SUGAR Plum, the beloved Maremma sheepdog, has been practising guarding seven chooks while construction for the chicken caravan was underway.
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Another 1100 hens arrived on Friday to the Modewarre property where Larissa Robins is developing a free range chicken farm. The girls have plenty of room to scratch about and take in the fresh air.
Larissa is determined to ensure the girls are happy. They are the key to her new business, Love Your Eggs. Larissa wants to sell “true” eggs.
The former Ballarat woman wants her young family to have a laid-back regional lifestyle they have always spoken about.
Larissa, a mother-of-three, has stage four bone cancer, which has now spread throughout her body.
Now 42, Larissa is trying to move forward and said this chicken venture was a great distraction, keeping her focused and busy. Learning to become an eggs-pert.
Larissa said the farm was both a way for her to contribute to her family and to create a legacy as a business and place her husband and children could always feel safe and close to her. A forever home.
“We’ve got all these chooks coming … I’m freaking out. My fear is what if I’m not well,” Larissa said. “But I also chose this, because if I’m having a crappy day, I can go out in the field and collect the eggs alone. I’m not under pressure and this is something I can go at my own pace.
“This is also to give us a lifestyle. We’ve always wanted to live on the land and have some space.”
Starting up the business is about more than supporting a free range egg industry. It is also about local produce and making sure the girls on her land were happy.
Love Your Eggs seemed an easy choice for a business name, inspired by Daylesford siblings Samuel and Connie Johnson’s Love Your Sister quest to raise money for breast cancer research and awareness.
Larissa emailed Samuel to ask if he minded. Sam threw his support behind the mission. He and his unicycle, a trademark for his almost year-long pedal across Australia, even arrived in Geelong earlier this month for a ride along the Barwon River, joining Larissa’s children’s school for a pink sock walkathon day.
“The whole Love Your Sister campaign, I love what they do,” Larissa said. “I’m passionate about cancer research. I want a cure. Science is what is going to help me live longer. I need hard core science.”
Three weeks before Larissa married on a beach in Western Australia, she was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer. She opted to wait until after her elopement to start treatment. Treatment plans changed.
Larissa was 18 weeks pregnant when she had a mastectomy, but opted against radiation therapy because of potential harmful effects to her unborn baby daughter.
Charlie was born in July 2012, a younger sister to Spencer and Lillian.
Initially signs were positive, despite complications and pain from breast reconstruction surgery.
Larissa went to Paris for her 40th birthday and was moving on.
In June last year, she went to see her new plastic surgeon for a check-up. She asked him about a lump she had thought was scar tissue. An immediate biopsy confirmed cancer.
A week later, meeting with another breast surgeon to find out her options, Larissa was rocked with worse news. Cancer had spread to her bones. She had stage four bone metastases.
Her goal now, was to get on with living and creating memories, happy memories.
Larissa grew up in Durham Lead, on the outskirts of Ballarat.
It was while going to high school, then Mount Clear Technical High School (now Mount Clear College) that she met and became close friends with Lyndelle Flintoft.
Lyndelle was in the year above Larissa at the Barkley mini-school, but they hung out together with a group of friends in the school yard. Once they left school, they went their separate ways.
Then things came full circle. Larissa and Lyndelle both now live in Geelong and were quick to renew their friendship. Their journey has led back to Ballarat.
Emerging artists and crafters will put their work on show for The Design Exchange market, which Lyndelle co-ordinates, at Ballarat Mining Exchange on Sunday. Traditionally, Lyndelle has donated a percentage of door takings to Support4Cancer, a network for people in Ballarat and the Grampians who have been affected by cancer.
Fundraising from the next two Design Exchanges, including this weekend, will support Larissa and Love Your Eggs.
There will be no eggs at this market – Larissa is still settling the girls into their new home – but she hoped it would raise awareness for her egg-venture.
Larissa is aiming to sell her eggs privately, hopefully to local grocers or maybe in markets. Wholesalers are a back-up for excess stock but offer little for the produce in a business sense.
“We’re looking for people who want to take on our eggs and see the value in them,” Larissa said. “We’re so new, but it just takes one person to believe in you. They will be supporting a family, a business and know these girls are happy.”
Larissa has no regrets. Her children make her smile and she wants to keep being the best she can be for them, for as long as she can. And have plenty of fun chasing so many chickens around the yard while doing so.
*The Design Exchange, Ballarat Mining Exchange, Sunday from 10am