“The Grass so little has to do --…
With only Butterflies to brood
And Bees to entertain --
…
And stir all day to pretty Tunes”
 
A hectic day: chickens running all around, sheep breaking fences and getting where they are not supposed to, dogs barking left right and centre, late to pack the truck, driver waiting, and then I turn around: the tallest grass of Summer, which ‘stirs all day’, just swinging in the wind, hiding the bees, the butterflies, and occasionally hiding a few chickens too...
 
We all wish we were grass today!
 
#grass #sway #wind #hiding #tallgrass #poetry #summer #farmlife #nothingtodo #poem
--from the poem “The Grass so little has to do” by Emily Dickinson

Our own abstract expressionist movement, with the chooks using the ‘drip technique’, and innovating with the egg surface as a canvas! 🤣🤣🤣

Truly amazing as a whole-covered canvas, taken against the backdrop of burnt grass from the dry spell we had, mixed with some newly sprung fresh green (after this week’s lovely and very welcome rains).
 
Drip painting with our bright yolks 😊Art will save the world, they say, one hen leading the way. 🤣🤣🤣

#art #eggs #pasturedeggs #drippainting #jacksonpollock #farmlife #artandfarming #grass #pasture #canvas #hens #mischief #inthepaddock #eggsart #artoneggs  

I see you!
Normally, there should be eggs coming out from this belt, not chickens 😃😃😃

Our youngest chickens having fun, poking around everywhere we look.
 
#eggs #young #chickens #peekaboo #pastured #farmlife #surprise #hens

"The mechanic raised up from under my hood
He shook his head and said, 'This ain't good
Your timin' belt's done, shrunk one size too small.

Those spark plug wires are a little too long
And your main prodsponder's nearly gone
Your injector ports are stripped and that ain't all."
"The torque converter's runnin' low on torque
And that water pump's nearly down a quart
But we caught it all in time so you're in luck"

...don't be downhearted, I can fix it for you, sonny
It won't take too long, it'll just take money"

The Polaris part arrived after a long wait, we fit it in, and after an hour of egg collection, the wheel broke (you can see the front right-side wheel in the photo).  The Land Cruiser engine blew up on the way to Gundagai, trailer full of stuff behind it too. The big FUSO truck in the middle of Harden got stopped for being past rego, trailer full of eggs too. The other ute's tyre got a puncture so a quick run to the Active AG Tyre was a gift from above.

It's been one of those weeks, what can you do? Just crank up the volume on that country song and -"it'll just take money"!

#brokendown #eggs #pastured #mechanic #troubles #rough #terrain #farmlife #farmvehicles
--from the song "The Talkin' Song Repair Blues" by the talented Alan Jackson

“If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb…
 
…well, today is just that kind of day.”
 
There is this ‘just perfect’ moment in Spring: not too cold, not too hot yet. Not too windy, not too sunny. And although we spent the day dealing with water problems again (this has been the week for emergency water pump replacement, burned controller, persistent airlocks and cloudy days where the solar battery is not enough), we still take a moment to lift up our eyes and watch the sea of lush green wheat that has come through, and the nodding purple poppies.
 
We hope everyone can enjoy this Goldilocks Spring moment: open your windows and rip out your doors indeed 😃
 
#spring #goldilocksmoment #greenwheat #pinkpoppies #purplepoppies #lush #paddock #freerange #pasturedeggs #perfectday #water #problems #farmlife #farming #outdoors
--from the poem “Today” by Billy Collins
 

Families that scratch together, stay together!? 😃

I am always so amazed to observe chicken behaviour: scratching is the most natural one, and they tend to like to do it in groups. Apparently, scratching is fundamental to being a chicken: it's a basic instinct (even when newly hatched and without ever seeing another chicken doing it); it's a crucial skill for nest building and dust bathing; it trims their nails, but most importantly: it's a major way that chickens interact and bond with each other.
 
Hens are highly social, they form strong ties and bonds and use these activities as an expression of closeness as well. When they start to trust you, they are comfortable to scratch right next to you - or even on top of you, as I have experienced. Emotionally, it feels great. But boy, these claws can really scratch 😲
 
It may hurt, but it’s an expression of love. Isn’t that what we all crave and need: scratching together, and staying together 😊
#eggs #freerange #scratching #together #pasturedeggs #natural #behaviour #bonding

“The border is a line that birds cannot see.
The border says stop to the wind, but the wind speaks another language, and keeps going.”
 
The border is that favourite place to lay eggs, denying all knowledge of the nicely built, shining caravans. Anytime there is tall grass and a border to the road, or to the edge of the paddock fence, we just know we have to walk it every day. It must come from that original junglefowl, which liked to live at the edge of the jungle and cross the border to forage every day.
 
Ain’t no way to beat 5-6million years of history 😊
 
--from "The Border: A Double Sonnet" by Alberto Ríos

 “If all the skies were sunshine,
Our faces would be fain
To feel once more upon them
The cooling splash of rain.
 
If all the world were music,
Our hearts would often long
For one sweet strain of silence,
To break the endless song.”
 
The blissful mix of sunshine and a bit of rain, all in one day at the farm. A perfect sweet-bitterness or bitter-sweetness of Spring!
#pastured #eggs #bittersweetness #sunshineandrain #sweetbitterness #spring #pastured #eggs #rainandsun
 
--from the poem “If All the Skies” by Henry Van Dyke

Chef Sven from Hyatt Sydney’s windy day of tasting farm life at Hilltops free range eggs. #eggs #pastured #circulareconomy #sustainablefarming

Thirteen ways of looking at a chicken:
3 lost eggs,
4 lambs growing on the pasture that the chicken improved,
5 new clumps of Phalaris grass from the seeds the chicken spread, and
1 blue sky, just for fun.

A good summary of our farm in one photo.

#countingchickens #countingeggs #thirteenways #chicken #benefits #pastured #eggs #farmlife #springday #lambs #onephoto #farminonephoto #spring #losteggs
 
loosely inspired by “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens

"Let me cook you some dinner.  
Sit down and take off your shoes  
and socks and in fact the rest  
of your clothes, have a daquiri,  
turn on some music and dance"
 
The egg farmers' plate, of course.
#eggs #dinner #pasturedeggs #cook #cooking #healthyfood #protein #farmersdinner
 
 
--from the poem "The Love Cook" by Ron Padgett

"I have heard men long for a palace, but I want no such abode,
For wealth is a source of trouble, and a jeweled crown is a load;
I'll take my home in the open, with a mixture of sun and rain--
Just give me my old sheep wagon, on the boundless [Hilltops] plain."
 
Finished with lamb marking over the weekend and happy to sit all day, watching the lambs enjoy a well-fertilised pasture. We rotate chickens and sheep in a natural cycle that cares for the soil and nourishes our pastures. On a sunny spring day, the best home is out in the open, sitting on a blanket and watching the two white lambs.
 
If only the eggs would collect and pack themselves!
 
#spring #lambs #poetry #farmlife #sunnyday #out #intheopen #sun #whitelambs #pastured #eggs #outside

“If it ain't all ‘golden sunshine’ where the ‘wattle branches wave’,
Well, it ain't all damp and dismal, and it ain't all ‘lonely grave’.
 
And, of course, there's no denying that the bushman's life is rough,
But a man can easy stand it if he's built of sterling stuff”
 
One thing is sure: Spring is near! One can choose to look at whatever one would like to look at: sure, life is rough, but we are tough!
#spring #wattle #blooming #blossoms #farmlife #pasturedeggs #bugs #yellow
P.S. Did you see the bugs?
 
 
--from the poem “An answer to Various Bards” by Andrew Paterson

“Oh, open the door, some pity to shew,
If love it may na be, Oh;
Tho' thou hast been false, I'll ever prove true,
Oh, open the door to me, Oh.”
 
They got through the gate while the tractor was going out of the paddock,
and now they are all promises, promises, googly eyes and all…
You, runaway chooks, you better prove true,
We’re tired of chasing lost eggs after you!
 
#gate #runaway #freedom #pasturedeggs #chooks #pasture #eggs #letmein #locked #paddock #farmlife #grass #sky
 
---- from the poem “Open the door to me oh” by the great Robert Burns

 We solved a question of geometric proportions, which ran parallel to our emotions.
Yes, indeed, the yolk we found inside our triangular egg, turned out to be a perfect, bright yellow-orange circle! The joy of having a right-sized omelette for lunch today – an egg of any shape would taste as magnificent!
#eggs #pastured #yolk #weirdegg #perfectyolk #geometry #strange #egg #triangleegg #shapes #farming #experiment #surprise #whatsinside

How we are closing the ‘circular egg-onomy’ (pun intended 😊): we supply our pastured eggs to the Hyatt Regency hotel in Sydney, and they make amazingly delicious food. All the food waste from their kitchens then goes into a GoTerra facility on site, which grows fly larvae onto food scraps. GoTerra then supply us the larvae as insect protein that we feed to our chickens, the chickens roam around all day and lay eggs, and the cycle repeats again.
 
Playing our part in sustainability and building inter-connected, diverse and innovative economic models with actions, not words. Insect protein seems to struggle with the ‘yuk’ factor for humans, despite being extremely lean and having a very high protein portion. But it is wonderful for chickens, and they turn it into ‘likeable’ eggs for human consumption: win-win for all involved.
 
#circulareconomy #sustainability #actionsnotwords #pastured #eggs #eggonomy #collaborations #freerange #insectprotein #coolthings with @goterracbr @hyattregencysydney
 
-Photography by Tom, the Hyatt Regency Sydney, and The Australian Financial Review, 3-4 August, 2024.

“The [egg] is an [egg],
And was always an [egg].
But the theory now goes
That the apple's an [egg],
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove an [egg].

You, of course, are an [egg]-
But were always an [egg].”
 
We have had apple-shaped eggs, and pear-shaped eggs, and cone-shaped eggs, but this is the first time we got a triangular shaped egg!
By any other shape, an egg is still an egg, right?
 

• From the poem “The Rose Family” by Robert Frost, the chicken farmer and poet, with additions by Hilltops free range – replacing the ‘rose’ with an ‘egg’

#weird #eggs #pasturedeggs #triangleegg #poetry #farming #farmlife #odd #oddshape

"The tree that never had to fight
     For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
     And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
     But lived and died a scrubby thing.
 
The man who never had to toil
     To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
     Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
     But lived and died as he began.
 
Good timber does not grow with ease,
     The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
     The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
     In trees and men good timbers grow.”
 
One thing we know about July: good eggs do not grow with ease. We do our share of toiling our patch of soil, striving to win our share of sun and sky through the walls of rain and freezing wind and bogging mud. And we know: without the rains and mud, the grass would never have this sparkling green colour.  By ‘sun and cold’, good yolks and good men grow 😊
 
 
—from the poem “Good Timber” by Douglas Malloch. He grew up among logging camps and lumber yards, which inspired his poetry, like our favourite farmer poet Robert Frost.
 #eggs #pastured #grass #rains #poetry #poetryandfarming
Photography by Yana, in the short amount of time when the sun shone through 😅

Spin the wheels forward and reverse, turn the steering wheel at different angles, get all drenched in the non-stop storm, give up and call a friend, untangle the big chain, make sure to keep the tractor nowhere near the ute, have a play with the buttons – otherwise known as a ‘regular collection day in July’. With a bonus this year – have the hens come give us a push 😂😂😂 - or actually enjoy the bounty of worms and roots and seeds dug up in the tracks!
 
At least compared to our July 2020 post, we are getting much better – bogging only one ute at a time, NOT all three tractors AND the ute at the same time 😅, and getting them out same day, NOT having to wait till it dries up tomorrow. Big improvements!
 
#bogged #ute #dailystruggle #pasturedeggs #farmlife #dailycollection #raininjuly #rain #mud #chickens #helpers #eggs #whentheraintumblesdown
 
—Photography by Supa

 The hens try to take a group peck-ture :) :) :)

#chickenpun #chickenjokes #funnyvideo #hens #dropped #pasturedeggs #freedom

--Photography by Yana

Komorebi (木漏れ日): 'tree,' 'escape,' and 'sun' put together in one word. The untranslatable Japanese word, which is easy to translate - pictorially - on the farm, on a frosty winter morning.
It means the light that shines through the trees, that intricate interplay between sun and branches.  The one that author C.S. Lewis called “shafts of delicious sunlight” and “pure and spontaneous pleasures”. How lucky the chickens and us are, to enjoy them.
 
#pure #pleasures #farmlife #images #untranslatable #Japanese #oneword #delicioussunlight #translate #winterlight #eggs #pastured #lightandtrees
 
 
--Photography by Haydn