More greetings from New Zealand

[farmerdrea]

Hello! I found out about this wonderful website from PeterNZ, on another forum that we both frequent. I've been browsing here for the last day or so, and find that this is much more in line with the way we live -- thank you!!!

We live on 10 acres in Canterbury, New Zealand, about 60kms outside Christchurch. We're from the US originally, but are New Zealanders now, and have been here about 4 years. We had a small farm in the US as well, but have the room to expand our efforts here.

I grew up on a smallholding in California, but my parents abandoned the idea at some point, I never did know why. We didn't have goats, but we did have rabbits and chickens and produced nearly all our vegetables and fruit.

Now, we grow all our own meat (turkey, duck, chicken, pork, rabbit, chevon, beef), and I'm experimenting with making homegrown sausage and smoked meats. I did our own dry-cured bacon last year, and it was just about the best bacon I've eaten in my life! Time-consuming, but well worth it!

We milk 14 dairy goats, and a Jersey/Friesian house cow, wee Dot (she looks like a Friesian, but is quite small like a Jersey, and her milk is like Jersey milk - heavy on the cream, lovely for butter and ice cream making). I also make 9 different cheeses from the cow's and goats' milks. Mascarpone, Mozarrella and Cheddar from the cow, Fromage Blanc, Queso Blanco, Feta, Cheddar, Chevre and Gouda from the goats.

We grow most of our own vege, and we are establishing an orchard and soft fruit gardens, with lots of apples now (there was a very old tree here at this very old house when we moved here a couple of years ago), and the strawberries and black currants are producing well this year. Can hardly wait - in a few years' time, heaps of raspberries, marionberries, blueberries, gooseberries (we all LOVE berries!!), and I want to learn to make fruit wines from them.

My husband is the brewer and baker. He hasn't actually made any beer since we came to New Zealand, but I'm hoping this summer that will change! He used to make fruit ales and strong stouts, and they were fantastic. My favourite was is blueberry ale. His bread speciality is San Francisco style sourdough bread, nice and dense and sour, the way I love it (I grew up just outside San Francisco). He makes lots of other breads, but that's the family favourite.

We have 2 children, who are both homeschooled. Son, who is 14, just got his amateur radio operator's license, and is really into the technology of it all, but I had to draw the line on the antenna building in the house! Daughter, who is 10, is an aspiring writer/illustrator. She's always either reading, writing or drawing.

We are just about as self-sufficient as we can be on 10 acres, and even with what we spend on animal feed (we have to buy in lots of hay over the winter, as half our goat herd is 2 rare breeds of goats, which we breed for conservation purposes), I don't spend on groceries because of what we produce right here.

Anyway, glad to be here, and looking forward to "meeting" everyone!

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

[Andy Hamilton]

wow looks like we will all be learning a lot from you, glad to have you stumble on us. Welcome to selfsufficientish.

(BTW I deleted your double post before anyone noticed )

[red]

welcome!

[The Chili Monster]

[monkeynuts]

Hello farmerdrea and welcome.
My sister is moving to the North Island pretty soon from the Uk and nags me constantly to move there too. If I was to go, I would only ever move to the South Island..it is just so beautiful!!

[Millymollymandy]

Oooh you lucky thing - you can make your own self-sufficient boysenberry ice cream! Yum yum drool.

Oh and welcome by the way!

[Shirley]

:welcomeish:

Ooooh fantastic... a goat keeper!!!! We've got three British Saanen, only one in milk at the moment, but the other two will be going to visit the billy sometime soon.. It will be great to hear hints and tips for cheesemaking and dairying. We are thinking of making a drink from the whey - fallachan. I've bought a bottle of it to try first though

Blueberry ale sounds wonderful... I'd love to make that. We get wild blaeberries up here so it would be pretty much FREE BEER YAY!!

What is chevon??

[Millymollymandy]

Is it some kind of bambi?

[Shirley]

looks like it's goats meat! Apparently very tasty. We'll likely have some if we have any billy kids.

http://www.springhillsfarm.com/goat.html

[farmerdrea]

Thanks for the welcomes!!

We have Saanens and Toggenburgs for milk, but we've also got a conservation herd of English Goats, some of which have just been recorded by the English Goat Breeders Assn in the UK! Their treasurer and her husband, who happens to be an inspector for the association, were travelling through NZ and got in touch with us. It was really exciting! Anyway, they have some milking ability, and I'm milking two of them as well; very rich milk, rather sweet and nutty tasting compared to the very bland Saanen milk.

I've been making cheeses for about 7 years, with LOTS of disasters at the beginning, most of which were fed to the chooks.

Yes, chevon is goat meat. Excess kids are first sold as pets, and whatever we can't sell we eat!

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

[HILLDREAMER90]

HELLO

[Daisy's Mum]

Hello and Welcome

Lorna x

[PeterNZ]

Kia Ora Andrea!

Great to see you here.

Folks, Andrea is THE GOAT EXPERT in other forums and mail groups. She knows almost everything about goats and what she doesn't know is probably not worth knowing anyway!

Just kidding (as we Goat people say! He he he!)

Cheers

Peter

[farmerdrea]

Why, thank you PeterNZ!!!

Goat expert - porobably not, but I learn something new everyday, and I love my goats to bits, even the old crabby ones.

This forum is much more in line with the way we live than other farming type forums than I've been on (some for years), and I like that way it's organised.

Cheers!
Andrea
NZ