We’ve been shopping at farmer’s markets for years, in many cities and states. One of the parts we particularly enjoy is the opportunity to meet the farmers. We’ve found great diversity among the individuals who farm: some grew up farming, others are career changers, and still others begin after retirement. One common thread, however, is pride in their products.
We used to imagine, while shopping the market, that someday we’d have something to offer. Yesterday was that day – we sold chicken and duck eggs. We would have liked to have had meat to offer, too, but sales of farm-processed chicken/duck/rabbit isn’t permitted at farmer’s markets here. To our surprise, patrons sought us out based on the market’s email that went out yesterday introducing us and our products, and our duck eggs sold out right away. (Note to self: bring more duck eggs next market! The two now-broody ducks, Piper and Pru, aren’t laying and insist on sitting together on an empty nest – they’d better get back to work soon!) Continue reading “Our First Farmer’s Market (As A Vendor)”
In addition to the Black Copper Marans eggs we put in the incubator a couple of days ago, we just started incubating some American Bresse eggs. While we have, to this point, raised dual-purpose chickens primarily for eggs, these are intended to be primarily meat chickens.
We’ve been on a fruit crisp* kick lately. It started with a jar of cherry pie filling we bought on a whim…that became a very tasty cherry crisp (or crumble). Then we bought some apples at the farmer’s market and made an apple crisp. Yum.
So, we have the fancy yellow incubator and the new hatcher just sitting idle in the gym/feed storage/sometime-duckling-brooder room downstairs. After the first hatcher fiasco with the still-air wafer thermostat incubator, we upgraded to a digital forced air model that seems to hold temperature much better than the other one did. Shockingly, the new hatcher hasn’t even been used yet. Seems like we should be getting our money’s worth out of this equipment. Guess it’s time to hatch some eggs!
Finally, the shed project has been completed. Whew. While it started out as a partly overcast day, once we got started, of course, the clouds parted and the sun came out. And it was intense. The weather app showed it to be 90 degrees but “feels like” 99. Ugh. It meant sauna-hot, sweaty work and non-stop harassment by biting flies.