Wild Things Farm

As a newbee member of the Cumberland County Beekeepers Association, I've been assigned a mentor.  I've read about 3 books, countless older copies of The American Bee Journal and Bee Culture, looked through every beekeeping catalog made, been to a conference, built hives, got all the equipment needed, but today I got to actually go into beehives for real!  I was humming that song "I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it, I know, I know...." anyway, the day was beautiful and warm for this time of year.  My mentor has hives off the mountain (the Cumberland Plateau) so she thought it would be warmer to work those hives today.

I gathered up all my brand new bee stuff, most of it still in the plastic packages, loaded them in my Subaru Veggie-soon-to-become a Veggie/Bee Wagon, and headed to her house.  She has a Subaru beewagon with a bee-trailer behind it and it was loaded with supers, frames, sugar syrup, bottom boards--more beekeeping equipment than I'd ever seen!  She made sure I had everything I needed and all I have is a jacket so she was going to loan me a pair of white pants to slip on over my jeans.  We went into the building where she keeps all her bee stuff and got distracted talking and left without getting the white pants---haha!

On the way to the bee yard we came upon a yard sale.......the bees can wait!

We each got a few things and went on to the bee yard.

The first thing we did once we got there was to light our smokers.  I've never lit a smoker and I even commented to her that mine came with paper to light it the first time--it was the instructions on how to light it!  I stuffed paper egg carton in my shiny new smoker and lit it.  After stuffing a few pine needles and cones in it I had a pretty good fire going.  I'm used to building a fire in a wood stove, not a coffee can.  Although I got a fire going pretty quick and it was doing really well, in the end hers kept smoking the entire time, about 2 hours, and mine went out.  I need practice.

She has nine hives at this farm and was doing the first actual hands on visit for the season.   We could see from a distance that 2 of the hives weren't as busy as the others and she said she knew that one of them hadn't survived the winter.  We started opening hives, checking for brood, and changing out the bottom boards for ones that she had cleaned up and painted.  I got to see lots of things I've never seen before....

I've seen pictures of the "baggy" feeders, but have never seen them in person.  A great, inexpensive way to feed bees sugar syrup without drowning them.
I believe this was one of the hives that had died, and there were just robber bees in there getting honey.

This was a frame that had honey on it.  When she pulled out a frame and asked me if I could see the eggs and larvae, I squinted and looked and tilted the frame every which way and couldn't see anything.  Then I handed it back to her and said "I guess I need to go get my glasses".  She cracked up.  After I got my glasses on I could see the larvae and the eggs.  It's much easier to see them after you know what they look like--teeny tiny little itty bitty things.......

This frame had queen cups on it.  When they are on the bottom of the frame like this I believe they are called swarm cells and that's when the bees build queen cells, the queen lays eggs in there and then she takes half the bees in the hive with her and they leave.....something beekeepers try to avoid.

I saw a few hive beetles but those pictures were blurry--little small black round bugs that move around the hive--very destructive little bugs, I might add.  They can kill a hive if not kept in check, but I only saw 3 in all the hives today.  She also showed me some drones--they are bigger than the worker bees, and I saw two queens.  One of them had a big white mark on her head--she was easy to spot!  The other one took a little time and she kept going into hidey-holes so we couldn't see her.  I did not get a picture of a mouse nest either.  It had actually built a nest in one of the frames and had eaten holes in several other frames, but we didn't see the mouse.  The bees will repair the holes in the foundation so she just put them back into the hive.

Another very exciting thing I saw was a bee actually coming out of its cell--being born, if you will!  I was so excited.  That was way cool!  The bee crawled out of her cell then turned right around and cleaned it out--AWESOME!  Bees are so interesting!

That's about it for the first day of beekeeping--well, keeping someone else's bees.  Mine are supposed to arrive in mid-late April and I can hardly wait.  The apiary is almost complete and ready for bees.......and no stings today!

Everything on a farm doesn't have to do with dirt under the fingernails.  Sometimes it's grease under the fingernails.  The Subaru Veggie Wagon has been letting me know for the past few months that something was going on with the front end.  So, like the frugal person I am, I drove it until it had to be fixed. A few weeks ago I did get an estimate from a mechanic and from the description I gave him he thought it was an axle--about $200.

I started to town a couple of days ago and decided it was time--the steering wheel was pulling back and forth so I turned around and went home, got on Google (my favorite "how to" go to place), and Googled the problem.  A few Googles later I decided that it was the cv axle, so I watched a couple of videos on Youtube.  The job really didn't look that hard, so I drove the truck to town to get parts--$60--and I had to "borrow" a 32mm socket to take the axle nut off.

Just as I was getting all the parts removed from the car, Shane (boyfriend) pulled up and asked what in the world was I doing.  I told him I was making $140.00.  He told me I was crazy for tackling that job and started muttering things about transmission and oil, and I politely told him that I had watched the video and would get it done, so he left (yay).  The next morning the weather was cold with wind blowing but I donned the insulated coveralls and crawled under the car where it was warm (not cozy, just warm).

I'm glad there was no camera around because I had to keep coming back to the computer to make sure I was doing everything right and I'm glad no one was recording audio, BUT in spite of myself,  by 10:00 I was driving my veggie wagon back to town to return the socket and old parts!  All I can say is that I love the Internet and Youtube and it gave me the confidence to say "yes, I can" get out of my box and do something I hadn't before.

Oh, and there was a reason the guy in the video ground down a punch to knock out the pin in the axle--my screwdriver got stuck and I didn't think I was going to be able to get it out.

The Happy Hens are really laying a lot of eggs now so I thought it was a great time to try a new quiche recipe.  The spinach hadn't recovered from the last harvest sufficiently to include in the recipe, so I went to my favorite recipe site, Allrecipes.com and found this yummy recipe that will be made again.  I took it to my parents' house and my Dad ate it for two meals and Mom wanted the recipe--it's a keeper.

8 oz bacon, fried crisp and crumbled
9" pie crust (popped out of the foil pan and into a glass pie plate)
2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup Monterey Jack (I used pepper jack) shredded
3 T all purpose flour
5 eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 cups half and half
1/2 cup diced onion
1-4 oz can diced green chiles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Crumble the bacon bits onto the bottom of the pie crust.  Combine cheese and flour and stir to coat cheese with flour.  In a separate bowl mix eggs, half and half, onion, and chiles.  Add the cheese and stir well.  Pour into crust--it will be full--full-full.  I put the pie plate on a cookie sheet and a little ran over but not much.  Bake 60-70 minutes or until firm.  Mine was done in 45 minutes but my oven runs hot.

Let it stand for 10 minutes.  A slice of this and a salad is quite filling--it's good for breakfast too!

Note:  If your husband/boyfriend/significant other won't eat things they can't pronounce, the other name for this recipe is "Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Pie".

This post could also be called "well duh!"

A friend gave me some seed starting flats that have tiny cells in them, maybe 1/2" square or so, and there are probably close to 400 cells in the flat (I haven't counted them but there's a LOT)  I filled them with soil and started trying to drop seeds on the soil and they were bouncing everywhere.  Then a light bulb went off--I put an empty one over top of the one I was trying to seed, dropped a seed into each cell and voila!  They fell right in the center of the soil-filled cell underneath. 

I'm sure someone else has come up with this trick, or one better, but it sure made seeding the flat of broccoli raab much easier for me! 

The high tunnel has been productive this winter season--well, as productive as it can be.  Plants just don't grow nearly as fast in the winter as they do in the summer.  A wonderful mix of greens just passed through the kitchen sink into the fridge for part of the evening meal.  I get lots of questions about the best way to wash fresh greens.

First off, this is only the way I do it--not a scientific approach at all.  The greens grown on the farm are all organical so the only things that need to be washed off are debris and the occasional snail.  I can deal with things I can see, it's the things I can't see that I don't want to deal with :-)

Place the greens in a big bowl of cold water:

Then swish the leaves  around with your hand to knock the debris loose.

  I pick it up a few leaves at a time and place in the salad spinner, checking them really well for cleanliness.

Once the salad spinner is about 3/4 full, put the lid on and give it a few spins to dry the leaves.   The salad is then ready to mix with whatever other items you want.  This particular mix I call the "Kitchen Sink" salad mix because it contains arugula, lettuce, broccoli raab, spinach, and baby Swiss chard leaves.  A lot of people have never tried baby Swiss Chard leaves in a salad, but they are delicious, and more nutritious when raw.

If you're not going to eat greens right away, don't wash them until you're getting ready to eat or cook them, and keep them in the fridge.

Now, for supper.........

As each growing season is planned, along with the tried and true favorites, I always like to try some new things.   After pouring through the mountain of seed catalogs and following rabbit trails all over the Internet, the decisions have been made:  which new veggie varieties will make it to the ground this year?  (A few of) the winners are:

Jade Cross Brussels Sprouts....hold the applause...this is the first time I've tried Brussels Sprouts in YEARS.  This variety matures quicker so maybe I won't have to torment over it in the garden for so long....

Russet Potatoes--going for some bakers here in addition to the Kennebec and Red Pontiac.

In the pepper category, Ancho San Martin, Georgia Flame, Cabernet, Purple Cayennes, and Lipstick peppers join the myriad of peppers already on the books.  Peppers seem to like the soil in one particular garden here on the farm, so I try to rotate them there every couple of years.

New salad tomatoes being grown this year include every kind of salad tomato you can imagine and a couple more.  I've really gotten into the salad tomato mix--it's a real hit with the Wild Things followers and I LOVE to package them up--it's like playing with M&M's.   All the colorful and tasty salad tomatoes will be marvelous on top of the new lettuce varieties.  Names like Cherokee, Panisse, Skyphos, and Summertime will join the popular gourmet leaf lettuce mixes AND two iceburg-type lettuces will be trialed in the garden this year.

A horticultural bean (eaten shelled but not dried) called Tongue of Fire has arrived for planting and will be growing along with the usual Roma II, Blue Lake, and Jumbo beans.  A filet bean called "Masai" is scheduled to make an appearance at some point during the season as well.  

Lots of heirloom tomatoes will be planted again as in years before, and a few new ones are going to be added; Nepal, Cherokee Purple, Holy Land--hopefully they will be worth saving seed from for future gardens-- Hippie Zebra --that one sounds like a keeper to me :-)

A couple new summer squash varieties, Magda and Safari, will be added, and oh, I almost forgot the coolest one of all.....Veronica Romanesco.  It's classed with cauliflower but it looks like some kind of cool alien vegetable--

Well, that's about all of the new crops I'm going to share.....I can't tell you EVERYTHING.... if you're within the reaches of Wild Things this coming season, you'll just have to check it out for yourself.  

Today's one of those days that one needs a boat to navigate around outdoors.  It's pouring rain but the chickens are out wandering around in the rain--go figure.....

While I'm hold up in the house I decided to replenish my homemade granola supply.  My go-to breakfast every morning is yogurt with fruit and granola on top.  I've made my own a few times in an attempt to reduce the amount of crap I can't pronounce going into my mouth, and it's not hard to make.  The hardest part is finding all the ingredients in Small Town USA.  We do have a couple of health food stores that are proving to be a good source for hard-to-find "healthy" food items.

Every time I make this recipe I tweek it just a little bit, but it always turns out yummy....that is unless I get distracted while baking it and it ummm, gets a little dark :-)

Here's the basic recipe:  (from Allrecipes.com)

4 cups rolled oats
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup flax seed meal (I used 1-1/2 cups wheat germ because I didn't have any flax
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts)
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I omit this)
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil (I used grapeseed oil--why?  because I didn't have any canola oil)
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Mix all the wet stuff together in a separate bowl, using a fork or a whisk.  Pour the wet onto the dry and toss to coat all the dry ingredients.  Place in a greased 9x13 or 11x7 inch baking pan.  (I used a large jelly roll pan) that is greased well (sprayed with non-stick spray).  Set the timer for 15 minutes and every 15 minutes stir everything around really well.  Mine usually cooks in about 45 minutes but the recipe calls for an hour or until it's golden brown.  Let it cool completely then store in an airtight container.  I keep mine in a big glass gallon jar......yummy!

Back in July a "flock" of worms was added to the Wild Things' menagerie.  I'm not sure what you call a bunch of worms, "flock", "wad", "glob".....they do make wonderful poop to add to the seed starting mix AND it's getting really close to seed-starting time.  As a matter of fact, there are teeny tiny tomato plants that were started on the 16th in the little greenhouse at this very moment.

When I got the worms I wrapped the white joint compound buckets with black nursery plastic to keep the light out.  A couple of weeks later I spied the quart of blackboard paint that I only needed a 1/2 cup to paint farmer's market signs.  I painted the exterior of the buckets with the paint--it wouldn't be durable enough for a bucket that was going to be used a lot, but for a worm house, it's perfect.  I can take chalk and write directly on the bucket what date I harvested the poop and eggs.

In case you're wondering what a wormlette is, it's a teeny-tiny just hatched baby worm.  This bucket has the stuff that wouldn't sift through the sifter I use to harvest poop.  Poop is about the size of coffee grounds, and the eggs are just a little bigger.  Technically they need an 80 degree environment to hatch in like 3 weeks or so, but they will still hatch at lower temps, it just takes longer.  I just check in on them occasionally and pick out the hatchlings.

I added some rotten onions and delicata squash scraps to the worm buckets this morning....they said "thank you" :-)

So I'm a compulsive list maker......checking tasks off of my lists gives me a feeling of accomplishment and it helps me to not forget things I really want to get done.  One of the wintertime items on the list was to get the hives ready for the bees' arrival in the spring.

The last post was about building the boxes and assembling the frames.  The hives have been sitting on the back porch (in the way, I might add) waiting for me to get back to them.  With the holidays over and the upstairs floor at least nailed down (not finished yet) I was able to get back to the hives.  The quilt is nothing more than a rectangular frame, just slightly (like 1/8") smaller than the supers.  This facilitates the burlap being stapled to the outside of the quilt and still maintain airflow to the roof cavity.

First off I used a piece of burlap that's about 3 inches larger than the bottom dimension of the quilt.  There just so happened to be a piece of burlap in my fabric stash, so I stapled the selvage edge first along one long side of the quilt.  Then it got stretched really tight and I stapled the other side in a few spots just to hold the fabric tight, then the excess was trimmed and the edge turned under to keep it from raveling.

One of the quilts was fabricated from some scrap oak that was laying around and it was really difficult to get the staples to go all the way in.  It's also quite a bit heavier than the other one, which is made from pine--but---it was scrap.

Here is the hive with the quilt in its proper position--wood shavings go in when the hive gets set up in the apiary.   Bees keep their hives really warm during the winter--I think around 95 degrees or so.  When the warm air hits a cold roof cover the moisture in the air condenses and drips back down onto the bees, which could chill them and kill them.  The quilt absorbs the heat and humidity so condensation doesn't occur, plus it provides insulation from the cold and heat in the summer.  I've read that some people treat the burlap with a flour paste to keep the bees from shredding it.  That will get done closer to "bee-arrival" time.

You can see the burlap stapled to the outer edge of the quilt.  Don't worry, the roof will cover that.....

In fact, the roof covers the entire quilt and part of the top box.

Here is the first completed beehive.  Rough sawmill lumber was used for the roof gable ends because the lumber  purchased from the sawmill wasn't wide enough for the peak of the roof.  There was a board left over from the house siding (hemlock) so I used that.  It soaked up a lot more of the wood sealer than the finished boards.  The roof has a flat board inside that rests on top of the quilt so mice can't get into the nice nest of shavings.  A screened bottom board will allow for ventilation through the hive, and the little ramp at the bottom is for when the bees are tired and they can stumble into the hive (that's what I've read, anyway).  An entrance reducer will be added to keep the opening smaller when necessary or opened up all the way.  I'm not sure about all that yet, but I'm still learning.

I decided to name my hives after the signs of the zodiac--not that I believe any of that--but it made a convenient way to keep the first twelve hives separate for recordkeeping purposes.  A woodburning tool made the name permanent, rather than paint.  The Happy Hoer was born in the sign of Virgo :-)

Yesterday morning I laid out some frozen chicken to prepare for supper.  I didn't know what to fix yet, but there it  was, at 7:00 pm, thawed, on the counter.  This wasn't ordinary grocery-store chicken, but one of the unlucky roosters that were a product of my "I-want-to-incubate-eggs" experiment.  That experiment yielded more roosters than laying hens, so from now on I'll leave the incubating to the professionals and just purchase newly hatched girls.

So far my experience with these roosters is that they are TOUGH and the last couple of times I cooked one it was an all day thing in the crock pot and they turned out to be chicken and dumplings.  Even after cooking it all day long the breast meat just got bigger and bigger the more it was chewed!  So, my mind got out of the chicken-and-dumpling pot and spied the handy-dandy grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  There was some Chinese cabbage from the garden in the crisper, along with carrots harvested several weeks ago.  I'll share the recipe(s) I prepared, but the story is more about the wrappers themselves.

I don't eat out often, but when I do I like to eat things that I don't normally prepare at home.  Vietnamese food isn't something I make very often, but I had a dish once with the rice noodles and spring rolls that was delicious, so that's my inspiration for supper.  I bought a package of spring roll wrappers a while back and have been wanting to use them--here's my chance!

At 7:00 pm I ground the chicken and put it in a skillet with diced onion and some minced garlic (yes, I use the stuff in the jar), soy sauce and pepper.  I cut shreds of the cabbage and put it in the pan long enough to wilt,  then I took out enough of this mixture to make a few spring rolls.  I added chunks of onion, celery, carrot sticks and bigger slices of the Chinese cabbage to the pan of chicken.

I started a pot of water boiling to cook the rice noodles and pulled the spring roll wrappers out of the pantry.  Nice package.....

Once I got it open I couldn't decide what was packaging and what was the actual wrapper.  They were stiff and had embossed marks on them like an inner cover in a can or something.  See what I mean?

Okay, no instructions on the package so I go to the computer.  "Immerse in warm water for up to 30 seconds to soften" and then wrap your ingredients.  I've got the pot of hot water ready for rice noodles, so that seems easy enough.  I carefully dip the stiff wrapper into hot water so I don't burn myself and Voila!  It turns into something similar to wet plastic wrap and is folded up into a wad.  Okay, maybe the water is too hot.  I took a dinner plate and ran warm water from the faucet into a thin layer and laid a wrapper in the water for about 30 seconds and it softened up miraculously so I could roll up the ground chicken mixture and make a spring roll.  I fried them in a little oil and ate the rice noodles with the chunky mixture left in the pan.    At 8:15 I was cleaning up the dishes--see, it doesn't take that long to prepare fresh food INCLUDING grinding your own meat!

Of course this wasn't quite as tasty as the Vietnamese dish I had in a restaurant with my best friend, but I was in my jammies in my house ......that means a lot on a cold wintry night!

OK, it's that time of year, when a lot of us make new year's resolutions and attempt to improve something about our lives.  The way I look at it is that we have "tomorrow" to improve, or "next week" to start something new--maybe "first of next month"--oh what the heck--new year's-----"I'll start taking control of what goes in my mouth".

 It's a real comfort knowing where your food comes from.  I was with my best friend at the grocery store the other day and I couldn't believe how stressful it was trying to decide which of the produce to encourage her to buy....the conventional spinach was--well, YUK!  not fresh...the organic wasn't much better and I thanked my lucky stars that I don't have to worry about where my produce comes from.  (If I had known she needed spinach I would have brought her some :))

Now's the time to decide how you want to nourish your body this year--join a local CSA and know where your food comes from, go to the farmer's market and get local produce (ask if it's organic) or continue to paddle along with convenience foods whether frozen or canned.  It's your choice.  Our bodies are using what we put in them to build new cells every day.  Junk in--junk out, as the old saying goes.  

I went to an "open house" yesterday at the home of one of the farm members.  They had prepared salad using greens from the high tunnel and they were really excited to share that information with the guests at their party.  It was exciting to me to be eating veggies that were grown on my farm but prepared by someone else--I knew where those veggies came from.   I know everyone isn't to that point in their consumption of food, but it's a really good feeling, and if you can't grow your own veggies, belonging to a CSA is a good foundation to taking control of your diet.

It was a sourwood, to be exact, in the woods, in the back yard.  Upon closer inspection I realized that there were multiple wild grape vines in the tree....mmmmmm I know exactly what to do with those!  Hang them in the foyer :)

There are more vines out there but this is as far as I've gotten so far....LED white lights behind the vines--for Christmas and the rest of the year!

Okay, so I got bitten by the "I-wanna-keep-bees" bug last summer.  I've been studying all about them and after pricing  beehives from several different sources, I decided to build my own hives.  It was going to be EXPENSIVE to get two hives set up, and the fact that I'm doing a little different twist on these hives made the decision easier.

A sort-of local sawmill (about 40 miles away) had dressed and kiln dried pine boards that were 1x8x8.  The Subaru veggie wagon was loaded!  The owner of the sawmill ended up giving me several extra boards that were odd lengths--lucky me :)  The lumber has been stacked in the dining room to keep it nice and dry.  Construction began a few days ago:

First, all the boards are cut into the proper lengths for the sides of the boxes.

Then all the boards get ripped to the right width for the medium box depth.  It's easier for me to rip the short boards rather than try to rip a long board.

After getting all the boards cut to size it was time to glue and screw.  I bought some star bit exterior tan-colored screws to fasten the boxes together.  A good smearing of wood glue is applied and clamps to hold the boards in place while fastening is necessary.  A small framing square is very helpful which pilot drilling and inserting screws at the corners.

A word of advice:  Do not cut the tip of your forefinger on a cardboard box while Christmas shopping with your mother the day before attempting this project.  It really makes it harder to do all this detailed work with an "ow-ie" on your finger.  Anyway, as the boxes were completed, they were stacked back in the dining room, only they take up a lot more room than they did as a stack of lumber!

I'm making 6 boxes for each hive and one extra box to make a swarm box for the swarm of bees I'll find next year :)

I also put together an entire case of frames (100) --they are everywhere, just waiting for the boxes to be painted.

Next come the "quilts"......

Today I was returning from an early morning trip to town and I realized I hadn't opened the high tunnel up before I left, and it was a very sunny day--that means HOT in the tunnel.   While walking to the ht I spied a hawk flying out of the chicken pen.  My heart sank.  I ran over to the pen and saw the pile of feathers, remains of one of the newest chickens, and no chickens in sight.  They always run to their coop when danger threatens.  What I want to know is how does the hawk know not to eat the young, aggravating roosters that are just waiting to be butchered, OR the old hens that are at the end of their useful laying period.  The hawk ALWAYS goes for the young pullets that are just nearing laying age.....grrrrrrrr!

I had grandios plans today of straightening a few lumber stacks and covering them better, but when you work with Mother Nature plans are apt to change at any given moment.  I have committed to raising hens for eggs, so the majority of the afternoon was spent stringing the remains of a 3400 yard spool of 12 pound test line over the top of the pen and then tying hundreds of survey marking tape flags on the line.  Great leg workout.......

It may not look like much in the photo, but it took almost a whole roll of survey tape, and about 3 hours of back-breaking work listening to chickens who were upset over the hawk, and also upset over being integrated together (babies and older chickens) just 2 days ago.  Not a good day in "chicken-ville".  I was about ready to kill a couple of the young roosters by the time I was finished!   The term "pecking order" is just exactly what it means--chickens arguing and pecking, squawking, and growling to rank higher in the group I guess.

As I was finishing up the project the wind was blowing at a pretty good clip and the flags were all waving--The chicken empire  is now festively decorated for the holidays!  Hopefully it will "Trick the hawk with o-range rib-b0ns.....fa la la la la, la la la la".   Sorry, couldn't help myself :)

Although it is hard to admit when one does things worthy of being the punch line in a joke, once in a while I like to make other people feel smart by sharing these "blond" moments.

At the present time there are about four different age groups of hens in the empire of the Happy Hens; there are old hens, pullets, almost-pullets, and chicks.  That means that egg production around here is somewhat cramped right now and the loyal fans of the Happy Hens are keeping us BUSY!  Yesterday the high tunnel season sort of officially began with the first delivery of greens, root veggies and fresh eggs.  There are always more orders for eggs than are available so the orders are processed in order of how they were received.  The folks who got eggs were thrilled and the others, well, really wanted eggs.

This morning I was taking inventory of all the ingredients I needed to make the dishes I volunteered for the Thanksgiving meal this year--that would be corn (out of the garden), a sweet potato casserole (from the garden), and deviled eggs (from the Happy Hens) oh crap, I sold all the eggs.

Can you believe that I had to go to the grocery store this morning and BUY eggs?  I was hoping no one I knew would see me, and it was really difficult to choose which eggs to buy.  I know cage-free means that there's a door open somewhere that the chickens could go out IF they knew the door was there and IF there were chickens to follow out that door, and natural means, well, uh, nothing actually.

Rather than stress myself out over natural, brown, white, cage free, listen-to-music-while-they-lay...blah, I just chose organic eggs.  If you've never seen store-bought eggs (organic, nonetheless) right next to a fresh farm egg, here's a picture I took of 2 store bought eggs and 1 egg from the Happy Hens (it was cracked a little)--guess which ones are which......

The only saving grace to this whole mixup is that fresh eggs are harder to peel than store bought eggs, so the deviled eggs won't look like I peeled them with a butcher knife this year....hopefully!

Enjoy your turkey day.