Free Range?

Free Range Eggs

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago got me thinking. I don't actually read the newspaper or watch the news on TV. I call it the bad news. I'll never forget an interview I heard once with a psychologist who was not surprised at the the number of people who struggle through their day having been woken by their clock radio telling them all the bad things that are happening in the world.

Wow I can see how people can digress in this blog thing.

What are Free Range Eggs?

I should have the answers. Some of the facts are relatively simple:

Certified Organic eggs are always free range. Something that I find people still don't understand. There are 7 different certifiers and logos in Australia.

Free Range Farmers Association , FREPA , Humane Choice, and others have strict regulations limiting numbers between 750 to 1500 hens per hectare. Check the Sustainable Table's site for a good comparison table.

Stocking rate is important but doesn't actually take into account grazing management.

Certified Organic producers are independently audited and inspected every year. As for the others, it's not so clear.

Eggs that say Free Range but don't have any Accreditation Logo could be anything.

But even these facts aren't that simple to find, or to understand, and I'll admit I might not even have the facts all right, and I am an egg farmer.

No wonder the consumers are bewildered and choice has made a super complaint (great name) about the situation.

Understandably producers are scrambling to identify themselves, with new labels such as Pasture Ranged Organic, and Beyond Organic. But I'm not sure if this helps or just adds to the confusion. I mean what exactly is beyond organic anyway?

If you're waiting for my wise conclusion you might have to wait till I'm older and more cynical because as I heard Tim Minchin say recently to his old Uni;

"A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse-holes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this… but I would add that opinions differ significantly from arse-holes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.

We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others.
Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out onto the verandah and beat them with a cricket bat.
Be intellectually rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privilege."

I think these may be some of the wisest words I've heard in a while, and what this means to me is that I don't have the answers, I'm still trying to figure it all out.

I could tell you that the best thing to do would be to get to know you're local farmer, shop at farmers markets, do you're research, even visit the farms you buy from, and these things probably will help you make an informed choice.

Or I could say that you should raise your own chickens and that is the ultimate way to know where you're eggs come from.

BUT I don't believe I should tell you to do anything. Do what you want. If it's important to you you will try, like me, to figure it out for yourself and not be told what is best for you.

Well what a rant. When you sit down and start writing like this it can certainly open up a can of worms, but as the earth would not exist without worms, maybe that's a good thing.

Cheers,

Farmer Bren

moving the chooks along

This Friday the Blackwood flock of chickens, above, will leave our farm and make their home on another organic farm a couple of hours away.

I'm guessing that apart from the drive, the Blackwoods wont notice much of a difference between their old and their new homes at all. They'll travel along as usual dust bathing, eating, drinking, scratching for bugs, laying eggs, hanging out with their hen buddies and when dark comes, they'll even go to roost in the same houses they have since they came to live with us a year ago when they were one day old.

Our lives on the other hand will be very different indeed. 

The Blackwoods are the last flock to leave our farm and for the first time in years we will be down from 2,000 chooks to just 200. From 10 Maremma dogs to two. From two wonderful farmer boys to none.

This Friday marks the next stage in our organic farming adventure.

We're excited (and a little bit scared), we're happy (and a little bit sad), but we're really ready.

Hopefully our extra time will be spent trying to find a bit more of a self sufficient balance. Making, growing and doing more, and buying less. Hopefully scaling down the business will mean we'll have more time for other plans. And hopefully someday soon, the places we deliver to will stop calling us the egg man and lady.

So it is with much happiness for them and for ourselves that we farewell the Blackwoods.

Stay tuned for the next adventures.

xx

PS We have a pallet load of poultry netting, as seen above, arriving from England any day now. Available for sale mid October. Please watch this space for details if you are interested.

Market report.

We're back at farmers' markets.
Hooray!
We're starting the season at Collingwood Children's Farm farmers' market on the second Saturday of the month and will see how we go.

We packed the trailer and drove down to Melbourne.
We woke up really early and drove to the farm.
We took our usual place between Warialda Beef and Baw Baw Organics.
We put up the marquee and the tables and signs and prettied it all up with some bunting and table cloths.
We caught up with and chatted to fellow stall holders.
And then we drank coffee and waited for the gates to open.

We had the most wonderful market.
We caught up with so many friends old and new.
We ate pancakes and spanikopita and icy poles and ice cream.
We bought a whole crate of food for home.
We swapped lots of produce for eggs too.
Miss Indi worked on our stall and Miss Jazzy and Miss Pepper worked with Anne Marie at Holy Goat.
And we sold out of eggs before the end of the day.
We loved it.

The next Collingwood Children's Farm farmers' market is on on the 11th of Feb.
More details here.
We hope to see you there.

In the meantime there's a fantastic recipe for Herby Whole Egg Mayo on Ruth's blog today.
Check it out here.

See ya. x

Green manure.

I took the photo above about a year ago. It was meant to accompany a blog post I had been thinking about writing about soil. About how much of the farming that we do at Daylesford Organics is not really about the fruit and vegies and eggs we produce, but about the soil they grow/feed/live on.

I was going to talk about how we at Daylesford Organics actually consider ourselves soil farmers. Our work is to constantly improve the soil. To make it healthy and full of nutrients so that it can then do it's own important work.

We swear by this soil philosophy. We observe our soil, we add micro organisms and organic matter and compost teas. We use the chooks to fertilise and we obsessively make and dig in compost. And we don't overwork our precious soil. We let it rest in between plantings and we often plant crops that we plow in to feed and nurture it.

We try to listen and nurture.

After ten years of organic farming and the worst season of farming we have experienced, we decided it was time to look after the farmers of the soil. After the steepest learning curve of moving from the city to become farmers. After building up the wonderful business that is Daylesford Organics and after experiencing some of the biggest highs and some pretty awful lows, we decided it was time to look after us.

To plant a green manure crop.

So in July of this year, our family of five left the farm and drove off in an old caravan we had renovated. We drove up the centre of Australia and are now on our way down the west coast.

We are looking after the farmers. We are taking some time out to look at things from the outside. We are talking a lot about possible new directions we as an organic farm can take. And we are getting inspired all over again.

We are so lucky and grateful to farmers Liam and Pierre for keeping things going while we travel. You guys are ace! x

We have got some exciting plans to put into action when we return so watch this space.

In the mean time feel free to follow our caravan adventure here on my other blog.

See you soon.

Heirloom beetroots and carrots.

It's the first day of winter here in Southern Australia and our little farm is full of rainbows.

Rainbows of heirloom beetroots. Five varieties.

And rainbows of heirloom carrots. Five varieties.

The vegetable cool room is on and full of crates of gorgeous certified organic vegies.

And the farmer boys are a blur of picking and washing and weighing and packing.

It's been a crazy season and we are about five months later than usual, but we are finally doing what organic vegie farmers do and wow it is fun!

Chook love art.

Produced, directed, photographed, fed and tended to by Farmer Pierre.

Crimes of Farm Fashion Part 2.

Other possible titles for this post:

• We are finally harvesting rainbow carrots.
• Our two new green shipping containers arrived this morning.
• Can you believe they let me take this pic even after I told them I would be putting it on the Internet?
• Sorry girls, they are both happily married.

Crimes of Farm Fashion Part 1 is here.

Dear Delicious magazine,

We are sad to have to inform you that Daylesford Organics will not be submitting an entry into this year’s Delicious Produce Awards.

In a world of celebrity chefs and chefs hat awards for restaurants, we think it’s wonderful that your magazine has an award that celebrates the producers.

Our win in the From The Earth category in 2009 and our gold medal in 2010 for our heirloom veggies have been among the highlights of our ten years in business.

Although the past growing season began with great promise, things soon changed. Our market gardens were flooded three times in four months; and we experienced high humidity, not enough sunshine or warmth, and so much rain we considered building an ark. By the time the locusts arrived there wasn’t anything much left for them to devour.

Last year we submitted a rainbow of heirloom vegetables to be judged. So many colours and flavours, shapes and sizes. This year we don't have any produce to pull out of the ground in the submission time.

We are most disappointed for ourselves as well as for the many other heartbroken farmers around Australia who have been affected by the crazy weather.

We hope the judging of this year’s Produce Awards goes really well. We look forward to sending our entry next year.

With best wishes,

Kate and Brendon

Daylesford Organics

Roasted beetroot divine!

Happy weekend folks!

To celebrate weekend eve, we made the yummiest dinner. Every single ingredient except the olive oil and the feta was grown right here at Daylesford Organics and everything except the garlic was picked less than an hour before it was cooked.

Four colours of heirloom beetroot. From left: Detroit, White Blankoma, Golden, Chioggia.

Eshallots

Tossed together with some garlic and olive oil, baked for an hour and then served with a lettuce and fetta salad.

It doesn't get much better than that. Simple, colouful, fresh, seasonal, organic, delicious!

We hope you have the most wonderful weekend.

Day trip.

Early this morning we hit the road and took a drive to visit a couple of our newest customers.

First stop Colliban Food Store in Trentham. A gorgeous and glamerous new restaurant and food store just off the main street.

Paul the owner, came to see us about a year ago to tell us of his vision for the store and talk about what produce we could supply him. It was a sunny Autumn day and we stood around in the farm stall and chatted. It was a fantastic feeling today to see him and his team and his dream come true.

You can buy our eggs and seasonal vegies in the store to take home or you can have them cooked for you in the restaurant and eat them there.

Then we drove on to Kyneton and to deliver eggs to organic patisserie, Inner Biscuit.

That's Mara there at the coffee machine. Inner Biscuit is her gorgeous cafe. I love everything about her place. I love the way she's decorated it, I love that all her ingredients are organic, I love how friendly her and her staff are and I loved our coffees, lemon cookies and almond croissants. Yum!

I bet I'm not the only one to leave that place and consider starting an enamel tea pot collection.

All in all a wonderful day and some fabulous coffee. I think we might have to do a tour of some of our Melbourne customers soon.

Have a wonderful week.

Fish?

We're still in clean up mode after the flood. We're chainsawing and pulling down and mulching and mowing. We're exploring and hunting for parts of our property that have washed away.

Yesterday Farmer Bren was walking around and found a fish. Just lying there in what used to be the market garden.

Maybe all those jokes about certified organic trout weren't so silly after all.

Have a great day.

Water.

At this time of the year my blog should be bursting at the seams with photos of gorgeous rainbows of fruit and vegetables. Hundreds of varieties in all different shapes and colours. This week last year I was blogging about beetroots and peas and rocket and radishes. This year you get the puppies.

This ain't no ordinary season. This certainly ain't no ordinary January.

Actually, the truth is so far in our ten years of organic farming we have learnt that there is no such thing as an ordinary year. Some years there's too much wind, some are too hot, some bring fires and other other crazy weather patterns. As farmers we have learnt to listen and watch and to adapt.

But until this year the one constant has been the respect and love we have to have for water. Water is good.

When we moved here we became self sufficient in our water supply for the first time. We have had to be mindful in washing and drinking and laundering and bathing even in the middle of winter, to ensure we have enough for the coming summer. Our house water comes from the rain that lands on our roof and is precious.

Farm water has always been a constant topic for discussion too. We have bores that fill dams, we have dams that fill irrigation systems and we have irrigation systems that are always being planned and fixed and tested and diagrammed and updated.

On a farm water is life giving, water is precious, water is the topic of so many discussions.

Most years the running joke around here is that Bren has another girlfriend called Tap who he is always rushing off to meet and spend time with.

But then this year something happened to turn our whole theory of water on its head.

We learnt that water can also be destructive. Water can ruin your plans, stop you from planting a crop, turn your crop to seed or to mush, it can take years of carefully maintained top soil and send it off down the creek. Water can be scary. Water is a contradiction.

And everywhere we go there are more crazy water stories. The lettuce grower who had to plow in ten acres of flooded lettuces, our neighbours at yesterday's farmers' market who had to sell so much of their strawberry crop as seconds, our friends Andrew and Jill who lost their entire crop and left a gap where their stall usually stands opposite us...I could go on and on, I'm sure you could too.

So now we are living through the rest of this crazy season. We are grateful for our chookens who continue to lay, that we don't have enormous machinery and input costs and that we never put a crop in so we didn't lose one. Our hearts go out to those less fortunate.

Please buy local where you can, buy direct from the farmer where possible and look out for those that are producing the food that you eat.

Floods & dogs.

Our farm gate stall will not open this season.

The market garden is under water for the third time since September. When and if the ground dries out enough to plant a crop, there will not be a long enough growing season to ripen it.

You can still buy our certified organic, free range eggs and garlic from Tonnas and Harvest in Daylesford, from The Slow Food Farmers' market and The Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' market in Melbourne, from The Ceres shop and from Organic Wholefoods.

Farmer Bren just emailed me this photo from his phone and as I type this the rain is crashing down.

This week's The Weekly Times's letters section has one that reads:

Man and his dog just clicked

I would like to compliment the photographer of the brilliant picture for October in The Weekly Times' 2011 calendar.

It is without doubt one of the best pictures seen anywhere in a long time.

I also compliment the gentleman in the picture for his compassion and appreciation, clearly expressed in the picture.

He has obviously spent considerable time and effort training this loyal dog-just look at the connection between the two.

The trust and appreciation they show for each other is very touching.

The composition is sensational-the brilliant colours and the way it captures the emotional interaction between man and his faithful dog.

Knowing the wonderful loyalty of Maremma guardian dogs, I appreciate the connection between this dog and master.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. It is impossible to put a figure on the number of words condensed in this picture.'

Gavin Wall

Mt Evelyn.

Thanks Gavin, you've made our day.

Thanks also Jane for letting us know.

And while we are on the subject of Maremmas, look who opened their eyes two days ago. Willow's six puppies are super cute little fat fluff balls. Their fur is white and thick and the pads on their feet and their noses have turned from pink to black. Their legs are still not strong enough to carry them, but they can certainly move around to get to their Mama. Willow is still being patient and kind with them although she is taking a break occasionally to lie under the house. She seems much happier for us to have a cuddle these days too.

And finally, our thoughts go out to all those affected by the devastating floods in the North of our country. Wishing you and your families safety, dryness and relief from it all.

Indi's duck eggs.

Every evening after dinner but before bed time, our Indi takes a walk through the forest to the ducks. When she arrives they are expecting her and are waiting noisily up by the fence. She feeds them their dinner, she cleans out their water, she makes sure they are all healthy and accounted for and she closes them into the area where their food and house is and out of the dam.

Early every morning before school, our Indi walks back to the ducks, she collects the eggs and lets them into the area with the dam so they can spend the day the swimming and splashing around.

Last Saturday Indi designed a label for her duck egg cartons.

And last Sunday she sold her first three half dozens.

This lady was her first ever customer. I think she was as excited as we all were.

This Saturday Indi will be setting up her duck eggs stall next to our chook egg stall at The Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' Market. Her duck eggs are certified organic and free range and delicious.

Why don't you come and see her and try some for yourself?

Your local farmer's market.

Please do me a favour and visit your local farmers' market this weekend.

So many farmers are doing it tough right now. After 10 years of drought, over the past few weeks we have had hundreds of mls of rain at the wrong time, humidity and unseasonably cool temperatures.

The start of the season looked so promising, like the best season in years. But since then nothing has gone to plan. Top soil has been washed away, stone fruit has swollen and split, crops are rotting in soggy soils and I don't even want to think about what damage the hail storm that has just passed through central Victoria will do.

So please go and visit your local farmers' market this weekend. Say g'day to the farmer who has gotten up early, driven to town and set up a stall to sell you the freshest, most delicious produce. Plan your weekend's menu around it, make an outing of it, take the kids or the grand parents and don't forget your brolly.

Farmer Bren will be selling the best eggs in town at The Melbourne Show ground Farmers' Market on Sunday and I know he'd love to see you.

The Big Wet.

We've had 120ml of rain since Wednesday night.

I think the drought we've been living in for the last ten years has broken.

We've had enough now, thanks!

More than enough!

This is the farm stall where we sell our fruit, veg and eggs.

This is the farm shop car park.

This is the shop garden that Bren ploughed up last week in preparation for the new season's planting.

This is The Short Creek Paddock, again freshly ploughed.

And the tyre swing.

This was the driveway into our place.

This morning all our guests had to leave their cars on this side and wade their way across.

This is Farmer Bren checking to see where his beloved top soil has been washed away to.

This is our new waterfall.

Muskvalley Falls has a nice ring to it.

Certified organic trout?? Rice??

This is where I stood to photograph the flood waters and almost got knocked over by the current.

This is where I left my car at the bottom of our hill, afraid to drive any further.

And this is my Farmer Boy going to check out the damage, trying his hardest to remain optimistic despite the fact that more rain is forecast this week and we probably won't be able to plant a vegie crop this year.

Bring on Summer, I say.