Dexters – ALMOST ITALIAN

A Grassy Dilemma

I recently discovered that grass-fed meat costs an arm and a leg in Australia. As I don’t eat meat, I was oblivious to the various labels and grading used in our meat industry. Call me naive, but I just assumed that Aussie cows wandered around in paddocks until the man with the truck arrived to take them off to the abattoir. Not so. And as I pondered the range of options in the supermarket, thinking that I might make a slow cooked ragu for the children, I was faced with all sorts of dilemmas. A basic cut of grass-fed beef, commonly referred to as gravy beef, costs around AU$18 a kilo. The next option was something called MSA beef. I asked the check out girl what MSA stood for but she said she had no idea. A quick search will reveal that it stands for Meat Standards Australia, but having watched the video and read the nonsense attached to the site, I still feel in the dark and am siding with the check out girl. There was no mention of grass, but I discovered that the MSA stamp is “a grading system based on actual consumer research”. Really? Sounds a little Orwellian to me. Then came the meat trays with no little stamps at all- nicely wrapped in plastic on styrofoam trays and looking all red and juicy- and much cheaper. No information was attached to this meat: I guess it meets no standards at all.

I went to the local hairdresser and discovered that she also lives on a small acreage farm and breeds a few cows and sheep for the table. She has more grass than I do and, as meat eater, she is ready to slaughter her own grass-fed animals. I admire that. There’s a local butcher in Hurstbridge who will do the butchering for you. You need to hire a bobcat or tractor to dig the large hole for the carcasses. You need to separate the animals for at least a day and make sure that they fast for 24 hours or so. I guess you then have to wear earplugs while the cows moo and fret, not to mention the fear and anxiety of the rest of the herd as this process occurs. I can’t bring myself to do this.

We have five grass-fed cows and sadly two or three have to go due to lack of grass in winter. They have done a fine job supplying us with manure for our compost heaps and keeping the grass down during bushfire season. It seems such a shame that our cows who have had a happy life will end up at an abattoir and their meat will appear on a plastic wrapped supermarket tray with an idiotic MSA sticker attached or perhaps not even that.

We like to eat grass too. Mobs of kangaroos call our grassy paddocks home which might explain the grass shortage.

For Where’s my Backpack This week’s theme is Grassy.

Because We Are Too Many

I’m a contadina ( peasant woman) at heart, having moved to the country years ago, when self-sufficiency and the ‘back to the earth’ movement was in its heyday, long before real estate agents and marketers grabbed hold of the catchy phrase ‘tree change’ to hoodwink city folk onto small farms in the bush. Looking back on that life of vegetable growing, chook breeding, orchard planting and raising a few miniature Dexter cows, I can see that it has been a rewarding yet extremely demanding lifestyle. And now some tough decisions need to be made.

This year’s drought has been challenging. Our five Dexter cows, all named and loved, have been relying on bought hay for months. The front cleared paddocks, around 13 acres, have been bare and bleached since Christmas. The five Dexters unwittingly share their grass with mobs of hungry kangaroos and rabbits, the latter becoming more invasive during drought years.

The Hungry Dexters — The hungry Dexters and some welcome rain.

The Dexters listen for the sound of the back door opening in the morning and begin their hungry mooing. They wait for a car to travel up the driveway and chase it like crazy circus animals, all legs flying in the dust. Stepping outside into the morning’s Autumn mist, they are waiting for me, their gentle gaze longing for another hay bale. I look back at them, our pets, Delilah, Derry, Duffy, Dougie and Oh Danny Boy and all I can think of is Little Father Time’s maudlin phrase, “because we are too many” from Jude the Obscure. Two or three of our Dexters have to go.

Friendly and Inquisative Dexters — Friendly and inquisitive Dexters

About Dexters

The Dexter breed originated in south-western Ireland. The breed almost disappeared in Ireland, but was still maintained as a pure breed in a number of small herds in England. The Dexter is a small breed and is naturally a miniature cow. They are usually black, a dark-red or dun, they are always single-coloured except for some very minor white marking on the udder or behind the navel. Horns are rather small and thick and grow outward with a forward curve on the male and upward on the female. The breed is suitable for beef or milk production.

We keep Dexters to mow our grass and use their manure on our gardens. They are inquisitive and very friendly.

Garden Monthly. Winter 2015

Winter is a great time to check the vegetable garden’s infrastructure before being overwhelmed by the tasks of Spring. Five years ago when we moved into this property, we installed a tall fence around the perimeter of the garden. The base of the fence was then boarded, allowing mowing and brushcutting up to the edge, but the fencing wire was not buried. We should have known that the rabbits would keep finding weak points and enter by digging under the boards. Task number one is to rectify this problem. Time to call a working bee.

Borage Blue - Spring is around teh corner. — Borage Blue Flowers make a colourful addition to a salad.

Last summer we installed hoops over half the garden beds, enabling us to attach shade cloth over the summer crops during the hot summer months. The hoops are made from ‘found’ reo ( metal reinforcing rods) which are cut into 1½ metre lengths then inserted into flexible poly piping. More hoops are required this season, to cover the remaining beds with stretchy cheap bird netting as a deterrent to the winter vandals, namely the cockatoos. These large birds love a winter raid. The guard cocky sits in the tallest tree, alerting his friends of our imminent arrival, though all our loud shooing and yelling has little effect. Down they swoop in large gangs, bombing any plant that they consider too tall, ugly or in the way. Last week the slow-growing broccoli plants became winter’s first victims. Some were sliced in half, others were pulled out of the ground. Just for fun! The 300 garlic plants are getting some height and look like the next target.

Keeping accurate rainfall records is an ingrained habit: we have records from this area dating back to the 8os. Winter rain tallies are important for many reasons. Melbourne can often be cold and dry in June and July, so watering becomes essential. This July we have received 104 mm, with a cumulative total of 491 mm for the year, comparing favourably with the figures from the July aggregate totals from recent years. (July’14- 340 mm, July ’13-300, July’12- 457, July ’11-537, July’10- 483). Let’s hope that the rain keeps up in Spring.

Winter herbs- dill and coriander. Dill and walnut pesto is a new winter favourite.

Our vegetable garden relies on dam water. The house is supplied by rainwater collected in tanks and is reserved for home use, topping up the swimming pool and emergencies, such as bushfire. We extended the dam, making it deeper and wider, soon after we arrived in our new abode. It filled quickly during a Spring downpour: we watched in awe as it went from empty to full in one afternoon, like a giant cappuccino in the making. During the dry months, water is pumped from the dam up to a 5000 litre holding tank on the ridge. The water is then gravity fed down to the garden, via underground pipes, as the vegetable garden is sited well below the tanks. Sometimes the lines get blocked or are slowed down and need the filters changed. This is another winter task.

Our beautiful Dexter cows, Delilah (the bitch) Sad Aunty Derry, Skinny Duffy and the boys, Dougie and Oh Danny Boy (the rogue), give us a bountiful supply of manure as do the chooks. The manure is layered into large bins, along with dry leaves (carbon), and green matter (kitchen waste and green clippings): the resulting ‘lasagne’ puffs away for three months until ready for use with each new season. We have around five bins in various stages of maturation. Well made compost is the answer to successful organic growing, along with adequate water, mulching, and siting the garden away from shade or large rooted trees. East and north sun are key factors, along with protection from the South West, the main source of our destructive winds.

Dear Auntie Derry. — Dear Auntie Derry knows more than you think. She recognises Andrew from the road. ‘Here he comes, let’s chase his car up the driveway”.

Winter lettuces come in all colours and flavours. They are picked every few days, washed then spun and bagged. Unlike the supermarket packets of uniform ‘baby’ leaves, gassed and given a mandatory wash in bleach, home-grown lettuces are delightfully irregular, and often come with stems attached. The current mix includes Cos, butterhead, red oakleaf, red butterhead, rocket and baby radicchio.

Radicchio grows everywhere, even along the brick paths. — Self sown radicchio grows everywhere, even along the brick paths.

Perrenial Cacolo Nero ( kale) = good winter standby. — Perennial Cavolo Nero ( kale), good winter standby.

Looking for more garden inspiration? Check out this month’s vegetable garden posts on Lizzie’s Garden Share Collective from Monday, August 3.

Garden Diary, March 2015

I know, dear readers and my good friend Helen, that I have mentioned my tomato glut in many other posts but I must mention two particular tomato varieties that featured in my vegetable garden this year. Firstly, the miniature yellow pear, which quickly became a triffid and bore fruit throughout December (unusual in Melbourne) and continues to do so. I attempted to weigh the crop but soon tired of this chore- many have been left on the vine as I couldn’t keep up with them.

The next tomato I promised to report on was the black-skinned tomato that my son grew from seeds purchased on eBay. They did eventually turn red and are in no way related to the more desirable Krim or Black Russian but go by the name ‘Indigo Rose’. They are blue tomatoes engineered at the Oregon State University. They are prolific, long keepers and medium-sized but sadly, they lack true tomato flavour so I won’t be growing these next year.

My favourite tomato, Rouge de Marmande cropped poorly this year and the Roma has called it quits already and it is only March! The season has been odd- one very hot spell in December, followed be a cool summer. Even the basil is slow.

The cool summer has meant an abundant supply of strawberries : they have produced continually for months and early self seeding of radicchio, rainbow chard and cavolo nero. You win some, you lose some with each season.

self sown cavolo nero ( Tuscan kale- black kale )

This year Alberto tied up the leeks and spring onions onto stakes. Their seed is now ready. They make great architectural statements in the veggie patch.

I have recycled lots of household junk. This basic clothes airer is used to support cucumber vines. The legs bury nicely into the soil.

I saved my disintegrating pool lounge chairs and turned them into shade houses to protect lettuce seed and young seedlings from drying out. I sow directly into the ground.

Frame of pool lounge covered in shade cloth.

And here’s the pillow end of the old pool chair, ready to provide some instant shade wherever it’s needed. No land fill, no tipping fees- just re-purposed junk.

To do list:

remove shade cloth from the hooped frames now that the weather has turned mild.
make more compost
sow autumn vegetable seedlings, lettuce, carrots, spring onions, brocolli.
transplant self-sown seedlings as keeping them in the same bed will deplete them of goodness. Crop rotation makes sense.
remove bird nets from raspberry beds and cut back some of the canes.
pick all the grapes.

A good visitor to my veggie patch is this little ladybird beetle.

The veggie patch has also benefited greatly from the manure provided by our cows and hens. Here is young Dougie Dexter begging me for another cow lolly ( acorn). I would like to sell him and his cousin Oh Danny Boy but I don’t want them to end up on a BBQ!

Not only does this post from a monthly record of food gardening activities, it also features in the Garden Share Collective, kindly coordinated by Lizzie. Follow the link to see other amazing gardens throughout Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom.

Orange, Almond and Marmalade Morning Tea Cakes.

Spring is just around the corner and the birds are warbling cheerfully in the garden. Another Dexter calf was born early this morning, still without name but many are in the running. What a glorious day, makes me want to talk like Robbie Burns, oh deary laddie oh.

New born male Dexter in need of a name. — New born male Dexter calf needs a name. So far the nominations are : Dillon, Dylan, Danny, Dustin, David, Denzel, Darcy, Dermot, Delicious, Daire, Dash, Doogle, Daithi, ( I think that’s Daisy with a lisp or pronounced by a drunk ), Dennis, Dugan, Declan, Duke, Dude, Duncan, Damian, Doyle, Darragh, Diddley Dee per Taters, Darius, Dailey, Dale, Dinner, Draco, Dax, Dante, Doolin, Declan, Dacow, Dagwod, Derwood, Des, Delbert, Donal, ( after Donal Lunny ) Dalton, Daryl, DOT ( short for Dirty Old Town) and Oh ( short for Danny Boy).

These simple little morning tea cakes are not overly sweet and include a small amount of almond meal helping to keep things moist. They have a sweet/bitter heart, just like mine, provided by a daub of orange marmalade. Best of all, they can be thrown together in minutes.

Orange, Almond and Marmalade Cakes.

125 g unsalted butter
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 large orange, rind zested then juiced
2 large eggs
1 cup SR flour
3/4 cup almond meal
orange marmalade

Cream the butter, sugar and orange rind until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Then add the flour, the almond meal and the juice. Spoon into a greased 12 hole muffin tin, regular sized , and if you prefer, encase them in muffin papers or parchment. Make a small indent into the batter and add a half teaspoon of marmalade to each. Smooth batter over the top.

Bake in a preheated (180 c oven for 15-20 minutes). Cool on a rack. Dust with icing sugar.

Help name the Dexter calf. The name must start with D and be male-ish. Irish/Celtic names preferred but not essential. Leave a D name in the comments below. His name will be chosen by Sunday, August 24th.

And You Can Be My Cowgirl.

I love that old 80s song, “I wanna be a cowboy” but it does remind me how much I loathe the term ‘wanna’ which seems to be creeping into our language and is promoted by many a famous blog. ‘Wanna’ is up there with ‘kinda’ and ‘gonna’ as commonplace contractions in spoken English, but when these ‘common’ contractions occur in considered writing, my rant radar goes off, along with the misuse of ‘like’, ‘awesome’ and ‘guys’, the latter lazily thrown about as if a non-gendered form of address.

Resist the destruction of written English! Or just sing,

Yippy yippy yi, yippy yippy yi yo yo

Oh, yippy yippy yo yo!

Brand New calf, Dougie the Dexter and his mother, Delilah.

Have you also noticed this ‘wanna’,’kinda’ language appearing too often for your liking?

Garden Monthly. August 2014.

It’s winter here in Melbourne and the veggie garden was thriving until last week. A few severe frosty mornings set some vegetables back as the temperatures dropped below zero, and snow was recorded in the nearby hills. The leaves on the lime trees are now burnt but will survive. Old Jack Frost has killed off the remaining chilli plants and the rows of new potatoes. The frosts in the last two years seem to be more severe than I can remember in past years.

frost covered patch of turnips and lettuce.

Nothing can kill a turnip which has led to a flurry of turnip recipe experiments. I feel like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, grovelling about the turnip rows. Where is my hessian gown and curtained hood? They are mostly added to old fashioned vegetable soups or roasted. I tried some turnip rostis and I cannot recommend this dish, as gorgeous as it looked topped with sour cream and feathery dill. It was just too turnipy!

The cavolo nero ( black kale) has turned into a perennial triffid and needs staking. I don’t mind. I add the leaves to soups and risotto or cook it then add to orecchiette pasta, the latter with garlic, anchovies, EV olive oil, and chilli flakes.

cavolo nero or tuscan kale. — cavolo nero or Tuscan kale.

The lettuces are nice and crisp in winter. The Cos are prolific as are the red and copper leafed varieties which are self-sown.

These broccoli were grown from old seed thrown into a bed in late March. We are slowly working our way through the heads and looking forward to some side shoots. Some years ago, I kept a broccoli plant going for 18 months, eating lovely side shoots the whole time. The trick to semi perennial broccoli? Never let the plants flower. This works well if you don’t get that nasty little white butterfly in summer.

Freshly picked broccoli is nothing like its woody retail counterpart. It only needs two minutes in boiling water, drained, then tossed about in additional chosen flavours. A simple Neil Perry Recipe can be found here. I also love them tossed with a little oil, garlic, soy sauce and a pinch of sugar.

In late May, I moved a whole lot of plants into a perennial bed, artichoke and rhubarb for example. They enjoyed a winter dormant spell and are showing signs of recovering for Spring.

The To Do List is always too long.

Mulch the garlic before the Spring weeds get a hold.
Manure and mulch the perennial bed of rhubarb.
Finish off the third compost bin and begin the fourth.
Prepare spare beds for Spring planting with ready compost covered with mulch.
Espalier the fruit trees in the second chicken run orchard. Urgent Mr T!
Gather more cow manure from the front paddocks to add to the compost bins with dried leaves and green matter.

And on a sad note, here is my favourite Dexter cow, Derry, who gave birth last Sunday to a beautiful shiny black calf. Sadly the calf couldn’t stand to suckle due to a crippled leg. The vet instructed us to take the inevitable course of action. Derry is our lawnmower, pet and keeps us in manure. She has recovered.

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