Way back in March, when we decided to go partially organic, we visited a farm that does completely natural farming. It was called Polyface Farms. All the chickens are free range, the cattle are grass fed, and the pigs are happy. While we aren’t able to go organic all the way, we do try to do what we can. We bought some wonderful beef from these grass fed cows–and some chicken. We also order from a farm that is closer called Quail Cove–we get our wheat from there and good cheese and natural stuff.
Warning: If you eat eggs from the grocery store, I would advise you to stop reading here. If you don’t know it doesn’t exist, you will be fine.
We also wanted to buy our eggs locally, since the eggs you buy in the store are not only poor abused chickens with no quality of life, but we found out that these eggs can be pasteurized up to four times and put back on the shelf. So this tells you, my friends, that the eggs you are eating from said grocery store can be as old as 2-3 months. They put the eggs out, and if they aren’t sold by the date on the carton, they go back, get pasteurized again, and go back on the shelf. If they aren’t sold again by the date, they go back again, get pasteurized again and go back on the shelf. Ew! Did you know that you can not make good hard-boiled eggs with fresh eggs? Nope, only old eggs can be hard-boiled and stay intact.
Anyway, we found a farm not far from us that sells eggs. Granted they are a little more expensive, but I can handle that. They are wonderful eggs. The chicken lady is just a nice little lady–maybe about 50 or so that has been a farm wife for a long time. She and her husband raise donkeys and farm. They also raise chickens and bees. The honey she sells is absolutely wonderful! But the chicken lady’s hens weren’t laying recently, so we have had no place to get eggs. Apparently they are very temperamental chickens. We actually had to *gasp* go to the grocery store and get organic eggs, which says the chickens are free range, but who knows. We had also resorted to ordering them from Quail Cove, but that is an order that comes every month.
But the chicken lady called today, so I get to go and get some more fresh eggs. If you have never done fresh eggs, you should try it. They are wonderful and they are so yellow, they are almost orange. I’ll post pictures once I get them. Besides that you get to support a local farmer and maybe get to meet some pretty neat people.