I've wanted backyard chickens for years now, but like most of my other fantasy projects, I never seemed to get around to them.
Then last year, my boss and I were building a garage for my cousin-I'm a carpenter by trade. My cousin keeps chickens and goats, mostly so his property keeps its agricultural zoning, to allow his wife to run her doggy-daycare business. Anyway, they get far more eggs than they can eat, and they regularly sent us both home with a dozen farm fresh eggs, white, brown and even some blue and green. My family pounced on them, devouring them eagerly. My daughters fought over who got to eat the green and blue eggs.
When I asked my boss how he liked the eggs, he kind of shrugged. He was turned off by the orange yolk. Yolks are yellow, he told me, not orange. Not only that, but he would only eat the white eggs. Eggs come from the store, and they are white. I managed to convince him that the brown is just pigment, that they taste the same. He still wasn't sure, but promised to try a brown egg. He did manage to summon up enough bravery to eat a brown egg, but absolutely would not eat a green or blue.
Wow.
This made me think. We, as a society, have this enormous disconnect between our food's source and our plate. To my boss, food came from the store, and he was only comfortable eating things he had eaten before. Eggs came from cartons, milk from a jug, meat didn't come from an animal but instead came in little shrink-wrapped packages from the grocery store. Not even a butcher, he would not visit a butcher. He didn't like fish because he could see the face on some of them, lying there in the ice behind the glass.
I don't want my kids to grow up like that. So now we have a cute little coop with four young hens, right next to my cute little garden.
I'm not sure I have it in me to get a turkey to fatten up, I don't think I could kill my kids pet; and knowing my kids, it will become a pet. But it's a start. And now that I finally have my hens, I have discovered bee keeping...
Then last year, my boss and I were building a garage for my cousin-I'm a carpenter by trade. My cousin keeps chickens and goats, mostly so his property keeps its agricultural zoning, to allow his wife to run her doggy-daycare business. Anyway, they get far more eggs than they can eat, and they regularly sent us both home with a dozen farm fresh eggs, white, brown and even some blue and green. My family pounced on them, devouring them eagerly. My daughters fought over who got to eat the green and blue eggs.
When I asked my boss how he liked the eggs, he kind of shrugged. He was turned off by the orange yolk. Yolks are yellow, he told me, not orange. Not only that, but he would only eat the white eggs. Eggs come from the store, and they are white. I managed to convince him that the brown is just pigment, that they taste the same. He still wasn't sure, but promised to try a brown egg. He did manage to summon up enough bravery to eat a brown egg, but absolutely would not eat a green or blue.
Wow.
This made me think. We, as a society, have this enormous disconnect between our food's source and our plate. To my boss, food came from the store, and he was only comfortable eating things he had eaten before. Eggs came from cartons, milk from a jug, meat didn't come from an animal but instead came in little shrink-wrapped packages from the grocery store. Not even a butcher, he would not visit a butcher. He didn't like fish because he could see the face on some of them, lying there in the ice behind the glass.
I don't want my kids to grow up like that. So now we have a cute little coop with four young hens, right next to my cute little garden.
I'm not sure I have it in me to get a turkey to fatten up, I don't think I could kill my kids pet; and knowing my kids, it will become a pet. But it's a start. And now that I finally have my hens, I have discovered bee keeping...