Sometimes we live in our own bubble on the farm. We get so bogged down in our daily duties and of course parenting too. But last Sunday we had the absolute pleasure of attending a birthday party for some very special brothers.
R and M, celebrated turning the big 4 and 3 with a party that was “roar-some”. These dinosaur-obsessed boys – who can name dinosaurs and dinosaur body parts I’ve never even heard of before – were immersed in all things dinosaurs, including their very own tails.
Their mum Elyse learnt to sew just for the occasion and made not just any old stuff-newspaper-into-stockings creation, but these amazing tails. The stitching even looked good close up! Looks like I know who to approach when I need some sewing down for a Hattie party!
Having creative and foodie friends is great, but when this friend runs My Platter Artistry, you know the food is going to be epic. Her sewing skills may have been a surprise, but Elyse’s grazing table was on-point as always.
Hattie gorged herself on figs, blueberries and fresh hummus-laden pita bread. I ate ALL the cheese. And the top off all the class, she created a dinosaur head out of a water melon. It was a dinosaur party after all.
Elyse may have had it covered but I brought along a little prehistoric-inspired snack too. The birthday boys’ eyes opened with much surprise and delight when they were presented with “dinosaur eggs”.
Essentially they are hard-boiled eggs, but with a really cool food-dyed effect.
There’s a lot of different tutorials online if you search but here’s a quick summery of how to do it yourself:

1. Buy Kilmuir Farm pasture-raised free range eggs
2. Hard boil eggs using your preferred technique
3. Cool eggs in iced water (to stop egg yolk from going that weird colour and stay yellow)
4. Gently put cracks in shells by knocking on counter and pushing thumbs into shell
5. Soak in a dark-coloured food dye and water mixture overnight
6. Gently peel shells off in morning
7. Take lots of photos for your Facebook page because you will be pretty impressed with yourself and remember to tag @kilmuirfarm too

Next time – there will definitely be a next time – I will devil the eggs. They will be a lot more palatable as party food for adults too and well honestly I just LOVE devilled eggs.
I can’t wait to bring a whole new meaning to Easter eggs this year!

I experienced chicken massage for the first time today – that is laying on your tummy with chickens crawling all over your back.
In the pursuit of collecting all the eggs that our new hens are laying all over the place, I spent hours today under our “chook villa” commando crawling to get the eggs and the girls were happy to get up close and personal.
When a new flock arrives they don’t yet know where their nesting boxes are and you end up with lots of eggs on the ground, or in this case, under the trailer.
It’s going to be a trying week while they adjust, but we’re so pleased with the egg quality and how calm and healthy our hens are.
Hattie took great delight in eating the first egg we collected in a special baby scramble and it looks like I’ll be getting good at slipping eggs into all kinds of recipes.
Our hens arrived on Saturday – the most eventful day we’ve had for a while.
The drama all started with the generator in our pump shed catching fire and burning the shed it was in and the bore casing too. It’s not ideal considering that’s how we pump water up to near the house and then out to our water troughs, but Dean is working on getting it fixed as soon as possible.
Big thanks to the Eldorado CFA and those travelling past who stopped to help. The CFA is such an important part of the community and we couldn’t be more thankful.
The chooks started arriving soon after and have been entertaining and frustrating in equal measure ever since as they settle in.
Under the watchful eye of Aldo the Maremma, they are doing well.
There’s a few Houdinis in the flock and they are full of personality, following us around, pecking my hands and even laying their eggs, just inches from my face.
One chook squatted outside like she was going to lay an egg, so I picked her up and took her towards the nest – and surprise, surprise, she dropped an egg mid air, and it didn’t even break!
Let’s hope they catch on with this laying in nest boxes soon.
In the meantime, anyone interested in a special egg collection bootcamp? Maybe it could be the next fancy exercise trend? Followed by a chicken massage?
If you’re keen to stock our eggs, get in touch by emailing hello@kilmuir.com.au or phoning 0410 922 451

We’ve been back on the farm for just over a week now. It’s been equal parts pure joy to be home and heads down, bums up, trying to prepare for the year ahead.
My resolution is to be kinder to myself this year and to stop seeking “balance”. There will be no guilt in 2018. OK there will be a little guilt, but I will try to accept that finding this balance everyone talks about on a farm is as likely as getting the right amount of rain exactly when you need it – sometimes you get lucky but mostly you’re slightly off and sometimes it’s even a drought or a flood.
The past year has been huge so we need some recovery time and also a chance to catch up on all the jobs inside and outside that didn’t happen while we were in Melbourne.
Thankfully, my sister, known forever more on this blog as Aunty Kara, stayed with us this week, and has let me catch a few more Zs and helped with everything from babysitting to truck driving.
Hattie has been ecstatic and is saying “Kara, Kara” on repeat all day. But someone outshone Aunty Kara and that’s her dog Fred.
Fred can be really smelly. She got a wash this week and then promptly dived in murky water and rolled herself around in the dirt and grass – Hattie obviously thought this was hilarious!
We’re so glad Aunty Kara, Fred and Kit the cat are moving to Wangaratta. The babysitting will be fantastic but I’m mostly looking forward to visiting wineries with you. The Hurdle Creek Gin Still was a good start today!
Norbett, our cat, is not so keen ... He's spent the week on top of the outside toilet, hiding from the four-legged guests.
Our biggest, bravest plan for 2018 is that Kilmuir Farm will be starting pastured egg production next month. Wangaratta Council issued our planning permit this week, which will allow us to have up to 1000 hens.
Get in touch if you, or anyone you know, would like to stock our beautiful eggs. I’ll write more on that in the weeks to come.
Further to my plan to be kinder to myself, I’m trying to commit to doing more of the things I “want” to do, not just that list of never ending “need” to dos.
Writing this blog is part of that. If I miss a week, I’m not going to stress (well I won’t be as guilty about it as I perhaps would have been in the past).
I want to record what we do here. I’m so proud of how hard Dean works and how much Hattie is loving life on the land.
I want to record that we are not just a family who have survived the most horrendous of medical scares, but one who is committed to each other and making this farm work.
I want to write about it and photograph it and be able to look back on the year and the years ahead and see that all the hard work is worth it.
So, I suppose that is a resolution too. To take more photos of us as a family, not just pictures of Hattie and the animals. Let’s see if I can.

HATTIE HATES HATS: Hattie is going to learn to like hats one of these days.

BETTER THAN TV: Stinky Fred was in serious need of a bath this week.

DOG GONE: Fred doesn't ever pass up a chance to jump into a trough.

DIRTY DOG: Let's hope Hattie doesn't learn to roll in the dirt straight after a bath.

​​​We’re finally home! I never thought I’d be so excited to see our little farmhouse with all its flaws and eccentricities. But the sight of it on Friday afternoon was a highlight of 2017.
There’s no way around it, the past year and a bit since Hattie was born has been hard. The year culminated in another 10-week stint at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, where our beautiful daughter Hattie had life-saving heart surgery.
No child should ever have to go through what she has. On her first birthday our sassy, cheeky and strong-willed daughter was lying lifeless in PICU, intubated, sedated and awaiting heart surgery. I don’t want to sound too dramatic but things were grim, surgery was not an option, it was a necessity as she simply could no longer breath on her own and her heart was failing.
We met with Hattie’s surgeon the night before the big day and he basically explained he would decide what to do once he had put her heart on bypass and could see how things were. It was complex, she was younger than they would of hoped for and her combination of conditions meant the surgery wasn’t routine. I dutifully assessed the sturdiness of his hands while he talked about things I couldn’t and didn’t want to understand.
Sometimes in hospital it’s hard to take in all the information, but it’s the smaller things that you notice. Like if the cardiologist wants to talk to you – you’re interesting and that’s a bad thing. Or the night Hattie’s nurse shed tears. I couldn’t understand the medical side of things, but when a cardiology nurse is crying, as a mother you know things are not good. Hattie was having CPR within two hours of the tears.
But after all the drama and the heartache, in the end we got the best result – the cardiologists have said things have gone better than they had hoped for. We couldn’t be more grateful and relieved.
Once the surgery was complete it was a slower than normal wake up. And when Hattie finally did start to wake up, she then had to go through weeks of withdrawals from all the drugs she had been given in PICU. Think of a drug addict writhing on the floor in pain, sweating, screaming, vomiting from the pain and demanding their next hit. That was our princess, still suffering after all she had been through. Hands down it was worse than surgery, your baby screaming, no sound coming out as her vocal chords were still recovering from intubation, and there’s really nothing you can do but sing to her and have an occasional cuddle when allowed around all her pacing wires, drains, catheter, monitors etc.
Through it all Hattie pined for the farm. Once we could get her out and about, she would cry when we took her back into the ward and loved spending time out in the park. You can take the girl out of the country …
We finally returned home two nights ago and feel blessed to be back on our farm and planning the years ahead with our little farmher by our side. We have some big plans for 2018 in the pipeline – progress may have been stalled in recent months but we are still on target to launch two new enterprises this year. Stay tuned for more details.
And through it all we were supported by some dedicated family and friends. My mother was in Melbourne for the duration, doing whatever needed to be done, including a lot of washing and cooking dinners. Special friends who have previous hospital experience were also invaluable in keeping me together – thank you!
Our community also stepped in to help on the farm, which we are ever so grateful for. Rural communities are full of little treasures who will lend a hand at the drop of a hat and we are truly grateful for all your assistance.
So, on reflection, 2017 was tough but we still have so much to be thankful for. There will still be challenges ahead in 2018. Whether they be health related or waiting for that ever important autumn break, we choose to have a positive outlook and we can’t wait to see what our family’s hard work achieves this year.

HAPPY TO BE HOME: Natasha, Harriet, 1, and Dean Lobban, at home at Kilmuir Farm, on New Year's Eve 2017.

OH BABY: Hattie was happy to be home on her farm. She is enjoying lots of pram walks to reacquaint herself with all "her" animals.

FAMILY TIME: The Lobbans back in February 2017, with Hattie enjoying her first ATV ride.

KILMUIR FAMILY: A little Hattie with her "brother" Norbett. He's pretty happy we're home too.

Sorry for the delay in getting this up here. I’ve been knee deep in paperwork and getting nowhere fast. All the “Don’t make me adult today” memes have been flashing before my eyes. You see, I really don’t like paperwork, so I’ve basically been doing anything to avoid being in the office to finish it off.

With all this adult work to do, there really was only one solution. That was stepping into the kitchen and back to a simpler time – a time when I didn’t have to pay bills, worry about taxation regulations and when a hard-set topping was a revelation.

I’ve been making home-made “Ice Magic” for about five years now. I’ve seen all kinds of recipes including oils, corn syrup and powders. It all seems too hard. But it doesn’t have to be ... and you certainly don’t need a Thermomix to make it either.

First you’ll need a good chocolate. I’m a Lindt fan and buy the Lindt Piccoli Creamy Milk Couverture Chocolate in bulk (for cooking). But use whatever your heart desires. If you prefer a dark chocolate go for it. If you hanker for white chocolate give it a go too.

Then all you need is a setting agent. Coconut oil or Copha, which is basically a solidified coconut oil, is the go. Coconut oil is a health revelation of sorts if you follow popular media – I think I’ve read articles where it cures everything from bad breath to cancer. I can’t vouch for its health benefits but this easy recipe really does work. And if you get a kick out of thinking this could be a way to get a bit more healthy coconut oil into your system, who am I to burst your bubble?

Copha can be found in the butter section of the supermarket in a white packet. It was always in our fridge growing up - think chocolate crackles! Now I have four packets of Copha in the fridge and I’m not really sure why. Looks like we might be having a fair bit of Ice Magic to use it all up: any excuse will do.

So here’s the recipe. Prepare to feel 10 years old again, enjoy.

SHORT AND SWEET: I’ve tried this with a drop of peppermint oil and loved it. Orange would also be fantastic. Personally I love the classic recipe.

Ice Magic
Ingredients:
Chocolate
Coconut oil or Copha

 Method:
1.       Recipe works on a 3:1 ratio. So three parts chocolate to one part Copha. I find 30 grams of chocolate to 10 grams of Copha per person creates a generous adult-size serve.
2.       Melt desired chocolate and Copha in microwave or over a gentle stove top heat. Make sure no water is introduced and use some elbow grease to achieve the consistency you’re after as quickly as possible.
3.       Serve over ice-cream.
4.       Add sprinkles (you know you want to).
5.       Chocolate will set hard in a matter of seconds.

Some days being a grown up isn't fun. But then I remember, I alone now have the power to decide how much Ice Magic I put on my ice-cream.

The original product from our childhood. Who remembers the eternity 20 seconds used to take as it was heating in the microwave?

This recipe can be stored in the cupboard too but it's so quick to make, I start from scratch each time.

Sultana scones

Ingredients

2 cups self-raising flour

2 tablespoons softened butter

1 egg

Milk

Sultanas

Sugar

 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
   
   
2. Place grease-proof paper on a baking tray.
   
   
3. In a bowl, rub the butter into flour until it’s all the same consistency.
   
   
4. Add about two tablespoons of sugar and a handful of sultanas (depending on your taste).
   
   
5. Put egg in bottom of one-cup measure, fill the rest of the space in the cup with milk
   
   
6. Add wet ingredients to flour mix and softly work it together until it forms a dough.
   
   
7. Sprinkle bench with flour and gently pat mixture down until it’s about 1.5cm thick.
   
   
8. Dip cutter (or drinking glass) in flour and cut out scones. Don’t twist the glass, just push down and lift off otherwise it will reduce the rise of the scone.
   
   
9. Place scones on tray, ensuring they are touching each other. This also helps the rising process.
   
   
10. Gently repeat process by gathering remaining dough. Use last lot of scraps to create one last scone. It will look funny but taste great still. A perfect chef’s treat.
    
    
11. You can use an egg wash for a shiny finish but I prefer to just dab some milk on top.
    
    
12. Cook for about 15 minutes. If your scones are smaller it will take a little less, and if they’re bigger a little long.
    
    
13. Serve with lashings of salty butter and jam if you like.