our eggs need some new homes!

Hello out there - we're up to our eyeballs in lovely eggs at the moment 

- all of our girls are in full swing and loving a bit of sunshine.

We've gone from having a very long waiting list of shops interested in selling our eggs to an oversupply for a number of reasons... we raised 1500 babies last season to meet demand - and they're all laying now! There has also been a glut of "cheap" organic eggs from Queensland that flooded the market last month that has sent us into an oversupply...  So if your favourite shop hasn't been able to get our eggs, ask them again because they're now available.  

We really work hard on producing the ultimate egg - Soy free, outdoor, bug and grass eating happy girls.  

We hope that the demand for our ethical and nutritious product comes back up to sustain the business.  

We will be doing our first market in a long while

Red Hill Markets - 1 December!

Stop by to say hello if you are there.

I'll be the lady with a new baby in the sling!  

Happy warm days to you and yours...

Biodynamic Baby

Hello world.

Savannah Bronwyn Paul

Welcomed to our family in a planned home waterbirth

1 October 2012

8lb 8oz

Nic thought it was very biodynamic of me to have our baby on the full moon!

We are all very well and so very happy to have our little girl.

x

Eggs Eggs Eggs!

Hello there - just a quick and exciting message that we are now supplying our wholesale eggs into the Organic Growers Group in the Footscray markets! This means that we will be able to supply the smaller shops around Melbourne that could not previously access our eggs because of trucking logistics.  If you have a favourite shop and want our eggs - let them know!

Come on Spring - bring on some sunshine and a baby for us!

We've had loads of other kinds of bovine and ovine babies - I am 40 weeks on Friday - so watch this space!

The Fish Creek Primary School had a grand old visit the other day - it was a sublimely warm and sunshiney day - we did all sorts of talking and looking around and had a great egg and spoon race as well!

Happy Days to you and yours from me and mine...

Witches Brew or Sustenance!?

"Good broth will resurrect the dead"
south american proverb

We've just done a trial run.  Our original girls that we started out with 2 1/2 years ago - we culled 100 of them and had them processed.  Reason for culling? Their eggs are large and wonky and somewhat unpredictable.  For a backyard - they're still perfect - and probably even better as there's a lot of double yolkers in there! However, for us, collecting, carting and packaging them and feeding "not so prime" birds is quite a challenge.

So off I trundled in the ute, 35 weeks pregnant, 3 year old in tow to the big smoke to a clean little processing place in Melbourne.  I bid our old girls goodbye and thanked them for their lives and generosity.

You wouldn't believe how many processing plants (about 15) that I rang prior to having a friend mention this one that would finally take our birds.  Every one of them said that they only take orders from 20,000 to 200,000 hens as a starting point.  My jaw dropped as I saw the reality of our poultry industry today.

Well, out of the 100 we're doing a few trial runs with 25 going to two Organic Butchers and the others to friends - I can't believe that less than 24 hours after returning home that I only have 10 birds left to cook with!!

My trial included legs thighs and breasts in the crockpot on low in an apricot sauce.  SUBLIME.  Oh, the flavour!! Yes, the meat is not pale and insipid and tender, but it is not like a boot and has intense whole flavour that is lovely when it's slow cooked.

The carcasses I browned well in the oven then chucked the whole lot - skin, fat, and pan drippings in cold water with 2 small onions, some fresh celery and carrots a couple of grabs of parsley and 6 chicken feet.  It's been on the fire overnight.  My home smells amazing.  Our bodies will be thanking us over the next few days.  If you want to know why those feet are in there - have a read: "Broth is Beautiful" from the Weston A Price Foundation.

What do you think?  Would you like to have a chance to get some of these from a shop?  We are considering selling them with a reputable Organic Butcher.  Leave us a comment to let us know.

Hope to have some baby news for you soon!

Mid Winter...

The cows in the paddock behind the house.  Blissful evening!

 

Our current wwoofer - Janine - with one of her babies she is helping to raise.  She's doing a marvelous job - and they are now out kicking up their heels in the paddock - still getting their warm milk in the morning and arvo - of course!

Transition day for the baby chickens - this is when they were moved from their broody room (where they spend day 1 to about 7-8 weeks) to their bona-fide Chookie A-Frame in the paddock.  They spend a few days getting aquainted to their new home before they are let out in the sunlight and grass to go bug hunting! So curious and so noisy at this stage!

We're having a great winter - always muddy - but managing well so far.
Hope the sun is shining on you.  

Changing Times

Hello out there from South Gippsland…

This is a picture of our youngest in the cow shed a few months ago.

We have had to come to the unbelieveably hard decision to discontinue bottling our Bath Milk.  We are very humbled by it's lovely following, but have made the change for personal reasons.

This little boy is going to be a big brother - which will finish our family with four children in September, and we are struggling to make it all work with so many jobs to do as a family and on the farm.

Thanks to all of our lovely bath milk "bathers" over the past year.  We gave it a good crack, but sometimes we just have to know when to finish something before it puts too many other important things out of whack.

If it helps at all - our milk is supplied into our Organic Dairy Farmers Co-op (which has a gorgeous new website here...) and into Red Hills Cheese.  Pretty much all of the organic milk products sold in Australia come from our cows and from other family farms with integrity.
Stay warm out there.

Uniforms

The Winter Uniform
@ Ruby Hills Organics!

Autumn 2012 Biodynamic Preps

Hello, This is me, Amy (22 weeks pregnant) - with our garden ration of Biodynamic Preps for the Autumn. 

And a Child's prospective behind the lens! Thank you Baxter (6) and Gretta (4) for the impromptu photo shoot!

  

This stuff is gold and is thoughtfully prepared.

This is our last application with the help of Shane - and we're on to our own for the Spring preps and the future.

This year's Autumn preps included:
BD Soil Activator
Molasses
Worm Wee
Seaweed
Basalt Rock Water
Lime
Borax
Diatomaceous Earth
Horn Silica
Fungi Brew
and a very smellllly fish emulsion

The weather played with us a bit, so we were able to give it a real run with Nic in the tractor applying and Shane stirring.  Worked a treat (except for Nic having a 17 hour day...)  Next time we'll take a couple of days and I'll help with the stirring.

Fascinating stuff, this Biodynamics.  It makes sense - and is such a compliment to the Organic System.

Autumn Arvos...

...most people find this in their sheds, do they not?

 

five little newbies on the farm this week.
we love going out in the evening when they're tweaking out and running around the paddock like crazy.

 

 

Nelly is insistent that she is a full fledged farm dog.
We're still to be convinced!

 

the afternoon traffic jam.
cracking day with the family...

 

wwoofing farwell

We have had the opportunity to have a wonderful fella stay with us three times during this last 6 months. Fermin - our Mexican wwoofer who arrived from working in Italy for the last few years as a professional chef.  

He was a serious delight to have around. The first one to chuck on his gumboots when we arrive home from anything. The kids adored him. He was easygoing and cheerful everyday.  And everything he put his hand to in the kitchen became magical.  He has just left us for the last time as he flies away back home (via a few international stops...) to start his own business back in Mexico.  He has a dream of having a farm/restaurant. We know he'll be successful with whatever he does because of his infectious happy personality.

Farwell Fermin! The Paul Family wishes you well, and we wish we could bottle you up and keep you for our own!

xx 

They grow up quickly!

We've had a couple of new shops hop on the Bath Milk train...

Welcome Superfruit Organics!  We know you are busting to get some of our Eggs in the shop too - and we have good news... We have collected one teeny tiny egg from those new young ladies that are to be in full swing production by the end of April.  This is what they looked like not toooo long ago!

Might be because of these super-duper amazing warm breezy autumn days that we're having here at Fish Creek (with a splash of rain thrown in!)

Happy Days from the Paul Family...

...plus one - we're having another baby! (The final instalment to the Paul Family!)

healthy living

Let's face it - there's a plethora of what I like to call "opinion" about what a healthy lifestyle involves out there.

Do you want to know what changed our lives?  The comprehensive work done by the late Weston A Price.  Finally something made sense to us on a nutritional level and we could not unlearn what we discovered.

Let's face it - how much is out there telling us to eat this and do that - all based on rubbish research and commodity based financial gains - meaning "hey guys - we can grow this stuff cheaply - how many ways can we bastardise it and force it down the throats of the planet?"  -- so much of what we are fed in this modern world is based on "cheap" production -- but if there is more investigation done - cheap is only a mindset.  -- in the end it is expensive.  We pay for it with our health and our planet.

Weston Price was able to study multiple "untouched" communities around the world that had not yet been subjected to the modern diets of the western world.  His findings are fascinating and fundamentally sound.  He documented the health and lifespan of all of the members of these communities - which are absolutely life changing to read about.

The Weston A Price Foundation has continued his work by teaching the world of traditional food - and challenging the "diet dictocrats" that are the supposedly experts of nutrition.

Trust me - you can't unlearn this stuff.  Check it out for yourself.

artificial colours

Hello there! 

Hope that Twenty Twelve has been a ripper so far.

We're expecting joy and awakening and mindfulness for the year ahead!

Just a quick pic of our egg yolks. There is so much confusion between "free range" "organic" "naturally fed" - and a myriad of other labels that our eggs may have.  Did you know that all of the above are most likely artificially coloured?

Can you see the colour difference in the yolks above?

When you open your carton - are their all different shades of shell?

That means that they are not artificially coloured.

Yes, there is direct correlation to yolk colour and nutrition, however with artificial colours in the feed, 

how is one to really know?

I don't know about you and your family, but if my kids are exposed to chemical artificial colours - they bounce off the walls for 24 hours. No fun. We avoid colours like the plague!

Buy OUTDOOR, Certified Biodynamic (or Organic) eggs. Although there are natural yolk colorants such as corn, sorghum, calendula, marigold - at least in Organic feed they are EDIBLE and not synthetic. 

Just so that we're clear, our eggs are

Grass Fed - meaning they spend their days in the paddocks they share with the cows.

Eating bugs. Scratching. Flapping, & Gossiping.

Yes, Hens do Gossip. A lot.

They also have ad lib to Certified Organic Wheat and Certified Organic Trace Element Concentrate.  

Happy days from us at Ruby Hills... 

Watch this space for Bobby Calf methods that we use on our farm.

There has been a lot of media coverage on the treatment of bobby calves (un-needed calves on a dairy farm). We're going to share with you how we do things here on our farm. When in doubt - choose Organic - as there are rules and standards that are enforced those standards are ethical and just.