Which Reminds Me

Yesterday's post reminded me of a story my sister Emily once told me about a friend of hers. Several years ago, around Easter, he sent a large spanner and a broken Easter egg to a well-known commercial chocolatier, claiming that he had found the large spanner inside the much smaller egg.

Instead of laughing at the silliness of his practical joke, they sent him a card of apology and a basket full of eggs.

Feather Weather

Vegetable Victory

They did it!! 

Last night at the Vogue Entertaining + Travel Produce Awards, my sister Kate and brother-in-law Bren won the top award for their organic vegetables, and a gold medal for their freerange organic eggs.

From their blog:

We are a Certified Organic mixed family farm in Daylesford, Victoria. We focus on sustainability and biodiversity. We have orchards, market gardens and chickens. We work with the seasons and in any given year will produce up to 40 varieties of apples, hazelnuts, berries, free range eggs and up to 30 different vegetables, often with several varieties of each. 

We enjoy growing heirloom varieties with lots of different flavours and colours... We sell produce to local cafés and restaurants and at farmer's markets in Daylesford, Castlemaine and Melbourne, at Collingwood Children's Farm and the Abbotsford Convent. 

Come and see us for some great tasting fresh organic food.

Oh we will! Mazel tov, mazel tov, mazel tov!!

Daylesford Organics

Not only are these vegetables famous, but I am related to them.

My sister Kate and my brother-in-law Bren, who together run Daylesford Organics, are flying up to Sydney today for the 2009 Vogue Entertaining + Travel Produce Awards, for which their vegies and eggs have been nominated.

Good luck, you guys!!

You can see more delicious photos on their blog.

Mother

Cuba's gone broody. She's pretty much gone off her food, she's stopped laying and she spends all day sitting on her empty nest. We spoke to our chook-loving friend J, who put us onto her chook-loving friend T, who came over this morning with 8 fertilised eggs.

We put them in Cuba's nest and she slowly fluffed up her feathers and with her beak, rolled them under her body. She didn't stop to think about whose eggs they were, she knows what she has to do, and she's doing it.

Just like me, I thought, and the way I fluff my feathers for a child who is not mine.

Meg's Eggs

Two of our chooks have started laying! 

I love having chickens so much. They are so fascinating to observe and it has been comforting to have some other females around.

I would like to dedicate these first eggs to all the pro-choicers in Victoria who are working hard on the State Government's abortion decriminalisation bill.

Bread

Yesterday in Melbourne, My sister E and her man, J-Dog spent the day at a bread making course where they made sourdough bread, pizza, calzone and scones.

Our brother-in-law B was nearby at a slow food farmers' market selling free range organic eggs and other homegrown and homemade wonders. After each baking, E and J-Dog went to share their baked booty with him.

For us today was a great day of pancakes, the local market, playing, bushwalks, cubby house building, naps on the couch and surprise bread deliveries of our own.

This is our good friend J, who coincidentally spent today at another sourdough bread making workshop.

Our dinner tonight: freshly made rye bread dunked in homemade pumpkin soup.

From Left to Right

Everybody, meet our chooks. Chooks, meet everybody.

Billy (Z's), Cuba (PJ's) and Dirt (mine).

We bought them on Saturday from the local Farmer's Market.

We have watched the price of free range organic eggs creep higher and higher. Last week we paid nearly $10 a dozen, a price we can't really justify paying.

If you too want some chickens but live in the city, you could always book a chook.