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"

“You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
 
I say this blade of grass will do.”
 
Yes, the chook and I agree, a blade of grass is a whole poem. With the last two weeks left of summer, we can sit all sunset and contemplate the blades of grass, each taller than the car bonnet.
 
#bladeofgrass #summergrass #grass #hidden #pastured #eggs #pasturedeggs #farmlife #poetry #endofsummer #tallgrass #chicken #freetoroam #sunset #farming
-- from the wonderful poem “A Blade of Grass” by Brian Patten

Feeling eggstra special today at the egg farm. Enjoy a holiday to dye for 😃
#easter #eggpuns #pastured #eggs #dyedeggs #artandfarming #art #farm

We won the Grand Champion prize and the First prize in the 2024 Royal Easter Show Egg Competition! The winning eggs are still at the Judging table, if you would like to visit this Easter long weekend. The Poultry Pavilion is a lot of fun, with all shapes, sizes and colours of feathery creatures.
 
A massive THANK YOU to the whole farm team, without all of your hard work, this would not have been possible!
 
This is a third first prize for us at the Easter show, and we are grateful to all customers for supporting the best eggs in NSW 😊
 
This year, we also have a stall at the Royal Easter Show, would be happy to see you there!
 
#champion #eggs #pastured #2024royaleastershow #besteggs #hardwork #reward #teamwork
 

"When [feathered] wings are glistening in the beam
Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright,
Oh, let me, by the [Lachlan] valley-stream,
Wander amid the mild and mellow light;
And while the redbreast pipes his evening lay,
Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day."
 
My favourite time at the farm, when all the eggs are collected, and the evening light is golden on the feathered birds, and it’s time to look up at the sunset, for one lonely hour, and just breathe.
 
#sunset #hues #sunrays #feathers #glisten #mellowlight #pastured #eggs #farmlife #chickens #sundown #attheendoftheday #lonelyhour
 
--from the poem "A Walk at Sunset" by William Cullen Bryant
 
Photography by Paula

 Our farm stamp and a tasty egg for a blank canvas: that's all it takes sometimes to create art.
 
From our own budding Barbara Kruger (the American artist with words on her thought-provoking works): Lily, the creative talent.
Look out, and you might be lucky to find her creations in the packages this week :)
 
#art #farmlife #eggs #pastured #stamp #artist #creativity #thinkdifferent #wordsonart #letters #code #food

One is hiding and all twenty-three are seeking: they got the hide-and-seek game all wrong these chickens 😊 😃
 
Found this pretty fluffy bottom inside the hollow tree in one flock – the favorite place for games for our young chickens. All twenty-three friends were calling out and looking for her, and this one was hiding all the way inside the hollow tree trunk.
#hideandseek #backwards #pastured #eggs #chickens #hiding #treetrunk #play  

Incredible, exorbitant, extravagant, extreme, immoderate, inordinate and enormous: we have run out of words to describe this record-breaking egg, which tipped the scales at 138g this week! All records are broken, Guiness is preparing a completely new book, a new champion is crowned.
 
And we are in search of a new word for this specimen - 'egg' is too simple. We need something grander! Eggosaurus?  Egg-ephant? Gig-egg?
What is your word for this champion?
 
#giant #egg #champion #thebiggest #pastured #eggs #doubleyolk #worldrecord #enormous #extreme #incredible #recordbreaking #thebiggestegg #hugeegg #newword #nowords 
-- Photography by Haydn

"Joy does not arrive with a fanfare,
on a red carpet strewn with the flowers of a perfect life.
Joy sneaks in, as you pour a cup of coffee,
watching the sun hit your favourite tree, just right.
And you usher joy away,
because you are not ready for it.
Your house is not as it must be,
for such a distinguished guest.
But joy cares nothing for your messy home,
or your bank-balance,
or your waistline, you see.
Joy is supposed to slither through the cracks of your imperfect life,
that’s how joy works.
You cannot invite her, you can only be ready when she appears.
And hug her with meaning,
because in this very moment,
joy chose you."
 
We've had a lot of long days lately, crawling on hands and knees, settling our new chickens in. Early mornings, late nights, stressful emergencies.
 
And then you come across this: the perfect egg, perfectly placed on the perfect grass in the perfect light. And you realise: THE JOY! It does not matter that your clothes - and hair - have mud, poo, dirt, dust, grease, thorns, and gaping holes.
 
The perfect joy has arrived.
 
#thejoy #perfectegg #pastured #eggs #farmlife #perfectfind #hardwork #young #chickens
 
--from the poem "Joy" by Donna Ashworth

POV: when all your friends think it’s a shade, but you believe it’s a hammock 🤣🤣🤣
 
To be young and to think differently, this is all it takes to change the world. Just one hen with a vision, and just enough bravery to think outside the shade 🤣
 
#think #different #bebrave #bebold
#pastured #eggs #freedomtoroam #theview #hammock #topoftheworld #hen #young 

The best real estate on a rainy day: under the tractor, room with a view, watching the grass grow with every minute
 
#rainydays #pastured #eggs #freedomtoroam #tractor #dryplace #theview #grassgrow

"Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, anything."
 
After the chickens have been roaming through each paddock, they move to a new paddock, and we use the area for putting crops in. Chicken fertiliser is like gold, and with the recent wonderful rains, even in day or two, the ground is turning into a sea of green. Who wouldn't give anything for this brown-red gold?
 
 
#ploughed #chickenfertiliser #after #rain #green #grass #eggs #pasture #rotational #farming #cropping #browngold #soil #farming #sustainable

--quote from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 1

That moment when you break 6 eggs and get 12 yolks 😊
Our double-yolkers, giant eggs, are often more than 100g each egg, and they always make me smile! 😊  The biggest one we measured so far weighed a whooping 128g! (see our blog with the biggest egg so far)
 
May everyone’s New Year be starting with double the joy - and double the rain for our Hilltops Area!
 
#giants #eggs #pastured #yolks #records #doublejoy #newyearjoy

"Ring out the old, and ring in the new,
Another year passes, but one thing is true,
A thousand small blessings have slipped through my hands,
Moments uncountable, vast as the sands."
 
Looking forward to a new year of green pastures, clearer skies and uncountable small blessings!
Happy New Year to all.
 
#newyear #newday #Maremma #farmlife #pastured #eggs #hens #happynewyear
-- from the poem "Happy New Year!" by Angela Jelf
 
Photography by Haydn

Spectacular sunrise, followed by a sandstorm and winds from the Dune movie, followed by a lightning storm that scares grown-up dogs but not the puppies, followed by Telstra 4G disappearing, followed by the usual power cuts, followed by nurturing, marvelous rain!
 
The chooks and I are ready to do it all over again 😊
 
#ruralllife #AustralianOutback #farmilfe #pasturedeggs #chickensroaming #chooks #freerange #sunrise #redsunrise #spectacular #nofilter #rain #farmingday

"Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby",
 
For when the rain is finished, the sky's blue is the clearest, and the chook's dinner forage is the most bountiful supply of worms from the soft ground.
 
 
-- from the poem "April Rain Song" by Langston Hughes. The American poet just had the month mixed up, should be the 'November Rain Song' for Down Under, on the last day before Summer starts.
 
#rain #sun #worms #forage #freedom #pasturedeggs #pastureraised #beforesummer #lastdayofspring #spring #eggs #poetry #farmlife

"I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one
...
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder."
 
 
Dear Cloud Rain, you have been most welcome. 😊 We had been missing on the rain clouds for a few days now, so very glad to have you here. 😊
#cloud #rain #sky #farmlife #pasturedeggs #pasture #nofilter
 
-- from the poem "The Cloud" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

"The Wind begun to rock the Grass
With threatening Tunes and low --
He threw a Menace at the Earth --
A Menace at the Sky.
 
The Birds put up the Bars to Nests --
The Cattle fled to Barns --
There came one drop of Giant Rain"
 
 
Lying in the grass, at the end of a hard day’s work,  the wind whispering while swinging the blades. In the distance, I can see the birds are safely in their bars to nest. A giant rain drop came! And not much followed 😊
 
#wind #grass #poetry #farmlife #pastured #eggs #beforetherain #raindrop
 
--from the poem "The wind begun to rock the grass" by Emily Dickinson

Deep in the shady tall grass, “there shall be
beautiful things made new, for the surprise”
of finding eggs and some lost chickens,
on an expedition far outside their flock.
 
 
#losteggs #lostchickens #pastured #pastureraised #tallgrass #eggs #pasturedeggs #expedition #explore
 
-- excerpts from “Hyperion” by John Keats, Book I.
Photography by Haydn

The ‘Stonehenge’ of Hilltops free range (as we call it) is just next to one of our flocks. The one in Southern England is aligned with the sunrise on the summer solstice. The one in Chile is aligned with the sunrise on the winter solstice. But the one in Hilltops is aligned with the golden light of a lazy afternoon’s forage for the birds just before sunset 😊
 
The hens like to explore far and wide in those couple of hours before the sun sets, when the wind is quiet and the bugs come out and fly. ‘Our Stonehenge’ is a nice cool couch to sit on – and also a neat place to hide even more eggs 😊
 
 
#pastured #freetoroam #justbeforesunset #goldenlight #stonehenge #rocks #stones #paddock #farmlife #eggs #pasturedeggs