Marching ahead

Sorry no updates lately, Steve and I have been in the grips of some kind of horrific virus. High fevers, aching joints, etc, etc. Bizarre fever dreams, including one in which an alligator was trying to sell me art supplies-interpretation? Productivity of late has been close to nil.

March here is continuing to be very lion like, we are still waiting for the lamb part! We have had another inch and a half of rain over the past four days. It's actually a convenient (ha!) time to be sick, as it is too muddy sloppy to do much anyway.

Spring is definitely upon us, though, and it is such an exciting time. The turkeys are just beginning to lay, the fruit trees are blooming, the world is warming and waking up and becoming vibrant and green again. And so, a word on spring by Wendell Berry:

Wendell Berry
A Purification

by Wendell Berry

At start of spring I open a trench in the ground.

I put into it the winter's accumulation of paper,

pages I do not want to read again, useless words, fragments, errors.

And I put into it the contents of the outhouse:

light of the sun, growth of the ground, finished with one of their journeys.

To the sky, to the wind, then, and to the faithful trees,

I confess my sins: that I have not been happy enough, considering my good luck,

have listened to too much noise, have been inattentive to wonders,

have lusted after praise.

And then upon the gathered refuse of mind and body, I close the trench,

folding shut again the dark,the deathless earth.

Beneath that seal the old escapes into the new.

It's spring, you have just dug a trench, what will you put in it? Failures, regrets, excess weight from the winter, fears, clutter...........?

Idealism doesn't pay..

The truth is, we have an egg surplus problem on our hands. This was Sunday's yield: That's around eight dozen. Our lovely young ladies that we hatched back in the fall are all laying like champs, and the older ones are keeping right up with them. The problem is, no one's buying. These beautiful eggs are piling up in our cooler. That is, in part, because in our area, everyone has jumped on the chicken bandwagon. That's right, pastured poultry is a huge thing right now, and everyone has a dozen or two, or 50 chickens.

Also, everyone is buying "cheap". Thanks, economy! These small farmers are selling cheap, probably in part because they haven't bothered to do the math and figure out what the cost of an egg actually is to them, because it matters less if you have 25 chickens, and are losing a few cents a day, than if you are a little bigger and losing a few dollars a day.

On the other hand, the grocery stores are dealing out the cheap, free range, organic eggs, and they are selling like hot cakes. Thanks, Trader Joe's! So, let me just splain something to you. The smiling words on those egg cartons may seem appealing and "all-natural", but it is clever marketing, first and foremost. Under the organic label, the hens are cage free, and must be fed certified organic feed. Fine. Okay, here is the reality of free range rules, from cok.net:

“Free-Range” Eggs
There is no inspection system for companies that label their eggs “free-range.”
The popular myth that “free-range” egg-laying hens enjoy fresh grass, bask in the sunlight, scratch the earth, sit on their nests, and engage in other natural habits is often just that: a myth. In many commercial “free-range” egg farms, hens are crowded inside windowless sheds with little more than a single, narrow exit leading to an enclosure, too small to accommodate all of the birds at once.
Both battery cage and “free-range” egg hatcheries kill all male chicks shortly after birth. Since male chicks cannot lay eggs and are different breeds than those chickens raised for meat, they are of no use to the egg industry. Standard killing methods, even among “free-range” producers, include grinding male chicks alive or throwing them into trash bags and leaving them to suffocate.
Whether kept in sheds or cages, laying hens—who can naturally live more than ten years—are considered “spent” when they are just one or two years old and their productivity wanes. Rather than being retired, “free-range” hens are slaughtered to make room for another shed of birds.
With no federal regulations overseeing the use of animal welfare claims on egg cartons, misleading or exaggerated claims are rampant. Consumers may be deceived by phrases such as “animal-friendly” or “naturally-raised,” which can be found on cartons of eggs from caged hens. Read about COK’s truth in labeling campaign urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require the full disclosure of production methods on eggs cartons sold nationwide.

This means that hippified looking carton of eggs you slapped down two bucks for may have come from a place like this.



Better than battery cages? Maybe. But, probably not the image you had in mind? I am sure this sort of system has a neat profit margin, passing the savings on to you.

Of course, the big problem, obviously, is that you cannot know for sure, by looking at a carton of eggs, what sort of place they came from. Here is our dilemma. If you are not cutting corners-how can you make this apparent to the consumer, other than inviting them to come on over and see for themselves?

Not to imply that we are perfect, that all our systems are just how we want them, or that we don't sometimes make mistakes, but here is my attempt to prove our eggs are worth at least a measly quarter apiece.

Thich Nhat Hahn advises us to eat healthy eggs from happy hens. Happy hens. This a term that gets used a whole lot in marketing. What does it actually mean? I have never run across any interviews with contented hens explaining why their life is more fulfilling than another's. So here's my interpretation.

Clean water and good nutrition. We are not feeding any 50$/bag organic feed, that is true. But, we provide a good quality, balanced laying pellet with adequate protein and calcium, not scratch grains, which are for sure cheaper, but woefully short on the nutrients a chicken needs to stay well. Keep in mind that a chicken produces, at the peak of her cycle, an egg every day and a half. An egg is the equivalent of a baby chicken. Imagine your dog having a puppy every day and a half-it takes a high level of nutritional input to keep a system like that going! In addition, we make sure everyone has access to plenty of forage. Grass and weed seeds to eat, bugs and worms, fallen fruit. Some have more pasture-y areas, some have more wooded areas, but ideally I like for them to have some of both.




Adequate space to play is also important for social harmony. The big poultry producers are trying to breed chickens with "close personal space". They really do like their elbow room. Enough room to ramble about will ensure that you will not experience social problems like bullying and cannibalism.



Chickens will get low on forage in the wintertime, which can cause boredom. A bored chicken is not a happy chicken. We make sure they get produce culls-throw a cabbage or kale into a group of chickens, and it's exactly like watching a school of piranhas attack-little bits of green flying through the air. Even a bale of hay will keep them occupied, they will scratch and pick through it all day long.


We have three heritage breeds, Delawares, Buff Orpingtons, and Buckeyes, and two hybrid breeds of our own design. We breed and hatch our own. We select our breeders for traits that will produce an all around healthy bird, not just one that will produce eggs or meat quickly and well. Thanks to the folks at the ALBC for showing us how to do this. It also means that we take responsibility for their whole lives, starting with the care of their parents.

Many folks buy their chicks from hatcheries, use their birds for the most productive two years, and toss 'em out and get new ones. Well selected stock will remain productive for years, and some of our best breeders are no "spring chickens"!

Sanitation! We try to make sure our flock is living as clean as possible and vermin free.

Nutritional content. It's night and day, folks. Here are some interesting test results from Mother Earth News: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-10-01/Tests-Reveal-Healthier-Eggs.aspx

I am sad that our results came in a little low, but these were tested when we were in the midst of a terrible drought, and the pastures were brown and crispy. Still, our eggs make the competition look weak and pale. So there.

I am sure there is much more to say on this subject, but that's all I got right now. There is more information on egg carton labeling and the welfare of laying hens at www.cok.net/camp/inv/egg.php, and www.hsus.org/farm/resources

The Frogs Say It's Spring

Golly, it is hard to believe it was a "winter wonderland" here 6 days ago.
Today was a blissful, sunshiny 80-some degrees. We were wearing shorts, for pete's sake, and there was hammock time to be had.



The frogs are all singing their hearts out, it is such a lovely springtime thing to hear. Now, today was supposed to be my day "off" but I forgot to plant the basil when I planted the peppers a couple days ago, so I was headed to the greenhouse to plant the little basils real quick, and then Steve said,
"What about some Thai basil?", and then I remembered the summer savory seeds I bought last year, and how about some white sage, oh, and dill, of course... Yep, that's how it goes.

We took the dogs for a nice long walk around the farm-they were overjoyed. You can tell by the tongues.



Maggie even found a little treat. You can't hide nothin from that fifteen year old dog.

The fishes were all out and about.
Yes, our animals even have their own animals. These two goldfish have been happily living in the donkey waterer for more than three years now. Their job is to eat up all the mosquitos and other buggies that might want to make it their home, or their watery demise. They do their job well, I feed them from time to time, out of motherly concern, I suppose, though it is probably not even necessary. The piece of fence is in the top to keep any wayward poultrys from drowning in it.

More Snow

Blah. I don't like it. Steve and I had to get up at 2:00 AM and brush snow off the tops of the greenhouses. There are fences down, branches broken. Oh, I am weary of winter. Not to gripe overly, I realize some folks got much worse, I just seem to have a very low threshhold of pain for winter shenanigans.

The chickens are with me on this.

Poor Tiger even refuses to get out of "bed" when there is snow on the ground.

The geese, however, seem to find it delightful. They were splashing around in their pool today, even though chunks of ice were forming on their feathertips. They seem to think its funny. Oh, my.

Hopefully, at least the snow and ice will insulate and protect all the tender new buds when it is 10 degrees tonight!

Lastly, the great picture that coulda been. What can I say, I was snowblind and couldn't focus.