Duck, Duck, Egg

If they weren’t loud, stupid, smelly, and dirty, ducks would be the perfect farm animal. They don’t mind the cold, we didn’t lose a one during the snows this winter, and the ducks don’t even have to have a house. The chickens, with their insulated gypsy wagons, still managed to die in astounding numbers, but the ducks weren’t put off their daily routine of quacking wildly at every single thing that came near their pen and pooping.

And now that it’s Spring, we are getting 21 duck eggs a day (with only 20 female ducks – someone is overachieving). There is a small, but fiercely loyal, group of regular duck egg customers. These are either folks who are allergic to chicken eggs (and most are NOT allergic to duck eggs) or fanatics like Nick who think chicken eggs are pale imitations of the bigger, yolkier, robuster duck egg. The latter treat the arrival of duck eggs like white truffles straight off the plane from Italy. The other group of customers is the curious and culinary adventurous. And it was from one of these, a new CSA member, I got a good duck egg tip.

I had passed on to him my baking rule for duck eggs – 1 duck egg = 1.5 chicken eggs. He tested that on soft boiling, cooking a chicken egg for 4 minutes and a duck egg for 6. Perfect in both cases!

OK, I know this is not really a recipe, but as we get into the season of fresh everything, I realize that recipes are oh so not important. Really, you want to cook that fabulous 1 day out of the ground asparagus INTO something – to what? Mask its flavor with cheese (normally something I applaud, by the way)? Why cook it at all? Eat it raw and on the way home from buying it. Come to the farm and eat it out of the ground. No, this is the time of year when you don’t need a cooking channel. You need a “eat everything as fresh and unprocessed as possible channel.

Green Farm at WIS in NW SUNDAY, 11-3

That’s right, Kate and Nick will be hawking eggs, greens (including ASPARAGUS), gourd bowls, sought-after Green Fence Farm T-shirts, guinea fowl, ground beef, and other assorted goodies 11 AM – 3 PM, Sunday, April 18 at the WIS bazaar. If you missed out on the greens at our last DC drop, come on over this time -- we should have more to sell.

Also, bad news for our CSA and Buying Club friends, contrary to what I told you earlier, this is our LAST DC delivery until the season starts on May 26 on Capitol Hill, so you may want to lay some eggs in now. We had planned to come back 2 more times before that, but massive confusion (our normal state) over when it was our oldest daughter was graduating and a date for our pigs to go to the butcher messed everything up. So come to WIS on Sunday and don't complain later that I didn't warn you.

WIS is located in NW DC very close to our NW pick-up point (see directions below). The bazaar is an annual fund raising event that includes an incredible international lunch buffet (the reason you won’t see much of Nick at our stand), kid’s games, REAL high tea, arts and crafts booths, and, of course, US.

We should have a good load of vegetables at this showing – for those of you who came to the drop off last week only to find the first three people took all the greens. And eggs, lots of eggs.

We’re not taking pre-orders this time, but mention you are a CSA or Buying Club member and get 10% off.

Come for the discount, come for the cool kid games, come for the great food, or just come to keep us company! Hope to see you there.

Directions to WIS Bazaar at the Tregaron Campus From Washington DC (downtown): From Connecticut Avenue, Macomb Street is located between the National Zoo and the Uptown Theatre. Take Connecticut north and turn left on Macomb Street two blocks past the Zoo. Entrance gates for the school are on your left marked by signs.

Metro: Cleveland Park Metro is about four blocks from the school – South on Connecticut, right on Macomb, the school driveway will be on your left.

Parking: Available on Macomb before you enter the school, along the driveway of the school, in a lot to your right as you go down the Hill leaving the school, and on Klingle after you exit the school.

Green Fence Farm Offering On Farm Pastured Poultry Seminars this Summer

Sign up now for Green Fence Farm’s pastured poultry seminars this summer. All day, on-farm experience for the hobby farmer or small farm wanting to get into the lucrative pasture raised egg and meat business. Covers everything from the economics of feed, housing, equipment, and sales to butchering to specialty fowl and rabbits. Seminars run from 10 AM – 4 PM several Saturdays and Sundays through the summer. Read more in the document I really hope I attached here.

And you urbanites, you don’t have to want to raise chickens to enjoy this day on the farm. You’ll get an up close (or as up close as you want – you don’t have to attend the butchering segment) look at how we raise our meat and eggs. And you get lunch!

Asparagus and other signs of Spring...

As a lucky few of our Buying Club members know, the first asparagus is in – a full two weeks before we saw any last year. On the right, a picture of the way asparagus grows – right out of the ground like some greens-fairy has come along and planted them there. We hope to have lots of asparagus to sell at the WIS market, April 18.

Another sign of Spring is the first Mennonite market. I was so happy to be back in the (now expanded) barn this last Tuesday, filled with the most amazing array of bedding plants. We bought enough started broccoli to feed Napoleon’s army (see our car) thoughI did not get any of the hanging baskets I came for (for me!) – by the time they got down to a price I liked -- Nick had filled the car with the aforementioned broccoli plants. He also got some rhubarb plants from 70 year old cuttings.

And though I don’t really like to take pictures at the auction – these may be the last unspoiled plain folk in the US -- I fell in love with the girls in these pictures, and I am sharing them only in the hope and expectation (in the words of former Majority Leader Mitchell) that none of you will see this incredible time warp place as an opportunity to introduce a shoe outlet mall or multi-media “life of the Mennonites” event (I never recovered from my one trip out to see the Pennsylvanian Dutch)

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Washington Post, Hamming it Up

The Washington Post had a great article of fresh ham yesterday – which makes sense since Sunday is Easter. Green Fence Farm will have fresh ham (and the rest of the pig) in about a month (in keeping with our motto, “always a day late and a dollar short”) in time to be well clear of any pork eating holiday. And though I have not tried the recipe listed here, we have brined and smoked fresh ham, and it is even better than the author says (and this author does go on and on). Read it here.