Elisabeth Fekonia explaining the finer points of cow milking

A year ago we filmed with Elisabeth Fekonia a fantastic little DVD on Home Cheesemaking and All things Dairy.

What we didn’t show you on the DVD – is what happens when best intentions don’t necessarily go according to plan. Elisabeth was instructing the camera how to milk a cow. She went into quite elaborate detail on how to curl the fingers, draw the first milk out from the cow teats and was explaining the finer points of udder control when the cow decided she had had enough.

We’ve hidden the footage in our vaults. Lets face it – its a bit embarrassing to be teaching a technique and then see it fail dismally or at least put it up on YouTube for the world to see.

Recently when talking with Elisabeth we decided it was time to share this wonderful moment with all the world. Not sure if it will go viral out there but it deserves its place in our collection of funny Permaculture moments captured on film.

There are two things you learn about working with animals. Never stand directly behind a horse when filming. Never stand to the side of a cow when milking!

Both animals kick in slightly different directions.

Thanks again to Elisabeth for agreeing to share this golden moment.

Very sad to hear yesterday the passing of a true legend and active member of Permaculture Noosa – Frank Fekonia. Husband to Elisabeth, Frank was a true maverick character who told me how he escaped from communist Slovania in the early 1960′s by stealing a canoe and paddling night and day for the shores of Italy. Exhausted by the journey, he was picked up by Italian fisherman when he tumbled into the water off the Adriatic Coast. Eventually as a refugee he made it to Australia. A frustrated musician and trumpet player who was more used to the  traditional Jazz and Swing sound of the 50′s, he became a builder instead when the Beatles he said – ended his career as a musician.

He eventually moved to Cooroy in Queensland and with little money built a three storey home – entirely out of concrete – from moulds he designed himself.

When we met Frank and Elisabeth we made this little YouTube video for fun about how he built his home from recyclable materials – window frames and re purposed them in other ways on the balcony. Frank’s YouTube video was a hit and still remains amongst all our 60 odd Permaculture and Aquaponics video clips on YouTube – the most popular.

Frank was always himself. A real inovator with that infectious laugh. A joie de vivre attitude to life and a generosity of spirit. He would show you how to knock off a guinea-pig for lunch – with a spanner of course. Or how to grow vegetables in fridges he found at the tip, and he had a huge collection of them. Whatever he did – he did it frugally and within its limits. Terms such as “living within your Carbon footprint” were alien and foreign terms to him – because living a peasant lifestyle, off produce you grew in your backyard where elemental and natural things that you should do. He would grow massive pigs in the backyard. He would point out the Sow and of course she would be named “Elisabeth!” He chortled at that. How did Elisabeth ever put up with him?

I’ll always remember Frank showing me his “water purification system” as he liked to call it and then laugh his boyish naughty giggle as he pointed to it. An illegal sly grog still to make the firewater -Vodka! And by Jove could he drink the stuff! He used to say that you had to have a big peasant breakfast in the morning – loaded with Vodka of course; Then – you could work all day.

So here’s my toast to Frank Fekonia – a terrible piano accordian player but a rare character in the Permaculture Firmament.

Anne Wensley in her Deep Litter Chicken Coop

Trying to see Anne Wensley’s chicken coop is hard to spot at first. Thats because it doesn’t really look like a traditional chicken coop. Anne has a mass of vines and creepers covering her chicken run in her suburban backyard. A choko vine covered in fruit drips off the sides of the chicken wire mesh that enclose her chicken or chook pen.

Nothing is as it seems in her garden. A large metal compost tumbler has found a new life as a makeshift chicken nesting box. Anne has no need for a compost tumbler as the floor of the chicken coop is her compost processing centre.

We are here filming with Elisabeth Fekonia the start of our Permaculture Chickens DVD and Elisabeth was quick to point out Anne’s great system that we had to see and film.

Everything is draped in dappled sunlight. Her suburban backyard is covered with vegetable plants and her chicken coop is placed center stage in the backyard, perched higher on a slope overlooking her home which is  less than 30 feet away.

When you enter her coop, the chickens are hard to spot at first and are well hidden amongst the foliage. Your feet sink into the deep brown composted soil and you forget that you are standing in a chicken coop. For a moment you feel guilty that you are stepping into a heavily mulched rich garden bed. This coop doesn’t resemble the traditional hard compacted pan-baked soil you normally find in most backyard chicken coops.

Anne is a committed to Permaculture and its only when you spend a little time with her that she explains the reasons she has various plants growing inside the chicken coop.

Fresh Fruit and Grain

Plan map of Anne Wensley's Chicken CoopFresh Fruit and Grain for the Chickens

She points out an Acerola cherry tree in the middle of the yard. I don’t get the significance at first, until she points out that Acerola cherrys are loaded with vitamin C, in fact they have the highest concentration of vitamin C of any fruit.

The fallen fruit is eaten by the chickens and benefit the eggs they produce.  Its these little details that most people don’t notice at first that are mentioned by experienced Permaculturalists who able to point out the plant and animal associations. Sometimes it takes a while for the penny to drop and you begin to appreciate more how these subtle systems works so well in the backyard to enrich the living systems.

Anne points out a purple looking weed growing rampant on the outside of the chook yard wire fence. I hardly notice it at first, but Anne points out it’s significance.

“Thats Amaranth!” she gestures to it, “My chooks love it.”

A quick check on the health benefits of Amaranth and you realise why Anne’s chickens look so healthy.  There’s more energy, protein, calcium and magnesium in a quarter cup of Amaranth grain than other grains such as wheat, rice,  sweetcorn or potato.

In fact Anne nonchalantly mentions that store bought grain, the kind supplied for most backyard chickens is the last thing her chickens will want to eat, preferring to graze on the fresh grain surrounding the coop.

Other forms of grain grasses grow in the perimeter of her chicken coop. The chickens graze and prune the weeds as well.

Anne explains some of her methods for deep litter composting.

Amaranth growing outside Anne Wensley's Chicken Coop

Deep Litter Chicken Coops

For a start she throws all her kitchen scraps into the coop. Shredded newspaper, weeds, anything organic goes through the chicken’s inspection lines first as they scratch and peck and turn the top layer over.

Anne likes to leave a mountain of weeds in her coop for a few weeks to rot down and then with a fork turn the whole thing over pretty much like a compost heap.

The chickens race into the center of this upturned mess that is now exposed and covered in scurrying bugs. The chickens swoop on the bugs,  feasting on small insects and soil creatures that abound in the bottom layer of topsoil.

You will need to leave the heap undisturbed for at least two weeks or longer before the bugs re-assemble.

This compost tumbler is now out of work as the chickens take over

Anne picks up her garden fork and regularly turns the soil over, composting it in the process. It looks brown and friable, resembling fine potting mix.

Anne lifts a handful of the stuff up to her face and smells it. “Its beautiful.” she says, “Its a really rich earthy smell. Its lovely. It doesn’t smell of chook poo or anything like that.”

The floor of the chicken coop acts as a compost system. Adding carbon in the form of old pine shavings or shredded cardboard, old leaves and paper will speed up the decomposition process.

Anne claims that turning the compost over repeatedly with a garden fork will de-compact the soil and allow the chickens to also take ‘dust baths’ and scratch around for seeds and bugs as they manure the soil.

She has had very little problem with mites or parasites infecting her chickens using this method.

We’re planning a number of exciting new titles to be released in 2011.

Urban Permaculture DVD

One of the complaints we often get from people living in the city is that we focus a little heavily on Permaculture titles that require a large scale farm to get the most benefit from practicing Permaculture.

So we are happy to announce that in 2011 we will be working on the Urban Permaculture DVD with Geoff Lawton.

Actually we really started shooting a lot of footage already that we were going to include in the Permaculture Soils DVD that we completed, but for various logistic reasons we found the segments would work best in a video that focuses in detail on adopting Permaculture techniques in small scale domestic environments.

From courtyards to backyards to places where you thought you could never do anything with, we want to make this DVD a Permaculture techniques DVD where people can be inspired by what is really possible.

Here’s an example of the kind of thing we mean:

A sneak preview of Geoff Lawton visiting a beautiful Mandala garden in an urban Permaculture garden. It shows Permculture can be aesthetically pleasing to the eye with a richness of patterns as well as a productive food source.

Along with the Urban Permaculture theme, we’re going to focus on one of the creatures that most Permaculture people can’t live without in their backyard – the humble Chook or Chicken as it’s known to our overseas friends.

Backyard Chickens DVD

If you’ve ever been interested in raising chickens from incubating your own fertile eggs, or raising baby chicks to adult hens and want the details on what breed to choose, meat or egg layers, how many to fit into your suburban backyard, what to feed them, how to house them, how many eggs to expect, and how to cure them if they get sick – then Permaculture Cheese-maker and now Chicken wrangler Elisabeth Fekonia will guide you through the whole process. From building a perfect coop for your backyard or a sleek mobile chicken enclosure, this DVD is going to drill right down in great detail and show you everything you need to know to guarantee success.

We’ll also investigate Permaculture Chickens. Does such a breed exist and why would you want to choose heirloom chicken breeds in the first place? Chickens do in fact make great pets if you manage to handle them and tame them, they end up being very inquisitive birds. You’ll meet some of the people that love them as they share their experiences in raising these fascinating productive animals.

This is an intensive DVD designed to get a newcomer up to speed on keeping chickens in a suburban environment. Even if you’ve never kept a chicken before and are curious to start from scratch, you’ll get a lot out of this title as we will cram a lot of helpful knowledge, practical tips, lessons and fun things on owning your own small flock of birds for egg laying purposes and err…meat processing. We’ll even show you how to pluck them and carve them -if you’re game enough to watch.

DIY Aquapoics DVD

Then there’s the DIY Aquaponics DVD thats been already announced elsewhere. Murray Hallam is eager to get this one out around February so check back here regularly to see what little clips and tips and short You Tube video’s we’ll continually add and blog and share with you.

We’ve enjoyed working with Murray and Geoff and Elisabeth over this last year. Its always been a pleasant and creative experience. Its never been tense or difficult. The odd thing is that we as filmmakers have learnt so much working with these creative and inspiring teachers that it kind of rubs off on you. We had no intention of getting into Aquaponics but when we saw how well it all worked -we were hooked. With Geoff, we have a modest sized food forest system planted where our front lawn should have been and now we also have four free ranging chickens digging holes in our backyard as well!  That’s the side benefit you get making films with these crazy Permaculture people – you end up with a lot more knowledge than you began with.

Oh, its not too late to add your thoughts and tell us what you’d like to see covered in any of these films, except the DIY Aquaponics video as its pretty well locked in and complete.

So ends 2010.

Elisabeth Fekonia in Centre speaking at her DVD Launch

Speaking at the launch of her new DVD on Home Cheese-making, Elisabeth Fekonia stressed the need for people to take charge of what they eat and start growing their own food.
Addressing a group of locals at the function room of the Cooroy Library she said that she recently had a blood test and her Calcium levels were very high. “Great Calcium from all the Cows milk!” she laughed. Elisabeth eats a lot of her own produce and when you saw the table laid out with the variety of home made dairy produce you realize Elisabeth must be a very busy lady.

“I don’t have time to go to the gym and workout.” she said, “I get all my exercise from working on my farm. All that milking, bending, weeding keeps you fit.”

“I leave a very light footprint” she laughed. People were encouraged to sample her many dairy products such as kefir, goat cottage cheddar, bries, butter and home-made seeded sourdough bread.

What about getting Cholesterol from eating all that cheese?

Elisabeth doesn’t believe you are in any danger from eating home made cheese and dismisses the idea.
“You get high Cholesterol from processed sugar products.” She says, “Processed Foods and refined oil.”
Certainly looking at her you realize how fit and healthy she looks.

Speaking at the launch of her DVD she said “It takes knowledge and experience to grow your own food.”

“We all know food prices are going up – but I don’t notice it.” she laughed.

She has been involved with Permaculture Noosa since 1995 and has taught her popular cheese-making course up and down the Sunshine Coast for many years. Her companion book to go with the DVD will have more depth and detail but the DVD does cover all the things you need to know to make your own cheese from either goat or cow milk.

She said the climate here on the Sunshine Coast was one of the best to grow all kinds of food and encourage more people to take control of their lives.
“We need to change our culture -from being consumers to being responsible for the food we consume.” she said.

Jersey Cow

When we caught up with Elisabeth Fekonia she was clutching her new Cheese-making DVD as she was preparing for an official launch at the local library near her home at Cooroy in Queensland.

We had a number of people ask if you need to keep a cow or a goat at home in order to make your own cheese? Elisabeth says you can still make cheese from any kind of milk although raw milk is best if you can get it.

“Alternatively pasturised only milk is okay if you can find it on the shelves of your store.” she said.

Cheesemaking implements, knives, containers and presses can be easily made from recycled materials as long as they are sterilized with hot water before use.

If you’re in the market for a cow and have a small acreage Elisabeth recommends a Jersey cow as a great milking breed. “This cow produces the creamiest of cheese.” she said. “and also the most cream for making fresh butter.”

Anglo-Nubian Goat

As for buying a goat, not all breeds are best. Elisabeth recommends you get yourself a Anglo-Nubian breed. “They make the creamiest milk which is great for cheese-making.”

Cheese-making can be a complex process but Elisabeth has been teaching her popular cheese-making course for 15 years and says she regularly seeks feedback from students to help her improve her teaching skills. “You got to listen to your students and seek written feedback.” she says. “Over the years I have learnt to be particular over certain cheese-making techniques and explain things clearly so that any beginner can easily learn the process and not be left behind. I have tried to be very clear in this DVD and explain the whole process in simple terms that anyone can grasp.”

Elisabeth stresses that people need a healthy immune system to stay well. She is a keen supporter of Probiotics.

“Getting healthy bacteria into your gut flora to enhance your immune system.” she says. “Making one’s own fresh yoghurt with culture and kefired milk is essential in your family’s diet. It will boost your health and vitality.”

Elisabeth Fekonia

Elisabeth describes the cow as the matriarch of the Farm. “When you get a cow you will soon realize the advantages of getting a pig and even some chickens.” she explained, “When you make cheese you will have some excess Whey. That Whey is half the nutritional value of milk. You don’t throw it away and lose the benefit. You feed it to – the pigs!” she laughs. “But it doesn’t end there. The pigs are then herded into secure pens in the garden to root around in the soil churning over the mud, depositing manure and cycling nutrients that then feed our vegetable garden. This is typical Permaculture.” says Elisabeth. “The chickens are also part of the cycle. I grow Sunflowers and feed the seeds to the chickens and get eggs and meat in return. These cycles are common on Permaculture farms like ours.”

“Everyone should try and make their own dairy products and feel the difference.” She said.

Elisabeth Fekonia

Okay it’s taken a while and we were expecting to release this title last year. We even had a few people ask for it for last year’s Christmas but the truth is we took too long to finish it. So now its here! Ready to go. Elisabeth Fekonia Home Cheesemaking and All Things Dairy DVD has finally been released!

Elisabeth Fekonia lives on six acres near Mount Cooroy on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and over the last 15 years she has been teaching people how to make all sorts of dairy products from raw cow and goats milk. She has two milking cows and a number of assorted goats which all have different names like “Bambi” and “Lydia” and so on and in this true DIY permaculture title she teaches you the basics of making your own Cheddar Cheese from raw cows milk, a soft brie from goats milk, cottage cheese, Ghee, Kefir, Sour Cream and Yoghurt are all taught in this entertaining DVD.

She even shows you how to milk a cow or goat as well as many small tips on keeping your animals healthy. Mineralization of stock feed is an important ingredient in keeping you and your family healthy and Elisabeth shows you how to mix your own mineral blend for your dairy cow’s diet. From milking the cow she takes you into her colourful home and into her kitchen and Elisabeth shows you how to make your own cheese from simple no fancy implements that you can fashion yourself. My favourite was a stainless steel dogs bowl that she transformed into a new life as a cheese container!

If you really want to live an independent sustainable life – then Elisabeth is the real McCoy!

Elisabeth is a permaculture teacher who writes frequently for Australian lifestyle magazines as well as conducting frequent Cheese and Sour-bread making workshops in Queensland. She and her husband Frank have appeared on SBS-TV and frequently on Australian ABC Radio.

Learn how to make:

• Cheddar Cheese from Raw Milk
• Goat Brie Cheese
• Cottage Cheese
• Ghee
• Kefir
• Sour Cream
• Yoghurt
• plus tips on animal health

Home Cheesemaking and all things Dairy DVD

• PAL Format
• Region Free
• Over 90 minutes of quality information

Price: $39.95

Quantity:

We're Sorry

What started off as an introduction to building a basic shed for housing goats turns into a lesson in cycling nutrients and understanding Permaculture.
When Ecofilms asked Elisabeth Fekonia to show us her goat milking shed we wondered what those two covered bathtubs in the corner of the shed were doing there? What we got was a lesson in Permaculture nutrient cycling and simple effective design that just works without costing you a lot of money.

Elisabeth and her husband Frank have built their shed all from recycled materials found at the local rubbish tip. If you were ever wondering what to do with that old sofa you were trying to get rid of – why not recycle it into a stand for milking goats? Thats what Elisabeth did. And while you are at the tip, bring back a couple of bathtubs too. They are brilliant at being turned into an effective worm farm. Elisabeth explains her process of living the good sustainable life with everything she needs being close to hand in this video clip.

Whilst filming at Elisabeth Fekonia’s farm we noticed long hedgerows of Mugwort grown along the perimeter of her property.
Mugwort is well known in Medieval times as regulating the menstrual cycle in women. Men used it to flavour their beer as an alternative to Hops. It was widely used as a poultice claiming to heal or sorts of things.
But a lesser known feature of this woody plant is it’s health benefits to goats. When EcoFilms came to her property to film her Cheese-making course she mentioned to us the health properties of this famous herb as especially suited to be used as a de-wormer of Goats. Elisabeth does not use any commercially made drugs or medicines on her livestock and she says her goats are always healthy due to this plant’s amazing health benefits.

Getting goats to nibble on Mugwort is not easy. Elisabeth says it took her cattle and goats about a year of grazing before they attempted to nibble on this plant. Now they readily eat this plant when they feel the urge to expel parasites from their system. She says the older goats usually lead by example and teach the younger goats what plant to eat.