“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

"…so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.  
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.”
 
 
The chooks and us are trying to catch the beauty, and the fallen fence, very, very quickly, all week: beauty of the moment, before it is thrown away, to make some more, and again and again. 
#beauty #throwaway #pastured #chickens #bluesky #clouds #pasturedeggs #themoment #farmlife #liveinthemoment 
 
—from the poem “A Color of the Sky” by Tony Hoagland
Photography by Paula

A whole apple pie, two chocolate brownies with custard creme, two Spanish omelettes with sage and chopped onions, fifteen macarons with vanilla and raspberry crème in the middle - mmmm– all the things we can eat from the biggest egg we have ever had: 182g one egg!
It was, indeed a triple yolker!!!
 
#food #hungry #eggs #pastured #guinessrecord #biggestegg #thebiggest #worldrecord #big #giant #enormous
 
Photography by Haydn

“Aren't you cold and won't you freeze,
With branches bare, you winter trees?
You've thrown away your summer shift,
Your autumn gold has come adrift.

Dearie me, you winter trees,
What strange behavior, if you please!
In summer you could wear much less,
But come the winter – you undress!”
 
With our youngest flock, watching the bare arms of our winter trees, and wondering: Australian native trees undress their bark, European planted tress undress their leaves: why, indeed, in winter?
 
#trees #undress #winter #eggs #pastured #pasture #farmlife #wintersun #chickens #poetry #farming #poetryandfarming
 
--from the poem “Winter Trees” by Zoltan Zelk, a Hungarian poet.

“Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.
Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you'd be forced to smell your feet.
…
Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,
your brain would rattle from the breeze.
Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,
not pasted on some other place--
be glad your nose is on your face!”
The most magnificent nose – in my face – from The Apprentice (our Maremma who worked so well with our oldest dogs while in training, that he learned forever the name ‘The Apprentice’).
#nose #face #inyourface #Maremma #sheepdog #pasturedeggs #farmlife #poetry #farmingpoetry #poetryandfarming #yournose
--from the poem “Be Glad Your Nose is On Your Face” by the wonderful Jack Prelutsky (who also wrote the glorious poem “Last Night I Dreamt of Chickens”, on our blog since 2020).

"If I were short it would be fun,
I'd never bump my head,
And my feet would not get chilly
'cause they stick out of my bed."
 
[And] sometimes when you're trying to hide,
It's better to be small"
 
The sweetest moment when the puppies are just short enough to hide in between a flock of chickens 😊
 
#short #puppy #pastured #eggs #Maremma #puppies #lovepuppies #poetry #farmlife #hide #flockofchickens
 
"Tall and short poem" by Big Bird and Little Bird, The Sesame Street Treasury. Volume 14 Starring the number 14 and the letters U, V & W.
 
- Photography by Carla, with her favourite puppy

Can you see the chickens walk with a new swagger? 😃
Three new ribbons just arrived, from the Royal Easter Show 2024: we won the Champion award in two categories, as well as the Grand Champion award overall!
 
#swagger #awards #ribbons #sydneyroyalshow #showoff #eggs #pastured #awardwinning #again #champions

“The sky is all covered with cobwebs,
wisps of them, drifting so high
that probably no one could reach them
with a rag on a broom, and not a soul
is trying. How did it come to this?
Hundreds of people with time on their hands,
and not one broom in the air!”
 
This is all it takes sometimes: just be the first one to reach up 😊
 
#clouds #cobwebs #reachup #sunset #clouds #pastured #eggs #freerange #lookup #afternoonsky #poetry #farmlife #howcome #lookingforabroom
 
--from the poem “June Afternoon” by Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek, from their book Marshmallow Clouds

There'll be days like this, my mama said"
 
...when not one, but two tyres of the collection ute go bust, the chain on the machine breaks for no apparent reason, the gas bottle that looked heavy is actually finished.
 
Best time of days like this: the evening sunset, egg collection is done, eggs all packed, and truck is on the way.
 
#farmlife #breakdowns #pastured #eggs #freerange #tyres #utes #dayslikethis #mamasaid #lyrics and #farming
 
--from the lyrics to THE SHIRELLES song "Mama said"