The good egg
CELIA Leverton makes the first cut into a Christmas cake to offer me for morning tea. It is the last of 50 she made before last Christmas.
Celia (above) is an egg farmer and her Christmas cakes, which take five eggs apiece, are a good way of using up second-grade eggs, the perfectly good ones that don’t look quite right because they are misshapen, marked or have wrinkled shells.
She sold the cakes on the Huon Producers Network stall at the Artisan Market held at the Willie Smith Apple Shed at Grove on Saturday mornings, but sales came to a halt “bang on Christmas” when there still were 10 left, and Celia has been a very welcome contributor to morning teas, birthday celebrations and such since.
Each carton of Happy Eggs contains a message from a happy hen. Celia says the little stories are a way of educating consumers on what is involved in egg farming and in diverse farming.
The eggs are from “pastured” hens, that is they are frequently moved to new ground. Celia tows their trailer homes with a ute. Chooks cannot cope with grass that is too long, so first calves go through to prepare the way. Then come the hens, pecking at fallen fruit and insects. Celia credits the hens’ cleaning up to the fact she has no disease in her fruit trees, yet does not spray them.
The farm is called Whistlers Ridge Permaculture. It is a steep 6ha high above the Huon River at Franklin. The view is fantastic but the hillside “makes everything 50 per cent harder” says Celia. “Even to put a dog kennel down you have to build a pad.”
She wishes she’d had more money when she bought the block 15 years ago. She would have moved more earth and made better access tracks to zigzag across the slope. Two new paddocks are just being established. Along the contours will be planted plum, pear, mulberry, almond and the occasional oak tree. The pasture seed is a diverse mix of grasses and herbs.
Celia says small diverse farms such as hers “do not sell an awful lot of anything, but we sell lots as a whole”. As well as the eggs, rhubarb, apples and berries are the main produce of the farm.
The non-poultry animals are there as farm helpers rather than produce. Two goats are tethered near thickets of blackberries. In 2013 an intense fire went through the farm. Afterwards blackberries came back with a vengeance — unlike the fences, barn, windbreaks and orchards.
When the calves are old enough to mate they are sold as house cows. “If the land is clear the chooks will lay in the trailers; if I leave blackberry thickets and hidey holes they will lay everywhere,” Celia said.
There is no grazing over winter — wait until the grass is at a certain level. “I have to plan months ahead,” said Celia. “But I don’t like to overcomplicate it either, because dayto-day complexities complicate it enough without starting out complicated.”
Happy Eggs are sold at Harvest Feast at Salamanca Market, Unpacked at Kingston, and on the Huon Producers Network stall at the Artisan Market at Willie Smith’s.