Who's the boss at Mount Gnomon Farm?

This is Dane, Guy's younger brother. Some people would say he's lost his marbles.

He's handed in his notice and started work this week as Mount Gnomon's first full time employee. He's working with pigs, and he's working with family. Crazy.

But we are so happy he hasn't come to his senses yet.

Dane is going to build our butchery and tourism centre. We're well underway with the plans now, but construction probably won't start for a good couple of months.

Until then, he's 'farm infrastructure manager': fixing and building fences, making repairs, putting up new stockyards, and sorting us out generally.

After only one day on the job, the grass has been cut, the electric fence is humming again, and the little piggies are eyeing the gateways nervously.

Guy's caught up on some paperwork, I've cleaned out one of the freezers (and even written a list of what's in it!) and I even had time to make a celebratory cake.

Welcome to the farm, Dane! We are so excited to have you formally on this journey with us.

Duck egg quiche excitement

Duck eggs generate a unique excitement among cooks that's just not seen with your run-of-the-mill chook eggs.

"You've got duck eggs?
"Have you got many duck eggs?
"I love duck eggs."

And we love them too.

We also love quiche - we're a quiche-loving-couple.
Here's my mum's onion quiche recipe that I've adapted.


Really Easy Shortcrust Pastry

2 cups of plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn salt
125g butter OR lard OR bacon/ham fat
1/4 cup water
Squeeze of lemon juice

Mix dry ingredients, rub in butter/lard/cured fat, add water and lemon juice, and knead lightly till it's smooth.
I take the really easy option and put the dry ingredients and fat into a food processor, wizzy it up, then add the water and lemon. This recipe produces enough for two average-size quiches.


Really Yummy Duck Egg and Allium Quiche

2 big onions OR 1 big leek OR 10 little potato onions OR a combination
Two big, fresh, free range, happy-quacky duck eggs (or chooks eggs... I suppose... if you have to)
150ml cream
Double handful of grated chedder
Salt and pepper
1 tspn of mustard (wet or dry)

Cook the chopped up members of the allium family with a good knob of butter in a frypan on low heat. It can take a good 15-20 minutes to get them well-cooked and translucent. Leave to cool.

Roll out the pastry to fit your daggy op-shop quiche dish.

Spread the cooked alliums into the dish, and then pour over the well-mixed egg/cream/cheese mix. Try to spread it evenly, so no one ends up with too much cheese and not enough leek. Disastrous.

At this point, this time, I sprinkled over some cooked bacon pieces. You can add lots of bacon if you'd like - it's best to cook it in the frypan with the alliums.

Put your quiche into a nice hot oven (200 degrees) so the duck eggs puff up. When the top starts turning golden I turn it down to 180. Every oven is different, but my quiches take about 30 minutes to cook.

Eat hot or cold, with salad or without, and give thanks to the ducks.

Duck buddies

This is Roger, Dylan and Quack-Quack.

They live on the fringe of the flock: outcasts. They have baggage.

Every morning you'll find them under the dying blackwood tree talking quietly as they wash and forage. The other ducks chatter in the orchard, assimilated.

I raised Roger and Dylan in the bathroom of my house in town. They swam under the warmth of a desk lamp, and came out to watch the news on the couch.

When they moved outside we would play on the lawn. I'd lay on my tummy and they'd walk along my back and tinker with my earrings and tease my hair.

Their confidence grew. I'd step outside with the washing and they'd sprint to the line. Roger would aim for the skin behind my knees and latch on - so great was his affection.

I contemplated a 'Beware of the Ducks' sign.

Quack-Quack is a dumped duck. She was an only child and her owners thought she'd be better-off eating our grain.

She's of "mixed breed" and appears to cogitate a lot.

The three spend most of their days together, but the boys do need Roger and Dylan Time. They have a special bond, these two.

Roger and Quack-Quack slid under the fence into the shelter belt the other day. Dylan was beside himself, wondering what they were up to.

But when Quack-Quack goes under the conifer to lay her egg, the boys waddle and hide.

And Quack-Quack spends the afternoon by herself.

The birth of Harvest - and Tasmania's farmers' market history

In 2001, I recall a close friend of Eliza and I being excited about the start of Tasmania’s first modern-era farmers’ market - in Burnie, on the north-west coast. An organic enthusiast, he anticipated farmers’ markets could solve many of the problems facing farming in Tasmania. They would be a way for farmers who were doing something against the norm to engage with the public, and the conscious shopper could source local food. Tasmania, with its abundant produce, would be a farmers’ market winner.

Our friend teamed up with a few other passionate locavores to present a case to the Burnie Show Society. The society was a logical place to start: it had an existing committee, a suitable venue, and the market proceeds could assist to keep the society running. The society accepted the proposal and the farmers’ market was born. It quickly became a success, with roughly 1,000 people wandering through the gates with their shopping bags every fortnight. The stallholder fees provided a much-needed injection of funds for the show society. The show societies of Wynyard, Devonport, and Launceston soon launched their own farmers’ markets, after seeing the success of Burnie.

A small and scattered population made it challenging for all the markets to be a raging success. Initially, the rules were that stallholders had to produce everything they sold. Unfortunately, the reality was that northern Tasmania was a producer of commodities, and few farmers grew niche products or were interested in taking what they grew to market. For generations their job was to farm and let the processing companies sell what they delivered to them. Due to a shortage of farmers wanting to go to the markets, the committees began to allow producers to sell wholesalers’ products to ensure there was enough range for the customers.

The committees were also worried about the lack of produce farmers could grow in the Tasmanian winter, and as a result introduced the 80/20 rule, where stallholders could source 20 per cent of their items from other producers. Many people saw this as the decline of the markets, as the rule was hard to police and easily abused. All of a sudden supposedly local produce, like sweet potatoes and oranges, started appearing at coastal markets alongside cheap wholesale vegetables. Tourists travelling in the region would have left disappointed with the quality of some of the produce on offer, a situation that wouldn’t have helped grow the quality Tasmanian brand.

In hindsight, the cash-strapped show societies were perhaps not the best groups to run the markets, as they were more interested in collecting funds to repair their showgrounds, than care about running a true farmers’ market and ensuring it reflected the best produce of the region. Ten years on, Burnie is still going strong, the Wynyard and Devonport markets remain, but the original Launceston farmers’ market has folded.

In February this year a new farmers’ market was born in Launceston called Harvest. In contrast to the other farmers’ markets in the north, it was started by a couple of passionate foodies who, on moving to the region, couldn’t believe it was lacking a high quality farmers’ market. They had done their homework (a survey showed a high level of demand from the public), they had reviewed successful market structures and governance, and had lobbied the local council for a suitable venue.  Importantly, they had a long list of producers who were crying out for a suitable farmers’ market. They also had confidence that a genuine farmers ’ markets could be successful – in the south, the highly popular Farm Gate market had been running in Hobart for the past couple of years.

Harvest was launched on Festivale weekend by delicious magazine’s Vali Little and to date, has been a resounding success. Shoppers in Launceston can now access some of the best produce of the north. They have an opportunity to meet the farmers and form a greater connection with their food. Travelling tourists also get the chance to try a whole range of Tasmania’s finest produce in the one spot.

Harvest has been great for the stallholders too: instead of taking home a vehicle of produce, many are selling out and leaving the market with a smile on their face. The confidence of a reliable market has seen existing businesses expand and new businesses created. 

An unexpected benefit has been the chance for producers to get to know other each other and share information and skills. Collaboration among producers is an important step as the food culture in northern Tasmania develops, as food trails begin to emerge, and as the region begins to back its reputation as a food destination.

View our farmers' market schedule here.

Duck season

It’s a challenging and busy time at Mount Gnomon. The days are gloomy and recent rains have made a pair of gumboots an essential item for feeding the menagerie.

But spring feels like it’s not too far away: we have only a couple of ewes left to lamb and we’ve had our first Belted Galloway calf.

The biggest indicator that the days are drawing out and the weather is going to improve is the onset of duck season. I don’t mean the shooting variety - I’m referring to the time when our large flock of ducks begins to lay.

I’ve long had a passion for ducks: it was my responsibility as a child to be the duck herder. Every night I’d call our Khaki Campbells with “dill, dill, dill” and they’d come in for their feed, and I’d shut them up so I could collect the eggs in the morning before the crows got them.

Eliza also grew up with ducks, and proudly tells of the time she took hand-reared Jimmy to the North Motton Pet Show on a lead.

The first ducks we bought for Mount Gnomon Farm were Indian Runners. Tall, upright, and elegant, the Indian Runners are great foragers and have earned a reputation for being the ideal garden slug and pest eradicator. The colours we have in our Indian Runners are classified as rare - in fact any colour other than white and white-and- fawn are rare and need support.

We have cinnamon, fawn, apricot, mallard, blue fawn, trout, and harlequin, and as a collection they make a great spectacle.

Indian runners have more of a herd mentality than any other duck and while they’re a bit scatty, they’re easy to train to go into their house at night. About an hour before dusk they run as a group to the shed entrance and wait to be shut up, away from our healthy population of quolls and devils.

The safety of the shed also protects the eggs from being pinched by crows each morning. Indian Runners are prolific layers and if fed a good laying ration can rival most chooks with their egg-laying capacity, often producing over 200 eggs in a season.

We have about 24 Indian Runner hens and when they all start laying it’s quite possible we’ll have to find a home for over 12 dozen eggs a week. We’re not sure what the market is like for ducks eggs, but we’re soon to find out.

Duck eggs are quite different to chook eggs. The yolk contains more fat and the white is higher in protein, and as a result if they’re eaten like a chook egg many people find them too rich. With their high protein levels they also require gentler cooking. However, the protein makes them perfect for baking and you can freely substitute chook eggs for duck eggs in cakes, biscuits, custards etc.

The high protein levels also mean that the whites will whip up better, so your cakes should be lighter and higher (and the richness of the egg yolks makes the cakes even richer).

Due to the relative scarcity of duck eggs most people haven’t cooked with them or are hesitant to give them a go. We’ve been told we’ll have to find some older country-style chefs that learnt to bake at a time when duck eggs were more common.

We would love to hear from people who have a particular use for duck eggs, or a favourite duck egg recipe, or know of someone who is after a regular supply. If not, our pigs can look forward to some special duck egg treats.

The reality of farming

For the past 24 hours I’ve had my hand up a sow. She’s been in labour so long the piglets are dying inside her. My hands are raw and ripped from trying to drag out one of the piglets by its teeth – the only bit I can catch on to.

The sow’s on her first litter, so we call her a gilt, and the piglets are simply too big for her. She’s worn out from pushing and her muscles have seized up from the strain.

I pulled out the first piglet yesterday, it was breech, but livened up pretty quickly once it was out and rubbed with a bit of straw. I thought that once the first one was born the rest would follow easily. Sometimes you just need to clear the blockage.

But as the day progressed nothing else appeared. And then over a couple of hours we pulled out two dead piglets. They were huge. They could have been a few days old. Gilts typically have smaller litters, but ideally the piglets are small too.

Before bed last night we went out for a final time to see if anything else had shifted. Guy’s hands are too wide for a gilt, so it’s my job to go digging. I lay on the straw, pressed into the spilt birthing juices, breathing in the unique smell of a farrowing sow.

With my arm fully in, I could just wriggle my fingers to feel a snout. When I put my finger in its mouth it bit down hard. Piglets’ teeth are incredibly sharp. I could feel its tongue moving about.

Over an hour I drew the piglet back and forth through the sow’s cavity. Countless times I had it within a handspan of the exit, and then it would be sucked back in by powerful muscles. It fell back fully out of reach after 11pm and I was spent.

Inside I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror: puffy and red-eyed, snot bubbling at my nostrils, blood spattered on my face. I was exhausted. And I knew that the piglet that was struggling to be born would probably be dead by morning.

This is the worst part of farming. A town-living friend said to me once that farming just seems to be all about life and death. Every day we’re confronted with it. Yesterday we killed nine roosters for the freezer. A week ago a quoll took some of our chooks. In the same week two litters of healthy piglets were born. In a fortnight our sheep will start lambing.

Neither of us wanted to get up this morning to check the sow. The piglets would either be dead beside her, or there would be nothing, which meant they were dead inside.

There was nothing.

I can feel a dead piglet just past her hips. She can’t push it through the last narrow bit, and I’ve been trying all morning to catch hold of the piglet long enough to drag it through.

The vet says there’s nothing we can do but let the piglet decompose and pump the sow with antibiotics every 12 hours to keep her alive. We’ve no idea how many more piglets are inside.

Reality shook me as I strained one last time to reach the piglet. I touched its flaccid tongue hanging between its teeth, and its brother - the sole survivor - nuzzled my shoulder, looking for a teat. Farming really is about the cycle of life.

Chestnut crunching for guilt-free crackling

Tasmania has only one commercial chestnut orchard, and our pigs are fortunate we know the owners.

About five years ago I met chestnut growers Colleen and Daryl Dibley. Their orchard is at Preolenna, up in the hills 20km south of Wynyard.

Preolenna used to be a prime dairy farming area, but now it’s a dark monoculture landscape of tree plantations.

The Dibleys are one of the few property owners at Preolenna still trying to make a living from the land.

Unfortunately this year’s been a bit of a fizzer. Chestnuts are wind pollinated, and the rain during January weighed down the flowers and meant the pollination failed.

But the upside of that has meant there have been plenty of reject chestnuts for our pigs!

The pigs love them, so much that when I take a bucket out to the paddock I have to be quick on my gum-booted feet to avoid being knocked over. The pigs eat the chestnuts shell and all.

It’s been known for centuries that pigs fed on chestnuts taste better. And there’s plenty of science out there on the improved meat and fat qualities. Chestnut-finished pork also has high levels of unsaturated fat, including heart-healthy oleic acid.

In Europe pigs have played an important role each season by cleaning out the chestnut orchards after the main harvest, eating the diseased and over-looked fruit. Chestnut-reared pork is cherished and commands a higher price.

You probably won’t notice a huge difference in our pigs this year, since they’re only getting small quantities as part of a broader mixed diet, but it’s nice to see the pigs enjoying themselves, and making a racket, crunching on such a delicacy in Tasmania.

Personally, I like them roasted with parsnips, beetroot, pumpkin, garlic and rosemary, and doused in olive oil and golden syrup.