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Life has been predictably busy hence the lack of blogging. I watched Julie & Julia the other night and couldn't work out how she found the time to do all the blogging, hold down a full time job and cook-then I realised no animals, no kids! My blogging is certainly more hit and miss than hers but there is someone out there reading it and even if there wasn't it is a great way for me to remember all the good, bad and ugly plus the beautiful that happens on the farm.
Great memories are a bit of a theme for this blog and concen our beef the first batch of which will be available this weekend at Mt Claremont market (February 20th). Lots of yummy steaks, roasts, mince and diced beef all from our certified rare breed Dexters. For those of you who may never have tried Dexter beef before some of our lovely customers describe it as the best beef they've ever eaten. It is very tasty and reminds most people of beef they used to eat.
One of my abiding memories growing up in the UK was of a meal we had once in Aberdeen. As a child my sister and I were taken all over the British Isles on family holidays and got to eat local delicacies from all corners of Britain. On this particular occasion we dined at a steakhouse in Aberdeen which specialised in Aberdeen Angus the hairy black ones - not to be confused with the even more hairy ginger Highland cattle with the impossibly long horns. Aberdeen Angus beef was claimed to be the best of the best. Later, as a newly married adult I ended up living in Aberdeen and despite having sensational local produce it was difficult to find and I struggled to replicate that childhood experiecne. Sadly for Aberdeen most of this amazing food tended to go south and the city in the 1980s was not renowned as a gourme's heaven.
So imagine my surprise and delight about two decades later when we sent our first Dexter steer off the farm with no idea what we were getting back as we had yet to taste Dexter beef. When I ate one of the Scotch fillets that memory of melting beef from a steakhouse in Aberdeen came flooding back-absolutely delicious. This may sound like bragging but we do take enormous care not only with the animals on the farm but how the meat is hung and processed to produce really gorgeous beef. I hope you try it.
Elsewhere, the new cartwheel we invented for the pigs has had mixed success. In principle it is designed so the pigs have lots of space to move around in but do not have to keep on moving around the farm, which being creatures of habit they are not too happy about. As it is a prototype there have been a few teething problelms notably involviing inquisitive pigs and water pipes (I could write a whole book on incidents with pigs and water pipes thinking about it). When it works it is great and thepigs are all very happy but as always they are constantly looking for ways to amuse themselves mainly by destroying whatever is next to them!
Pixie, our little pet pig, has taken it upon herself to be the official fowl monitor and spends most of her day rounding up chickens, ducks and geese much to their bemusement. They were quite able to move themselves around their pens but are now slightly confused when Pixie comes along to relocate them. The four little ducklings are doing really well but now we think there is some kind of resident dragon in there too. Somebody or something has been taking all the eggs and we have gone from 10 eggs a day to none. Becky saw a huge lizard (read dragon judging by the size of it) the other day and it has been blamed for the lack of eggs. Either that or the wretched crows can't decided which to blame at the moment. The cows seem to have retired from calving which is a bit of relief and Billy, the bull, has been relocated to give him a holiday from his duties not sure if he is happy about that or not.
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