crossing the road

The farm at Sams Creek is divided by the Princes Highway - half of the property is on one side, half on the other side of the road. For 40+ years moving the herd from one part of the farm to the other has required an on the road crossing... Ours is one of the last on-the-road crossings left on the Princes Highway - most farms have under the road crossings - and for good reason - cows and fast moving cars are not a good combination.

this is a taste of what happens here every couple of months...




Generally a minimum of 3 people are needed to cross the herd over the road - one person for each direction of traffic (that makes sense does it!) and another to open the gate and round up the herd stragglers . That's my father in the middle of the road - he's just opened the gate and is encouraging the girls to get a move on (crossing cattle is not something you want to dilly-dally with). Gate opening is his assigned position... (lucky bugger - it's the easy job!)



For many years my job has been to head north to stop traffic ... I don't have a nice little 'stop & go' lollipop sign - I have to step out in front of any approaching vehicles and just wave my arms around like a deranged woman (I do this part of the job particularly well).

So the gate has been opened, the herd is moving smartly across - the older herd members lead the way and teach the new ones what to do - cattle are not fond of bitumen - and for many of the young calves this is their first crossings.




Farmer Phil gets the south approach (there he is in the distance - through a gap in the herd... and already he's found an opportunity for a chat) - both approaches are tricky - but on the south side approaching vehicles don't really have much vision of what is up ahead (oops there's a herd of cattle in the middle of the road... what to do? what to do?) so FP plonks his ute beside the road and gets the muddy hazard lights a-blinking




If you look at the road marking you'll notice that I'm in the middle of the highway... I did my arm waving bit and this time it was a local whose car was stopped - yippee - no trying to explain what is going on... and no chance that the car will attempt to go through the herd... Hey I know it sounds stupid - but this has happened - more than once!

On other occassions I have had to jump out of the way of vehicles that seem not to notice either me (and my arm waving) or the large black creatures right in front of them... not a fun time...


This crossing was blissfully uneventful - it only takes a couple of minutes to get the whole herd over the road. In a few months time we'll move them back again, and so on and so forth...that's farmlife...

back online...

Well as anticipated – it is taking some time to get fully back up online after the lightning strike wiped out my modem and computer at the end of November – I' m still not all together yet - although I’ve got an operational modem, I’m working on a borrowed computer…

In the time I’ve been offline the garden has EXPLODED into full production!



All the beds are full – and we’ve been eating from the patch since early November


Fruits are ripening in the orchard (yum!)




Ohhhh and look what Santa gave me for Christmas….

spotted gums in the garden

Almost 20 years ago I planted the first of what became a collection of Corymbia maculata (spotted gum) in the yard. These are wonderful native trees - indigenous to the area - well almost the area - about 2kms north is a natural stand of spotted gums, I extended their range ever so slightly when I planted mine (according to local wisdom, mine weren't expected to survive the frosts Sams Creek gets through winter.... guess we proved that one wrong....)



In late October and into November the trees shed their outer spotted bark, revealing a fabulous lime green inner layer - this slowly turns a creamy-ivory before the spotted bark forms once more and encases the trunk for another year.

grevillea robusta in bloom

My large Grevillea robusta (or silky oak) is currently in bloom.. what a sight! I have a couple of silky oaks in the yard - they are the largest specimens of the Grevillea family - the flowers emerge from nearly bare branches (even though the tree is not deciduous - it tends to drop its leaves before flowering)... the seed pods that develop from these are fabulous - I'll be sure to take a picci after they form.

Grevillea robusta are extremely good colonisers - they ready sprout from dropped seed (hence the reason why I have a number of them in the yard! - you really have to keep on top of seedlings - or you'll find yourself living in a silky oak forest)

back to the garden!

Don't you always find that you only need to leave your home to really appreciate what you've got?

Blue bearded iris

I had to go off to work in Sydney this past weekend - and as cities go Sydney is an attractive creature... but geeez I wouldn't want to have to live there!


I was worried all the time I was away how well Farmer Phil was taking care of all my precious ones... thoughts of Sass and EJ of course were ever present... but I was wondering also if my dear little seeds were being looked after!

'rouge de marmande'
tomato seedlings

I'm pleased to return and see that all are still going strong!

calf creche

This is what we refer to as 'calf creche' - during the day all the calves gather together whilst their mums go off to feed - one or two of the cow mums will generally hang around to ensure that all is well with the calf collection.

It's actually quite a sweet sight - a large bunch of calves together - here they are in the paddock next to our house (it's one of the few opportunities to take a pic - they will disperse and cry out for their mums if you approach them in an open paddock - you should hear the commotion!)

oh and that's Gulaga mountain in the background... but I'll tell you some more about her another time....

dear oh deer!

I was out and about in the yard early this morning when I noticed something strange in the next paddock - so strange indeed I was rather unsure WHAT I was looking at… was it a sort of MUTANT cow?… an overgrown fleece-less sheep?…. a hybrid alpaca-goat?…

My years of devotion to Animal Planet and National Geographic Channel have finally paid dividend = I realised I was looking at - A DEER!

Now most of you living anywhere other than Australia may be thinking **yawn** ‘big deal’ … the thing is - deer are NOT aussie critters.

yes there are many feral populations (and a great deal of debate about the problems they pose to the environment- and their desirability for hunters…) there are even some known local feral deer – but in 20 years living here at the creek I’ve never seen one…

So now you might be able to imagine my surprise this morning.

And how quickly I’ve rushed into the computer (ohhhh how did we survive before google and wiki?) to try to determine what sort of deer I spotted….





After checking different sources and pictures (and lists of known feral deer species in Australia)
I think what I sighted was a red deer (although the one I spotted was much paler than any photos I could find...)


Sass and EJ however are convinced that Santa has landed early and that over the hill they will find a giant pile of presents....

seeds of success!

As you’d expect for early to mid spring – our vegie garden is a hive of activity. All our seeds are heritage or open-pollinated varieties – and it's so exciting to see them all germinating and growing strongly. Like a typical gardener I have to regale everyone with tales of my darling seeds and plants.....

'Cherokee wax' dwarf bean

We have 3 types of beans currently – ‘Climbing Princess’, ‘Cherokee Wax’ and a Borlotti type.

We’re trailing 2 varieties of carrot – ‘little finger’ (which is apparently a squat little one – I’m expecting Sass and EJ to attack these raw) and ‘Chantenay red-cored’ (deep red in the centre – very attractive). Both have sprouted thickly.

Getting our ‘hollow-crown’ parsnip to sprout has been a source of great pride – parsnips are fickle buggers – I remembered my late grandfather’s advice – plant them shallow, stamp them down hard with the back of the rake and water only on planting

My dear pop would be proud!

We’re eating from the giant mustard greens (they’re much nicer picked small and tender) and I’m stealing outer leaves from our small red cos lettuces (oh they are del-i-ous – yum! But I am a BIG salad lover)

The salsify is up – this is a fun experiment –I’ve never come across it before…

'early fortune' cucumber - an oz heritage variety dating back to the C19th

We’ve got the ‘early fortune’ cucumber up as well as both the ‘rondo de nice’ and ‘yellow straightneck’ zucchinis (the yellow ones are for my ‘famous’ bread and butter zuc pickles – remind me to post a recipe later in the season)

'rondo de nice' zucchini

We’ve got both ‘progress’ dwarf peas and ‘oregon’ snow peas up – but they are looking patchy – I think something has been snipping of the little seeds as they emerge… (I’m thinking its birds)… so I’m re-seeding the gaps…

No sign of any of my pumpkin seeds up yet – but I have these dotted around my other garden beds and the conditions are variable and not ideal

In my seed raising area finally all my tomato seeds are up – we’re planting ‘yellow pear’ (for my mum – they are a low acid variety), ‘amish paste’ – these are fabulous big juicy things – a beefsteak variety.. brilliant for a sandwich; and ‘rouge de marmande’ (I’ve grown these before – but my crop wasn’t brilliant – better luck this time around) I look forward to posting some pics of these as they grow and fruit.

As I’m quite behind – I resorted to buying a few small tomato seedlings to get some production happening – and yesterday planted 6 romas (my main sauce tomato – I make soooooo many bottles of tomato sauce and relish!)

And over in my seed raising area I have okra, spring onions, banana shaped rockmelon, raddiccio, bronze arrowhead and more red cos lettuces all up and going – still waiting on the ‘rosito’ eggplant and ‘golden wonder’ capsicum

oooooh there's so much to do - what am I doing here in front of the computer! must get back out there amongst my dear little plants!

sams creek farm - satellite version

this dear folk is what the satellite will tell you is sams creek ....


View Larger Map



well the bit that's being pointed at is actually our neighbour's dam....

you have to be able to read the image to really know where sams creek farm is.... (if track the map to the right, use the highway as a guide - the following bit of civilisation on from the marker is our little patch.)


see all the dark green at the top of the pic? that's one of our other (joint) neighbours - the Kooraban National Park - it links to other national parks and goes on and on and on and ... well you could well and truly get EXTREMELY lost in there without too much effort!

florabunda rose hedge

more than a decade ago I planted a row of old species florabunda roses - to hopefully form a hedge on the border of my yard against the highway - it flowers for only a couple of weeks each year - in a mass of small flowers....





that provides a valuable habitat for nesting wrens - I've seen a blue wren and his harem darting in and out - I haven't been able to spot a nest... but I'm hopeful....




The hedge is now in its maturity - at its tallest it's more than 2m high - and is more than 50m in length.... a total delight for us - and I like to think it also delights weary travellers flashing past on the highway...

It might only be here for a short time - but we're enjoying every moment right now

fennel

Note to Self...


Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
EVER
plant fennel again!

Not matter what!
yes its a nice plant - a useful plant - a pretty plant...

its also a bloody almost indestructible WEED

I planted a single bronze fennel seedling about 4 years ago - I've now got countless little (and large) bronze fennel plants EVERYWHERE in one of my large borders - it out-competes everything - including kikuyu - it seeds everywhere and resists all organic means to eradicate it - we've tried to snip it off, dig it out, mulch it under a layer of thick paper and wood chip...

no luck

I'm convinced this herb could survive a nuclear blast....

big girls

No she's not fat - she's very, very ,very, VERY pregnant... This is one girlie ready to drop a calf any time now!

baby wattle birds

Look closely now- they may be a little hard to see at first (and you don’t have the added benefit of sound to help find them – these are quite easy to track down if you follow the noise..)




Next to Sass and EJ's bedroom over the last few days have been 2 newly hatched brush wattlebird chicks

We have 2 types of wattlebirds here at Sams Creek - the brush and red wattlebirds - both are delightful and really seem to enjoy our grevillia in flower

We've spent the last few days enjoying the antics of these 2 - as they are learning to fly and constantly cheeping for FOOD!!!!!!!! (funny - my 2 chicks are good at that too...)

fallen fruit

ahhhh sad afternoon - the wind blew in swirly circles and down came a great part of our ancient pear tree....




It's the last remaining tree from the original orchard around the house - I remember 30 years ago the apples, oranges, fig and loquats that were large and wild in the yard... one by one they've met their end - last year the final loquat, a huge beautie (and more than 70 years old) snapped and fell...

I fear this pear will not be around for much longer...

seeds and seedlings

Our raised beds are now filled with a wonderful mix of topsoil, spoiled hay, organic fertiliser and old cow manure (courtesy of the dairy nearby), and are topped with a layer of hay mulch to keep the soil moist. We hope the huge input of materials and effort will pay off in great soil quality (there’s more than 5 one tonne ute loads of cow manure in these 4 beds – and we hauled the mix in by tractor bucket load…. It took over 40 trips to the mixing site… a mammoth effort from Farmer Phil over 5 days)


We’ve even planted our first seedlings (cos lettuce, giant red mustard greens, warragal greens, cream-gold and red onions) and seeds (beetroot, butter beans, borlotti beans) – how satisfying! (that's one of the warragal greens)




And the old garden site has been taken over by Farmer Phil’s potato crop – and they are up already! (local wisdom states one shouldn’t plant potatoes or tomatoes until after the October long weekend (last weekend) but Phil decided to take his chances…. Fingers crossed the frosts have all passed…

And today our large Eden seed order arrived (oh Joy) Eden Seeds are open pollinated, non-hybrid, heirloom and old time varieties – I ripped open the packets – rushed to the garden and planted 'little finger' and 'red chantenay' carrots and hollow-crown parsnips… tomorrow I’ll get to some of the other beauties!

more blossoms in the orchard

The second flush of blossoms is now moving through the orchard - Our deciduous orchard was planted 9 seasons ago - and we had a very big prune this past winter - but our thought has always been - keep the tree smaller with fruit easier to pick - and we are thinking to the future - when we may cover the whole area to create a chook paradise. We've planted early, middle and late season deciduous fruit trees to extend the eating season as far as possible - and if I include the citrus, I can't recall a time throughout the year when there isn't something to pick from a some tree somewhere in the garden

Now the first apples are blooming - our earliest variety is a Cox Orange Pippin (that Sass 'pruned' into an 'artistic' shape a few season ago... poor tree)

and second is the Granny Smith - what a large flower this has - I just love the pink tinges! It will be followed by our Jonathon, Abas, Lady William, Gala and others


Our larger pear tree is a busy place - both native and honey bees are swarming all over it (the pear has taken on a marvelous pendulous shape - we don't prune it as it is in another part of the garden)


The cherry is blooming - but we never hold out much hope of a crop - each year it blooms well and sets fruit - but our climate isn't really right for cherries and before they ripen, many of the little fruits drop (and anything remaining gets snapped up by birds before we can get to them)... maybe this year....




And some of the citrus are already blooming again - citrus are such great trees - the orange blossom smell is divine, and they're so productive - the small citrus grove is now in its fourth season - so we are expecting great things over the next 12 months!

the house at sams creek

The house of Sams Creek is one of the oldest in the district - oh, its not old by European standards - Australian's can only wonder at cathedrals from the 1400's... no, Australian architecture (as opposed to culture) only goes back a couple of hundred years - white settlement in our area (hence 'architecture') dates from the mid 1800s - and our house from the later 1800s...

And it's not grand (nor ever has been) by anyone's standards

no ours is a very simple little house....



It's a strange cobbled together conglomeration - it started as a small 2 room house... here is the original twin chimney... and weather boards (unpainted - still! and deliberately, defiantly so). A few years later the family added an old schoolhouse - dragged up from the other side of the creek.. so the layout was a sort of 'L' - with an early (if unintended) 'split level'

In the 1920s the family decided to 'update' and decorate the oldest part of the house with some lovely pressed metal wall covering...




It's still the lining of what now constitutes our library /guest room (guests?) and kids play area - which is complete with its own.....




Caledonia Combat wood stove... a funny story about this - the stove is not an original feature - I found this under a store up town in Cobargo in the late 1980s - the owners said 'please take it away!' I did, and it was my main stove for a period before I installed an electric model.... ahhhhhh the roasts this baby could turn out.... but it reminds me how much work it is to keep a wood stove running - see the little grills and doors on the left? That's where the wood had to go - it's small - and so the wood had to be chipped into small bits (have you ever split wood? and then chipped it into little bits?... in the rain?...) It had a rapacious appetite for wood chips...

I still have fond memories however - the food is something to behold when cooked in a wood stove - I'd love to get the iron (now burnt out) replaced and fire up the old dear again.....



Speaking of getting things up and going again - I'm known in the family as the person who just WILL NOT see reason (not if knocking down an old building is on the cards....) Years ago I saved the top of the oldest shed on the farm - I stood in front of the bulldozer - a one woman protest (my brother was driving the bulldozer...) - now I ask you - would you bulldoze this beauty? no I didn't think so - look at those hand hewn slabs - and you should see the rafters - all round timbers!... It's now safely resting on new heavy timber uprights (one day I'll turn this into something I just know I will....)

And the old house?

Well 7-ish years ago (after living here for more than 14 years) I finally got around to 'fixing' it.... (amazing what a pregnancy does to your perception of 'safe environs for the raising of littlens')

It's now a 'U' structure - with the oldest parts remaining (weird, different roof-lines and all) repiered, re-roofed, rejuvenated... and another (new) section added to bring the old dear back to what I figure is it's rightful simple self......



a humble country home by the creek

lyrebirds

we had the most exciting find today out waking by the dry creek bed....

I found a tail feather of a lyrebird... (its not the most impressive photo...)

I've spotted lyrebirds a few kilometres away - at the top of the rise to Dignams Creek - but never on the farm (this is the first lyrebird tail feather I've ever stumbled onto... in close to 40 years of rambling walks... can you imagine my excitement!) where there's a feather, there's got to be a bird!

for the uninitiated wiki gives the lowdown on lyrebirds here

maybe next time I'll spy the bird...

spring in the orchard

I love watching each of the deciduous trees reawaken with the longer warmer spring days... already the apricot has blossom and set little fruit - as too has the peachcot (a peach/ apricot cross... that everyone here detests!) Now its time for......

the quince...

the early and middle plums...

the white mulberry
(don't you love how the fruit just appears 'bingo' from the bare branch!)

and the early peaches and nectarines....

which this year are under heavy attack from aphids (durn beasts!).... I don't think we'll be harvesting many peaches this year given the size of the assault (look at all of them all over the blossoms)



There are just too many for the one ladybird I sighted feasting on the pests - you go my little spotted helper - eat up!

something fruity

One of the unusual quirks of living on an old farm (well old by Australian standards!) is the discovery of old fruit tress in the strangest places... Spring is the best time of year to find some old lovelies, when the tress are all in blossom


near the creek - in a small glade and beside a spring is a makeshift orchard of sorts. I don't believe that previous generations of farmers planted this as such - by their placement it seems these peach (on the right in full blossom) and loquat (on the left - in front of the river oak) have seeded and set themselves up in the most desirable position around - nice moistness, out of blustery winds, and shaded from the harsh summer westerly sun....


Along the creek are other 'blow ins'.... I've found a quince (once) on the steepest slope beside the creek - on the far side of course.... once I managed to get my fingers on some fruit - by driving the tractor into the creek and climbing out over the engine... at this time of year it's impossible to find the tree again amongst the tangle of overgrowth... but I'll keep my eyes peeled!



just a little further up the creek - where its only stones at the moment, I discovered a network of fig trees - all just now sending out fresh little green leaves (or I'd never notice them! - amongst a most enormous blackberry heap) - what a pleasant little thing to stumble upon. I know I won't gather any fruit - the small birds will be in there first - but it's nice to think that the figs will find an appreciative audience...

a froggy went walking...

and got lost in our bathroom this morning....

we carefully rescued the small fellow - and released it back to the wilds of our garden

welcome to sams creek

Hello and welcome to the farm at Sams Creek

Here I hope to share a small glimpse of life on the land on the far south coast of NSW Australia



Sams Creek is a working beef farm - owned by my family since the late 1960s. I've lived on the place (the first and only member of my family to do so) for the past 20 years and over the 40 years I've known the place (goodness now you'll all figure out my age!) I've grown to love the place with a passion that is hard to put into words (a good thing I'm an artist and not a writer then...)




It's not always a bed of roses... We have been in drought (on and off the official register) for more than 6 years... so the creek here in many places is a river of stone more than a river of water...

Sams Creek, I think you'll come to see is so much more than just a farm, or a way of life... it's a different state of mind...