Making Biltong Down Under

When you’re from Windhoek, you can only spend so much time without biltong.  I was practically raised on this stuff.  I can still remember the first time my granddad got a kudu and we carved it up into little pieces and hung it up in the little room in our backyard.  I was still very young, but I remember it fondly – like it was yesterday.  I can still taste that kudu when I think about it. 

After nearly three years in Perth, and having to buy beef biltong from local butchers at ridiculous prices, I have finally put aside enough time to build a decent biltong drying cage so that I can start making my own biltong.

At first I tried to use a cheap dehydrator, but I will not recommend this to anyone.  If you don’t have one that has variable temperature control, it will just cook your meat while it’s drying, and it will taste like bad army food.

The better way to make biltong is the traditional way – air drying.  I built myself a nice little cage out of flyscreen, rope and wooden planks, using a staple gun to attach the flyscreen to the sides.  The top and bottom covers are removable, to make it easy to access and clean the cage:

I also added some wheels to make it easier to drag this thing around the house:

The meat is prepared by marinading it in vinegar and the basic biltong spices: coriander, pepper, salt and a little brown sugar.

Then these spiced beauties are hung in the cage by attaching little hooks through them. S-shaped hooks made out of normal binding wire does the job perfectly.

Using a fan to help blow-dry the meat makes the curing process a little faster, but is not essential.  It does help, however, if you have moving air around the meat.

Look at these beauties – pure nature at it’s best: environmentally friendly, bio-degradable, and extremely good for my heart and emotional well-being:

A good piece of biltong is what makes life worth living.

(No additional animals were killed during the production of this blog…)

The Carbon Tax Fiasco

The Australian government is currently in the process of introducing a new carbon tax. The purpose of this tax supposedly is to bring down carbon emissions. 

They “explain” this in the following diagram:

But I don’t understand how it works. I am just a normal run-of-the-mill stupid taxpayer.

What they claim to be doing, is as follows:

Tax the 500 largest carbon-polluting companies in Australia, (like energy producers). Use half of that tax and refund it to the public in the form of a tax cut or a payment to make up for the increase in costs that will be passed on to the end-user.

Somehow, this will make these large companies reduce their emissions. It will also make the “greener” alternatives more attractive and competitive on a cost basis, and therefore we will all live happily ever after.

What they don’t say is that no one actually has to reduce their carbon output. To me, this looks like a way for the government to collect more tax revenue and pass it on to the tax-payer, creating a more socialist state. Depending on how you position yourself, this could be a good or a bad thing, but actually has nothing to do with pollution!

My point here is that even though things will cost more, the government is supposedly going to hand out rebates so that the average Australian can cope with these costs. Which means that the coal-powered power station can keep on polluting as it always has, and because they now pay more tax, they are justified in increasing their electricity prices, for which the good old government will refund the average household. How easy.

The basic reason for all of this is that so-called greener alternatives are much more expensive than burning coal. The government wants us to get used to paying much more for our electricity bills (and anything else for that matter) than we need to, and they’re forcing up the price of existing technologies just so that green alternatives can become synthetically competitive.

Imagine this scenario: the power generators actually start reducing their carbon pollution footprint. This means that they pay less carbon tax, which means our wise government does not have the tax revenue to pass on to consumers, even though the average consumer will now still be paying much more for almost everything they consume. The government will run into even more debt or will stop the rebates.

Not exactly a win-win situation if you ask me. The logic that is being applied here is based on way too many assumptions. Only politicians can come up with stupid ideas like these. Politicians who only worry about the next election and the current status quo.

Snowing in Namibia

Apparently these photos have not been photo-shopped or altered in any way.  This is not something you normally see in Namibia:

Farewell

A while ago I had a deep conversation with my son while we spent 24 hours camping alone in the bush of south-western Australia. I told my son how much it hurt me that my own father chose not to love me. Ever since my son was born, it was even more difficult for me to comprehend how anyone could choose not to love their children. Was I so unlovable that my own father wouldn’t want me?

When I was 10 years old, however, another man chose to love me and call me his son. For this I will always be grateful. He changed my life, and gave me one of the greatest things I was longing for. I was a small little boy who needed a strong man to shape my life. A hero, a big strong man who was not afraid of anything.

He taught me that real strength was not just in physical appearance or status, but in how you treated those who were weaker than you.

He always loved children, and seemed to prefer the company of laughing children to that of adults. I’ve never seen children who didn’t love Oom George.

I remember walking down the street with him. He would greet complete strangers as if they should know him, and would make jokes wherever he went. He never considered the possibility that anyone he walked into would not know who he was, and enthusiastically greeted them and asked about their welfare.

My dad would interrupt the middle of any conversation and point us to the nice sound of the clarinet or trombone in the song that was playing in the background.

Music was his life.

This was the language of my dad – scales and notes and melodies. He spoke this universal language and understood it well.

It is a great honour when someone is chosen to be the son of a hero. I was chosen – and I honour you as my father. May you rest in peace.

I salute you, Sammajoor.

Hard life on Cocos island

I am working on Cocos island at the moment - what a great life I have! Our equipment was left behind in Perth because they didn't have enough room for it on the plane - they are bringing it in tomorrow. So unfortunately we were forced to go snorkeling out at Direction island - one of the most undisturbed beautiful beaches in the world! We'll have to work on Saturday to catch up, but it's still awesome to have the privilege of seeing this place, and being paid to come here!

Have a nice life you bunch of suckers! Haha

Narrogin men's camp

My son and I went on a Men's camp this weekend, where we spent some time helping a young farmer finish his house.

On Saturday night we also spent some time hunting for roos and other pests like foxes and rabbits.

We built a bonfire out of what must have been more than ten large trees – a lovely sight!

We were not very successful with the hunt, because the area is quite dry and our furry little friends were keeping to themselves.  I did have a change to have a go at a fox, but was just too late when he jumped underneath a fence and got away with my shot ringing in his ears.

This was lots of fun – I haven’t had a shot at a living thing for more than 3 years now, and found it quite invigorating.  It is not quite the same as hunting for springbuck at 250m distances, as we used a double-barrel shotgun at short distances while the ute was still moving. Would love to do this again.

We also did some skeet-shooting and target practise on tin cans.

My job was to help install insulation in the ceilings.  We wore these beautiful orange jump suites which made us look like we were working at a nuclear power plant:

Great story coming soon

Yep, it's been a while - I'm just too busy (and/or lazy) to come up with more great material.

But there's a great story on the way, it's taking a while to finish it.

Watch this space...