ON FARM:

This Photo was taken today by Jack on his mobile so please forgive the grainy quality.  We just thought you might like to see the pigs like we do.

We have planted quite a bit of pasture for our pigs lately instead of planting grain.  This should do a few great things:

1. Cut down on the running of tractors for the usual ploughing, planting, harvesting cycle.  ie less emmissions and cost.
2. Increase carbon sequestering (Pastures can pull carbon from the air and store it in the soil)
3. Decrease our need for off farm high protein grains/pulses.
4. Make the pigs happier (you never see them quite as happy as when they are in a field of green) whoever said “happy as a pig in mud”, must never have seen pigs dancing about in a luscious green pasture.
5. Permanent pastures use less water and help the soil to retain more moisture, making it more water efficient than planting a grain crop.

Its really lovely to watch a pig grazing, see the tail curl up and wag in delight as it takes mouthful after mouthful of green feed.  Another wonderful benefit of pigs eating green feed is that is makes the fat higher in Omega fatty acids. 

Market:

ORGANIC EXPO 2008 STAND

We were delighted to attend the organic expo in Sydney this year. July 25th to 27th.  Quite a few people got to sample the certified organic smallgoods that we are now having made, and loved them.  It was great to meet heaps of people passionate about organics, but also passionate about great tasting food.

ORGANIC

The draft of the new national standard for organic and biodynamic production has been available for public comment.
It stipulates requirements for the production, preparation, transportation, marketing and labelling of organic and biodynamic products.

The draft standard will:

• Provide clear definitions about what is organic and what is not,

• Protect consumers against unsubstantiated claims and misleading labelling,

Standards Australia is working towards publishing the Australian Standard by December 2008.

Although there has been an Australian Standard for Organic, it has only been enforceable on misrepresentation of the word organic when it comes to EXPORT.

This is great news for the Australian consumer as it means that only certified organic produce can be labelled or described as organic. It is also great news for the certified organic producers, as we will no longer need to compete with people misleading the public. 

Have a great week!

Miriam & Jack

Life is always full of little surprises.

Well its good to be back and talking with you all again. sorry that it has taken me so long!!  Like the rest of you my life is pretty full, but I think that a life is never too full to share with friends.

We have a new processor.  If you had a bit of a look at the front page you would have noticed that I have added a bit to it, and that includes a link and the address for purchasing our certified orgnanic fresh cuts and our Nitrate free Small Goods.  It was very exciting for me to go down to the:

I made heaps of new contacts so that more people in more areas will now be able to buy Pasture Perfect Certified Organic Pork and also our Nitrite Free ham and bacon.

Organic By Nature, in Victoria has plans to supply to many smaller healthfood and organic stores.  If you want it in your local store and you live in Vctoria, give them a call and let them know.

For those of you in Queensland, Ambrosia Commodities 518 Sherwood Road, Sherwood carries our certifed organic pork and nitrate free Ham, Bacon, Salami and Pastrami.  We also have Certified Organic Ham and Bacon avaiable as well.  If you want the pork at your local health food shop, ask tham to contact me or to contact www.ambrosia.com.au so they can get a price list. 

I can hardly believe it, another year totally gone!!  Another great year beginning.

It has been so long since I made a post to the site you probably all thought that I had left the country, or died or something… Nope, just busy as usual.  So, what’s been happening you say?  Where do I start?

ORGANIC STATUS

Some really, absolutely fantastic news is that we are now fully certified organic.  We got the news just before Christmas, so Santa came early in the form of a shiny new certificate. 

Pasture Perfect Pork

Jack and I with Manny the boar                          

  Swineschen Too small to stay with mum

In The News… We have been so fortunate in the past 6 months…  ABC’s Landline programme featured our farm as part of a story on the changes that are coming to the pork industry.  We were stunned when we saw what great footage and complimentary story had been produced.  Sadly, the intensive pork industry is a consumer driven thing.  If we want it to change, we need to be the change and vote with our shopping dollars.  Always seek out certified organic pork.  We were also featured in a small Brisbane Magazine. 

Bumpy Bits… There have also been some hiccups along the way.  We are truly sorry to have had to dissapoint so many of our loyal customers in the 2006 Christmas season, by not being able to supply them with ham, bacon, or for that matter, any pork.  Just 6 weeks before Christmas, the processor that we have been using for the past year told us that they would not be processing any more of our pigs.  We hope to have now overcome this, and to be able to continue working with them in the future.  I will keep you posted.  A huge thanks to Peter Jepson for marketing our pork at the Northey Street Markets in Brisbane.  Lets hope we can get back out there as soon as possible.

Happy Pigs… The pigs are doing so well, our farrowing/weaning rate has increased slightly (we think due to a change in the management of our feeding and weaning processes) and even our growth rates have improved. With the self feeders in the paddocks, the pigs only come running saying “Give us a rub” not “Feed Me”. (Yes, after a few years you do become quite fluent in Pig)

Drought… One thing that has affected us a lot is the drought and feed prices.  We have decided to grow as much of our own feed as possible and slow down on the organic vegetables for a while.  Even the conventional grain prices have skyrocketed with the worst drought for 100 years in many areas.  It must be heartbreaking for a lot of farmers in the southern districts to have to sell a lot of their breeding stock as they are now even running out of water for stock to drink.  Thank God we have been very fortunate with rainfall.

Pasture Perfect Spelt

What did you do for Chistmas? We harvested our first crop of organic Spelt Wheat.  For those of you who don’t know, spelt is an ancient form of wheat that has been found to be very low in gluten and is proving to be great for those that are wheat intolerant.  I know I get the tummy grumbles if I eat too much bread or flour so I will be investing in a small grain mill (for the kitchen) so that I can make my own whole spelt wheat bread. 

On the home front

As I said in winter, my garden should be full of fruit and flowers, and it is. 

 Arrangement from the garden 

  My favourite roses     

Thanks to all of the Wwoofers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) that have been here from July to December.  A Special Thankyou to Yoshie,  who put in a garden bed under my office window and will always have a special place in my heart, Flo and Anne for the smiles and all of the help everywhere, but particularly with the mowing and cementing, and to Hilla for making it possible for us to go on a holiday.  Thanks always to Glen our incredible and indespensable, hardworking man about the farm.

 Yoshie          Flo & Anne             Hilla

Some other great news is that we had the local district heritage guy come out to have a look at all of the old buildings that we have on farm. (Log cabins on the river and old tobacco drying barns and sheds constructed from white cypress logs) He was very interested, so we hope that we will be able to do some work to maintain them, and maybe even restore one of the old log cabins, before they deteriorate too much.

So that’s about it from the farm.  I hope you all are keeping well, and thanks again for caring enough about free range, organic produce that you search out our site.  We’ll keep up the good work.

Yours truly

Miriam and Jack

Winter is here with a vengeance. Crispy, crackly ice every morning (well, almost every morning) since late April. Shorter days make us really manage our time with more care, although sometimes we still find that we are working well after dark, especially with the expecting mothers (sows).

Pasture Perfect® Pork

The pigs are doing well and seem to be enjoying the break from summer’s heat. They build beautiful, big grass nests and sleep in them tight up against each other, belly to back. Even though we put the mobile shelters in the areas for them, they still prefer to sleep outside!!.

Our coldest morning so far has been -7 degrees Celcius, but it warms up quickly as the sun comes out.

The sows are all in pig too and are farrowing now. Lots and lots of cute little piggies running about. Some of the sows are first timers and not very experienced. Jack and I were up until 12 the other night with 2 of these. One wanted to have her piglets right on the riverbank, and the other right on the electric fence.

We usually allow the sows to choose where they will have the litter and move the shelter to them, but with these, even though we only moved the nest a few meters from where they were originally, they didn’t want any part of it. We waited out with them for a few hours until a couple of piglets were born before we could get them to hop into their nice warm shelters, lined with grass and straw for bedding.

Most sows are pretty smart though, thank goodness!! Here is one of our girls making her farrowing (birthing) nest. She takes a few hours to gather up a great big pile of dry grass to nestle down into with her new family.

All we need to do now is put the shelter over the top of her. Sam (the pig pictured) is now the proud mother of some very cute little ones!!

The Pigs are also enjoying the pumpkins that were spoiled by the early frosts too. So every cloud does have a silver lining!

PASTURE PERFECT® VEGETABLES AND CEREALS

Our Broccoli is coming along nicely and we have planted organic spelt wheat, barley and lucerne as well. Our pumpkins are still being sold to Organic wholesalers in Sydney and to the public at our stand at the Northey St Markets in Brisbane as well.

MARKETS

For those of you who are not aware, Pasture Perfect® Pork (in conversion Organic) is now at the Northey St Markets. A huge thank you to Ron Sinclair and Jason Richards, who have been helping us out by attending the markets on our behalf. Due to personal commitments, however, they will not be able to continue and have handed the reins over to Peter Jepson. A lot of you who have attended the Northey St Organic Markets are familiar with Peter and we are sure that an excellent job will be continued.

Many of you have sampled our fresh pork and our Nitrate/Nitrite free cured products as well. We will endeavour to continue supplying you with what we believe is the best pork. The 100% pork Sausages and Bacon have been an really big hit. (So much so that we sometimes have a hard time keeping up with the demand!!) Jack and I will try to come down once a month to keep in contact with our customers and answer your questions about what we do on our farm.

Thank you also to the crew at Di Bella Coffee Breakfast Stand for doing a wonderful job in cooking up a storm every Saturday Morning.

As I said previously, we have planted spelt wheat. We would like to know if you would like us to get the grains hulled so that you can buy it to grind yourself? (You all are probably aware that you start to lose nutrition once the grain has been ground, so the fresher it is the better.) We would have it packed in calico bags min weight of 5 kg. We can only do this if there is enough interest, so please let us know. It wont be avaiable until early next year.

Remember when you buy organic to ask for the certification number and certifyng body. It is always disheartening to us, when we see products advertised as organic when they are not certified. SOMETIMES THEY ARE NOT EVEN FED ORGANIC FEED!! Be aware!

Thank you also to all of you who send us encouragment through emails and comments on the webiste. It really is great to know that we are appreciated for what we do. It makes it all worthwhile.

P.S. We didn’t get to go on our Second Honeymoon, but I did get a visit from my three Sisters. Maybe not as special for Jack as it was for me. I thought it was wonderful, with all the great things that Sisters do for each other, Hot Baths, Facials, Wine and Cheese, Chocolate, Shopping and of course lots and lots of Long talks. It wasn’t all easy going for them though, they wanted to help out so out came the loppers (and later on the chainsaw) and we got in and pruned all of the fruit trees and grape vines, put in a flower garden bed and planted out roses. When Spring rolls around, I should have heaps of Flowers and fruit!! Thanks so much sisters!!!

Well that’s about it from me, we hope that you are all well and happy. Take care of yourselves and those you love.

Cheers

Miriam and Jack Neilson

“If you care about what you put in your mouth, where it came from and the true ethics of not just farming but eating, then you should try Jack and Miriam’s Pasture Perfect® berkshire pork.”

Gillian Hurst, Courier Mail.