47. Food and Geometry

Today I am going to write about my favourite thing, which is food.

I work in an industry that produces it and when I am not working (or sleeping) I mostly eat. One of the good things about the job I do is the physical work means that despite indulging in possibly my favourite hobby of eating and enjoying one or two casual beers, I am unlikely to get fat. I reckon I burn off plenty of energy milking and putting up reels.

These are the big three food types that are necessary to do my job.

1.Tonnes of carbohydrates (mostly pasta, potatoes and bread) – for energy and filling up the stomach, and as a carrier for meat. 

2. Fruit and Veg – for vitamins etc. Hard work is made a lot worse if you have man flu.

3. Protein – because I get loads of free meat, it tastes nice and every meal should have meat in it somewhere. Also for biceps.

A few days ago I had the rare opportunity of interaction with people who do not work with me. 

Two friends from university, Will and Matt, came to visit in their campervan. Having been across the ditch in Aussie for a while they thought a roadtrip around NZ would be a good thing to do before returning home to face the inevitable job search.

(Incidentally anyone looking for a herdsman/assistant herd manager in the UK I will also be looking for employment when I get back!)

Anyway back to my story, I thought the arrival of some friendly pommie faces was a good opportunity to put the metaphorical chef’s hat on and dazzle them (and Stephie) with my cooking skills.

After tying a rope around my waist and writing my will, I dived head first into the chest freezer and did a bit of exploring. Lurking between some dodgy looking orange ice cream and forgotten-about-fast-chilled-beer-ice I found a decent chunk of silverside.

It came from a beast (I think a fat empty heifer from last year) that had been gifted to all the share-milkers and workers. With the knowledge that it was a dairy animal, I thought a pot roast was in order.

Throwing in a few rashers of bacon, chunks of onion, carrot and celery, a load of red wine, and some stock, I put the meat in the oven and forgot about it for three hours.

When we were all hungry I sliced the roast up and piled a bit of mash and the veg onto plates. With some gravy (basically the juice from the meat and veg) it looked and tasted great and looked a lot better than this picture shows.

I didn’t have my camera on ‘culinary setting’ and was in a hurry because I was starving. The meat looks like it has been cooked rare inside out, the pink is actually the wine soaked in. I will put in less than 2/3 of a bottle next time.

My second best meal this week was lamb. Remember these guys?

Well some of them (more grown up than that picture obviously) is now in the freezer. My first taste of the woollies came in the form of lots of very small chops. All the small ones from the end of the rack had been put in one bag and I think I had them all. They tasted good and this picture shows how important that culinary setting on the camera is because the look good too.

At the moment I am cooking what was a gamble meal. I defrosted a suspect looking bag of unidentifiable meat. It turned out to be steaks of some sort with what I hope is a BBQ sauce marinade. I am going to assume that it was once cow, but to be honest it could be anything from possum to lost Chinese tourist.

As well as cheffing about in the kitchen this week, I have also been doing some large scale geometry. Sometimes I wish the paddocks on this farm were square, with an even cover of grass and sensible trough placement, but then I think that that would be boring.

I spend a lot of my time deciding where to put my reel, and change my mind about ten times whilst doing it. The aim at the moment is 2 hectares per feed, a nice round number. It doesn't help when the paddock is 9.6 hectares area and has 9 sides, a pond, a rough patch where gorse used to grow, a few steep banks and only one trough. But that is what you get for dairying on converted beef/sheep land.

Here is how that paddock 18 was grazed (red lines = reels, yellow mark = gate) you have no idea how much thinking went into that!

The 5^th break was half a feed with the other half in another paddock.

Here are some more awkward reels I have done recently:

That last one included the thin triangle of grass for 80 cows that were there to clean up the left-overs and leave a good residue.

It can be a bit tiresome sometimes but I am learning some good grazing management skills.

Righto, that’s all for today. I have three days off now, I plan on going on a drive somewhere interesting, not sure where yet though. I might video it anyway and produce another short film! 

For those of you wandering where the next logical film about milking is, it is in pre-production and is on its way. Release date still unknown.