School holiday fun!

Last Wednesday we hosted the local school holiday program for a day of farmyard fun.

We collected the eggs.

We dug for potatoes.

Bren taught them the chicken dance.

We dug for carrots.

Everyone was very excited to pull up bunches of multicoloured rainbow carrots.

Bren and Liam washed them.

And then we taste tested them.

A bit more digging.

This time we pulled up onions.

Some were more adventurous than others.

We finished the time here with some egg blowing and decorating but after they left us, the kids went back to the centre and made the best vegie soup ever.

We had such a great day.

Thanks for coming guys.

Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' Market.

We had a lovely time at Collingwood Children's Farm Farmers' Market this morning.

We sold close to a record number of eggs, we were visited by lots of lovely family and friends, we gossiped with other stall holders, we were helped by my Mum and barely had anything to pack up at home time.

We also launched our new postcards that introduce our farm gate sales.

Come and see us at the Daylesford Twilight Market this Saturday 19th December or The Slow Food Twilight Market on the 23rd to get your own. They will look great on any fridge and come with their own special offer.

Chooks On Film.

This is a link to a segment on 9am with david and kim that was shown on TV last week. It is a lovely discussion between Bren and Alla Wolf-Taska and has some great footage of our chooks.

You might have to wait a minute for it to load.

Enjoy the video and have a great weekend.

Chicks, Compost Tea & Eggs.

Those baby chicks are 5 weeks old today.

They are feathery, long legged, independently eating and drinking and starting to do some crazy stunts like flying up to perch on the side of their fence.

At night they go into their house by themselves and all we have to do is close the door. Liam fitted their perches into their house today so they can start to roost while they sleep.

Bren and Liam are playing around with this old cheese making vat today. It has been sitting around at our neighbour's house until recently when Bren asked if he could have it.

He has plans to make it into a compost tea brewer as we have outgrown our old, badly designed one. The fact that this one is open will make it easier to clean and therefore grow the good bacteria and exclude the bad.

They filled it up with water and it leaks so now they using food dye to try and find the leak.

While they are playing around I'm collecting the eggs.

We have roll away egg boxes fitted to all our chook houses. This means that as soon as a hen gets up to leave the nest after laying her egg, the egg rolls down out of her reach. This makes it easier for us when collecting the eggs and keeps the eggs cleaner because the chooks can't peck at them or poo on them.

Matt & Bridie.

Matt Wilkinson, head chef at Circa, The Prince, and his breakfast chef Bridie have been staying with us for the past few days.

This is the face of the man voted equal second sexiest chef participating in the second annual Taste event taking place later this month.

The article is here, scroll down to the end of the second page.

While they were here they fed the chooks and collected their eggs, planted some onion seeds in the hothouse, made some apple cider, discussed seeds, plants and recipes, made lots of plans for the coming growing season and even ate my cooking!!?

We had a lovely time but I think they'll notice the change of pace when they come back for another trip in mid January.

Chooks go bush

During the warmer months our flock of chooks follow behind the vegetable harvest. After the vegetables are pulled up, the chooks go in and enjoy the leftovers, scratch up and fertilise the ground.

Now it's Winter and it's time for them to come up onto higher ground which for us means into the bush.

But first we have to make a few modifications to fit their houses in.

Cutting a few trees down to make way for their houses means firewood for next year,

some bush poles for building our tractor shed,

and some sawdust.

Every year we are surprised by how much the chooks look at home in the bush and then we remember that they were originally jungle fowl.

I love this one of Mr Rooster mid crow.

Collecting the eggs.

This Mrs chicken stayed home....

Doesn't this look like the definition of free range?

Hello Banjo, we are friends.

Enjoying a dust bath.

We try to offer them pasture as well as bush but given the choice they much prefer the shelter of the trees and scratching amongst the leaf litter.