Even allowing for possible left-wing bias, this account of the man who’s pivotal in determining our next government, is frightening [1b].

2. this koala (N.B. koalas aren’t bears) was lucky [2a]. Cedric the Tasmanian Devil was less lucky [2b]. Both animals’ plights were man made. Ho hum.

3. The Public Speaker began a 3-part series on ‘How to Be a Great Guest Speaker’ [3]. Good stuff.

4. treehugger.com reported that China uses 45 billion disposable chopstick pairs annually, i.e. 130 million a day. This needs 100 acres of forest each day. So China’s government’s pressing for increased use of disposable chopsticks. [4] Ho hum.

5. Nutrition Diva explained ‘How to Make Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs’ [5]. I’m more interested in how to make perfect soft-boiled ones.

6. someone called Paris Hilton was arrested in Las Vegas on charges of cocaine possession [6]. She’s a serial arrestee who in 2007 was jailed for a drink driving matter. Hopefully (but unlikely) she’ll get another jail term. If so, someone should lose the key. She’s a spoiled brat. The media should ignore her narcissistic antics.

7. darling San Francisco daughter [DSFD] sent a link to this hilarious YouTube clip (which needs a Google or YouTube account to view) [7]. As DSFD wrote, ‘hay hay hay!’

8. darling Artist as Family enjoyed more wonderful media coverage for the Food Forest [8]. Well deserved, AaF.

Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week.

The shape of things to come?

Vis-à-vis the farm part of Farmdoc, a recurring theme in this blog is hay. In the nine years my sharefarmer Sharon and I’ve been jointly farming our adjoining properties, we’ve used square hay bales [1]. (They’re actually rectangular but called square.) This is because they’re smaller and lighter than round bales – the hay in a round bale’s roughly the same as in 15 square bales – so we can handle them manually. (Lifting round bales needs machinery – which Joel Salatin derides as ‘heavy metal’ [2] – which we don’t have and don’t want.) As neither Sharon nor I is getting younger (and stronger), we’re seeking ways to make our farming easier. So we decided we’d experiment this year. Last Saturday we bought a round bale (pictured) (for A$50) which we rolled off Sharon’s ute into one of our paddocks where we have 36 sheep and 29 goats. Instead of feeding square bale hay to them daily, the round bale’s now available to them, buffet-like, 24/7. How quickly they’ll eat it, and whether it’ll be degraded by the weather or them climbing and then excreting on it, remains to be seen. But if you don’t ask the question you won’t know the answer. This aspect of farming’s fun. It intrigues me. Stay tuned.

farmdoc's blog post number 612

I don’t know if the summer solstice was yesterday or the day before. But either way, the daylight hours have begun to shorten. Which always seems odd to me because summer’s hottest days are still ahead. As I wrote here, convention has it that summer’s designated by the calendar in the southern hemisphere (i.e. December, January, February) and astronomy in the northern hemisphere (21 June to 21 September, i.e. solstice to equinox). Be this as it may, each year the 12 days between Sweetheart Vivienne’s and my anniversary and the end of the year, is a calm and pleasant time here in Mole Creek and surrounding areas. No wind, long daylight hours ending in 9 p.m. gloaming, abundant grass for stock, patchworked fields studded with fresh round hay bales, work winding down for the year, Xmas decorations twinkling on houses and seen through front windows. This year, thanks to above average rainfall (1,180 mm so far) the Tasmania Fire Service hasn’t yet declared the fire permit season. (They usually declare it in October. I doubt it’s ever been declared this late in the year.) It’s a unique time when our tanks are full of water and our batteries full of electricity. It’s also a time when Sweetheart Vivienne and I like to reflect on our lives in the year that was, and agree on plans for the year ahead. I don’t want to put a hex on anything, but this year’s been a good one for my Sweetheart and me. I’m content, at peace with myself and, I think, healthy. I can’t vouch for the world or anyone else, but I’m okay.

farmdoc's blog post number 534

Last Sunday, in our Hayshed Paddock, my sharefarmer Sharon and I had a leisurely confab and decided that as our paddock grass is growing causing our goats and sheep to have all but lost interest in hay, we’d stop feeding out hay forthwith. Each May when we start with the hay, it’s so much fun. The animals run for it, then they gobble and munch and crunch as if their lives depended on it. Which they do. For through the cold and dark and wet months when the grass doesn’t grow, they need hay – for warmth, roughage and some nutrition. In deep winter, feeding hay’s a drudge. But it must to be done, so done it is. Daily. Then when spring arrives and the weather’s again conducive to outdoor pursuits, hay feeding ends. Ain’t that life in a nutshell. Like when you’re young and your financial needs are greatest, you’re not at your earning peak. But when you’re older and you’re earning more money, your needs are less. Also last Sunday, Sharon sheared the pictured wether lambs (born in late 2008), then I drenched them, then we turned them out into the Home Paddock. The theory (and practice) is that without wool they’ll be colder, so they’ll eat more to keep warm, so they’ll put on weight. By month’s end they’ll be fit to kill. We may BBQ or roast one to mark the end of the hay feeding months – and the end of another turn of the annual farm cycle.