A New Order

Last Saturday, after visiting the AMAZING Edmonds Farmer's Market, I was determined to complete the day by adding some new chickens to our flock. I got busy cleaning the coop while Michael perused the ads on Craigslist. Much to my disappointment, he discovered that many of the ads we had seen previously were no longer active. With the coop clean and ready, I couldn't give up the plan. This had to be the day. So, I joined the search and found, much to my delight, a dairy farm in Enumclaw with chickens for sale. After a quick call to the farm, we jetted out the door and began our 90 minute journey to beautiful Enumclaw.

The farm was nestled against a hill off of a long gravel road. I opened the car door and immediately felt at ease. I love the feel of country life. There's no need to rush into anything. Everyone seems to move slowly making the time to take in the sights, sounds and smells.

The dairy farmer's son raises Bantams on the side for city folk who want one or two pretty chickens as pets. He happened to have some mixed breeds available. When we entered the coop, I was a little worried. Many of the chickens looked hen pecked. We learned that the farmer had just pulled out a couple of roosters the day before. Apparently there were too many hens and not enough roosters to go around.... After looking more closely, we spotted a healthy one. Before too long we found the four we wanted: Barney, Bam Bam, Fred, and Wilma.

With these four added to the flock, we now have two flocks resisting the need to become one. If we don't put the new four onto the roost at night, they sleep down below in a vulnerable position apart from the others. I know over time, they will work it out. But, I hate the tension that comes with a disrupted pecking order.

The sociology of chickens is fascinating. Every time we lose a chicken or introduce new ones, the pecking order changes. I can't seem to find any real pattern to what makes a chicken reach the top of the order. Gentle, quiet natured Greta with her slow reflexes and tiny brain continues to rule the roost. Barney is fighting for second place. I hope she wins.

-Trisa

A farmers market vendor named Desire

"STELLA" I cried out in my heart. The sky went dark and my soul hurt. The kind of hurt that shatters the air like lightning and sends grandmothers and puppies for the shelter of home and a warm fire. Poor puppies. I'm sorry. But there was nothing to lighten my burden and make happy my path upon finding out that the "Deborah's Pies" at the Edmonds Farmers Market doesn't carry her meat pies. OH THE HUMANITY.

I'm positive I made a spectacle of myself and completely horrified the poor girl selling JUST Deborah's fruit pies. I didn't yell Stella out loud, but I did cry out in shock. Can you believe it? Deborah's Pies in Edmonds FM doesn't sell the meat pies because of "permit" rules. For Pete's sake, why?

All that aside, Edmonds' has been the best farmers market we've been to so far. They have all sorts of produce, meats, cheeses, and many prepared foods. Shortly after my life was ruined by the pie maker, Trisa found a bacon vendor. I was restored by the wonderful, awesome power of bacon. There's a cafe in Edmonds who's chef cures, seasons, and cuts his own bacon. They have a booth at the market and even cook up some bacon for samples. HOLY COW! Those teeny tiny bits of bacon packed an inch of heaven into every bite. I took a pound home. This weekend, we'll cook it up alongside some farm fresh eggs from the backyard for breakfast. I think I've got to get some bubbly and OJ for Mimosas... Next to the bacon was a coffee vendor. Finally, we found somewhere to get some good coffee outside a coffee shop or grocery store. I can't remember the name of the company. I did a quick search on the internet and couldn't find it.

As an aside - based on what I just researched on the internet, the marketing for the Edmonds Farmers Market is ATROCIOUS. There is no list of vendors online - at least that is easily accessible. I couldn't even find a mention by the businesses that are there on their own websites saying "find us at the Edmonds Farmers Market" or anything like that. Why don't these places advertise and market themselves better? Don't they realize that there are TONS, literally TONS of people that they could reach through a few simple steps?

Anyway, the coffee we bought last weekend at the market is phenomenal. It is robust, and full bodied without the normal acidity that goes with such powerful beans. It's not a blend either, which surprised me. Usually to get such a well rounded cup of joe, the beans would be blended to mask weaknesses in certain beans and highlight the strengths in others. But this coffee had little if any weakness. I can't wait to get back to the market this weekend and buy some more coffee and find out their name. I'll be sure to let them know that they could sell a lot more coffee with just a tiny bit of advertising on the internet.

If anyone knows which coffee company it is, please don't hesitate to let me know in the comments. they are a small, independent coffee roaster in Woodinville, right off Woodinville-Duvall Road.

In the weeks ahead, I'll be learning to make cheese. One of the renters of our pea patch is bringing over her cheese making kit and she's going to teach Trisa and I how to make fabulous cheese. One more step toward self-sufficiency. I LOVE CHEESE. But not as much as pie and cobbler.

At the EFM there was also a vendor who makes his own raspberry vinegar. We had it sprinkled over a green salad with raspberries and boysenberries last night. Along with the salad, I grilled some tri-tip steaks and made mashed potatoes. The potatoes were harvested by Trisa this week. They were AWESOME. Anyway, the vinegar guy owns a small commercial kitchen in North Seattle that he rents out. I inquired about it some more and he'll rent it to just about anyone whenever there's no one already booked. Right now he's got gobs of time slots open. What Trisa and I would like to do is to get a group of peeps together and rent it out for a day or two. We'll take anyone who wants to bring in bulk items they want to process for storage and would like to trade at the end of the day. We envision there being a person or couple or family who would bring veggies, someone would bring milk for butter and cheese, someone who wants to make jams/jellies, someone who wants to do salsa, sauces, gravies, pies, breads, etc. I figure most people will produce way more than they need or want and we'll all be trading and going home with stockpiles of home grown preserved foods packed with wicked awesomeness.

If you are interested, please let me know in the comments what time frame works for you (i.e. end of august, weekday, etc.) and what you would like to bring. If we have doubles and triples of things, we can always have a second kitchen day or just have doubles and triples. Either way, it'll be fun and valuable. I'd prefer it be adults only, but if childcare is an issue, let me know. I'll bring the wine for an exclusive wine tasting with the wines being paired with the items people bring. We'll taste them all day long.

That's all for now.

Mike

To Market to Market

The Harris Farm and Garden Driveway Market was open for business for the first time this weekend. Who knew that we could make over $150.00 in one weekend selling eggs and vegetables! We had a steady stream of customers- who were taking advantage of the opportunity to pick their own salad greens, peas, carrots, onions, beets, and herbs right out of our garden. These veggies are even fresher than farmer's market veggies!

Much to the disappointment of the Lynnwood locals, we were out of eggs before 2:00 pm. We took orders for at least 5 dozen more. One gal even pre-paid. Our chickees better get busy! I finally agree with Michael- we do need a bigger flock. Our community demands a bigger supply.

We had promised a dozen eggs to a friend yesterday. Today when she came by to pick them up, we were short three eggs. I managed to add one freshly laid egg to the eight that were left. Michael was doing all that he could to save this dozen, but a persistent Italian couple refused to leave without eggs in hand. Michael gave them four eggs out of our friend's dozen. I thought they might start a riot if he didn't come back with more. While I was pulling carrots for another customer, the Italian lady tried to pull one out of my hand because it was bigger than the one Michael had pulled for her earlier. The determined pair left happy with a bag full of onions, carrots, lettuce, herbs, and garlic (we weren't actually selling the garlic, but the Italian gentleman pulled it out of the ground without asking).

At closing, we decided to head over to the Everett Farmer's Market. With the money earned this weekend and a little to spare.... we were able purchase some cherrries, apricots, fresh milk, cheese, butter, beef pot roast, steak, potatoes, green beans, and hard cider. Yum!

-Trisa

A special loaf of bread

Michael decided that tonight was the night to make a loaf of bread with the duck eggs that we bought from the Ballard Farmer's Market. . . . Unfortunately, bread requires more than eggs and flour. Minutes into Michael's baking adventure, he discovered that we were without milk. The creative fella that he is, he improvised with some dehydrated milk that just happened to be in our pantry. (I have no idea why we have a box of dehydrated milk. Who uses dehydrated milk? Weird.)

Then just after preparing the milk, Michael remembered that we were out of butter. At this point, I would have given up. (Actually, I probably would have given up when I realized we were out of milk.) Michael, however, was not ready to quit. He was sure that spreadable margarine would do the trick. This should make for an interesting loaf of bread! I'll let you know how it turns out. -Trisa

Blarg. The blog.

Today I got up at literally the ass-crack of dawn to try to catch some Chinooks in inner Elliott Bay. A buddy from work and I fish quite a bit and last week EB opened for 5 weeks of Fri-Sun only. We're allowed 1 hatchery or native Chinook per day.
Unfortunately our first trip out was a series of unfortunate events:

• The Seattle Parks dept didn't open the parking lot until well after 4am (their posted time)so one of our group had to park a distance away.
• On our way out the crab pot lines got tangled. In cold rainy weather it took what seemed like hours to untangle them
• A down rigger ball (10 lb lead weight coated in rubber) got thrown overboard (they cost $45)
• The kicker motor BROKE
• We got a bite, but the line snapped so there's a Chinook with a lure in his mouth trailing a flasher (lure, flasher, ball bearing swivels and whammadyne hook = $25). So we were down to one down rigger trolling on the main motor
• We got another bite, but lost the fish in the fight
• On the way back, we stopped to pull the pots and found that mine had been dragged to sea (crab pot, bait box, buoy and line = $45) - we caught 4 keeper crabs, but J threw one overboard because we said "it's a rocky, not a dungeness." He took that to mean it's not a keeper. We were merely stating the species. 5" or better male OR female rock crabs are keepers, so we tossed a keeper back into the drink.

This week went WAY better. No bites, not even a nibble, but starting your day with a fishing trip is AWESOME. Pure joy!
I must've looked pretty shady driving the back streets of north Seattle at 3:20am on my way to Shilshole because I was stopped by one of Seattle's finest. The officer approached the car with his hand on his gun and asked if I was indeed Michael Harris. I told him I in fact was . He asked for my ID, went back to his patrol car and came back a few minutes later. He said, "You are free to go, you are not the Michael Harris we are looking for." Fishy...
Meanwhile: Back to Urban Farming...
This weekend should be our first veggie stand weekend in our driveway. We're planning on doing it on Saturday, midmorningish. Everyone is welcome to come on buy (pun intended). We're very excited about the growth in the yard. I think if we get 5-10 interested veggie purchasers we'll have sold out of our harvest for the week. Yesterday I gave two garden tours to passers by and scheduled another one. It seems the spectacle of 8 foot tall sugar snap peas and literally GOBS of veggies being grown int he front yard equals an invitation to stop by and ask to see everything while I'm watering the lawn and drinking a beer. I'm more than happy to oblige. I love to show off the garden. I sent a family off last night with some free samples and their promise to stop by tomorrow and buy us out of all the lettuce.
Trisa and I are loving growing our own food and buying local. We've been on this adventure for 5 weeks and with the exception of purchasing food for road trip snacks and our contribution to a pot luck, we've managed to not buy any food except from farmers markets. To date our rank of markets is as follows:

1. Mercer Island - tops for actual food variety and amount
2. Ballard Sunday Market - they have a meat pie maker
3. Snohomish - overall a great market well worth the trip out, plus there's a bakery in Snohomish that sells the awesomest pies in all the land

Today or tomorrow I'm going to try my hand at baking with Duck eggs. Most likely I'll start with a loaf of bread.
Mike's Meat Pie Review (hopefully I can get my hands on all sorts of meat pies and review them - maybe once per month) - Mike's meat pie review really rolls off the tongue quite nicely so I'd like to make it a regular tidbit in the blog...
My first meat pie (and only so far) was from Deborah's Pies in the Ballard Sunday Market. We bought the Peasant's pie, which would normally not have been something I'd have chosen due to there being sun dried tomatoes in it. But the allure of feta compelled me to bite the bullet and try it out.
The pie was excellent. It looked good, smelled good and the taste was a sensation in my mouth. I paired it with a uber chilled Pinot Gris from Columbia Valley AVA. The pair was perfect. the sun dried tomatoes were not over powering and only added to the balance and complexity of the affair. My only complaint is that the directions on the box did not cook the pie to it's tip top potential. Several more minutes were needed to bring the center to a wonderful warmth and the bottom crust was slightly mushy, most likely caused by the frozen water melting and not heating fast enough. I'd recommend flipping the pie at least once when it is half cooked, bake it at about 15 more degrees and for about 10 minutes longer than the directions state. OR... use convection if your oven has it. Otherwise I give that meat pie 4.5 Pi out of 5 Pi.
That's all for now.
Word,
Mike