Although it is the last month of winter, it is not unusual for August to be the coldest month of the year on the Granite Belt. This year, 2008, is not proving to be the exception to the rule with morning temperatures dropping as low as -8°Celsius.
Due to the altitude the Granite Belt it is the coldest district in Queensland. Visitors come here hoping for starry night skies and frosty mornings when the ice will crunch under their feet. They are seldom disappointed.

This is great weather to dine in at Das Helwig Haus on a roast goose dinner. I breed a flock of geese each year and graze them free range on our farm so that when winter comes I can serve a true German style Christmas in July dinner. This is what I like to call “Self Sufficiency at Das Helwig Haus“.
It is sometimes hard for city people to comprehend how food arrives on the shelves of stores or on their restaurant plates, but the reality is that meat animals and birds are bred for the table.
So it is that I breed our own geese and now in August I have already have four mother geese each setting on about a dozen eggs. Ganders make very protective parents once the young are born, but mother geese don’t achieve a high score from a clutch of eggs. I always consider that a fifty percent survival rate is excellent.
Most people think that geese are as savage as watchdogs but I assure them that my geese are shy and will always walk away from people unless they are protecting their young babies.
I always ask our guests not to feed the geese anything like pieces of bread or they could get in the habit of following after people expecting a free hand out. That is why geese in public parks gain a bad reputation for chasing people and pecking them.

Our geese enjoy a great life as free range geese during the daylight hours. They roam all over our farm, grazing on the green grass and swimming on our dams.

Geese are a natural grazing bird, but appreciate a handful of cracked corn in the evenings. This is the lure I use to encourage them to return to their pens, where I feed them prior to closing the doors for the night. Due to the predators like foxes we have to ensure our geese are securely penned each night.

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In years gone by the Flanders poppy spread with mankind right around the Mediterranean Sea and across Europe from Russia to Great Britain. Man, with bags of wheat seed, probably carried it across the English Channel, as the poppy was a weed of wheat fields. Another alternative is that the seed was carried in soil attached to a garden implement.

There is much mythology associated with these poppies because they have grown for centuries around the Mediterranean. They appear on ancient Greek friezes and seed has been found in the tombs of the Pharaohs. One story is that they originated in China. It was then a white flower from which a potent drug was distilled, called the Flower of Forgetfulness. After a battle when much blood was shed upon a field, the poppies grew red the next year, with a black cross in the middle. These poppies are still a wild flower and each year I see variations of colour in the overall expanse of red from shades of orange to almost purple.
Throughout my childhood as I discovered the joys of embroidery I particularly liked the designs that featured what were commonly called the Field flowers. These were the red Flanders poppy, blue cornflower, golden wheat heads and sometimes the white Marguerite daisy. When holidaying in Europe with my husband in 1990 I realised a life long ambition, to see these flowers blooming amongst the wheat crops.
Two years later when we moved to live on the Granite Belt I realised that I could grow the red Flanders poppy to begin flowering in October and continue to the end of November. The poppy flower has a small cup-like seed head that perhaps contains a thousand seeds. These seeds are as small as ground black pepper and just as hard. As the seed ripens they fall as from a pepper pot on to the ground and remain there in the soil until conditions are ready for germination.
The field poppies, or Flanders poppies as they are now known, were weeds of the wheat fields of France and Belgium. Due to the devastation of World War One no wheat was planted in the fields over which the armies of Europe fought. The soil of these fields was disturbed by the shelling, trench digging and grave digging. We have all heard of the heavy rains that turned this arena into a quagmire during the winter months, but in the spring the poppies appeared with a blaze or red wherever the soil had been disturbed. The soldiers from Commonwealth countries had never seen the like and they named them the Flanders Poppy.
Each year we cultivate our Remembrance Field towards the end of June. This throws the fine seed on to the surface of the soil. Firstly we turn the soil over with a disc plough. Then harrows are dragged over the field to level the soil.

It is then necessary that the seed be kept moist for the next two weeks. It is possible that we will have a down pour of winter rain to soak the soil, but if rain doesn’t fall we apply water via overhead irrigation sprinklers.
This winter of 2008 has been cold and dry. The photo below shows the frost on the field one July morning. The poppies have germinated but are only small plants at the time this photo was taken.

The frosts have continued into August but I have great faith that once the warm weather arrives in September the poppies in the Remembrance Field will grow rapidly.

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Although it is the last month of winter, it is not unusual for August to be the coldest month of the year on the Granite Belt. This year, 2008, is not proving to be the exception to the rule.
Due to the altitude the Granite Belt is the coldest district in Queensland. Visitors come to Das Helwig Haus in August hoping for starry night skies and frosty mornings when the ice will crunch under their feet. They are seldom disappointed.

Although the frosts are still with us throughout much of August I always think of it as a golden month with golden daffodils and golden wattle. There is no better view of the wattle than from the deck of Claudia’s Country Café at the Thunderbolt Farm and cellar door. Set high on the hills of the Granite Belt the view from this lookout is magnificent. Set on the eastern side of the range of hills above the valley through which flows the Severn River, the deck of this charming restaurant is protected from winter winds. In the warm glow of an afternoon’s sun, guests linger over yet another glass of wine, reluctant to stir from the tranquility of the setting.
Keith and Claudia chose to call their farm after the famous bushranger who roamed the New England Tableland as far north as the Granite Belt. In honour of Fred Ward, otherwise known as Captain Thunderbolt, because he appeared suddenly usually from behind huge granite rocks, they named two of their wines Stagecoach White and Bushranger Red.
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Hello, I’m Fay Helwig of Das Helwig Haus B&B near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt.  I grew up on a cattle property and later lived on different farms in varied climates where I always established a garden.
 
I now live in a cool mountain district famous for being the coldest region of Queensland. Due to the cool climate the area is recognised for its high altitude wines and apple orchards. A district attraction is the Girraween National Park famous for granite mountains and Australian wildflowers.
 
I have combined all these features Wildflowers, Wilderness and Wine as my title for a book about my lifestyle.
 
My aim with this blog is to share with you the fun of tourism festivals, the joy of growing a huge and productive garden and the self-sufficiency skills I can teach you.  My blog will include photographs, recipes and anecdotes concerning the training of young WWOOFERs – willing workers on organic farms.
 
 Das Helwig Haus B&B was named the best Bed and Breakfast in Queensland by the journalists of the Sunday Mail. The Remembrance Field of Flanders Poppies was featured on Burke’s Backyard and the German Christmas feasts are shown on SBS Food Lovers Guide to Australia.

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