Eggs!

I think egg season is coming on. Last week, we even had enough to display a few for sale (usually there are only enough to hide a few for customer reservations). I don't know much about keeping chickens and egg production, but I do think spring is the season of the egg. This makes some sense with the timing of Easter, all the other critters hatching out of their shells, etc...

Eggs at Tierra are precious. They come from Wayne and Evie's chickens who live just around the corner from the field and farm stand. As you may observe in Evie's creatively constructed, handwritten sign in the image above, these chickens enjoy a wonderful life therefore allowing us to ethically, nutritionally and financially value these eggs.

The shells come in mostly brown with a few greens scattered in, yolks are dark yellow, sizes vary per bird. If spring seems a meager time in the vegetable and berry world, consider some eggs to fill in the holes.

Asparagus and Romanesco

An idyllic image here contains what we all hope to find when walking in to our local farm stand. First of the season (in fact, bonus really early because of perfect weather) asparagus in the foreground. Eggs from Wayne and Evie's chickens flaunting their myriad of colors in the background. These are the precious and hard to find items, much as we'd like to have enough for everyone.

When do you come to find these specimens of perfection? Usually, the target time for the harvest to come in out of the field is 11am, when we open. It seems from then on for another hour or two, some of the harder to harvest or less efficient items start to dribble in to the stand. Things like first of the season asparagus, or last of the season fennel. Whatever the customer has come for and cannot find upon arrival.

And I got Lee to stop in her tracks this week while she was packing the CSA boxes for delivery for a momentary photo opportunity. I had her pose with the precious asparagus first, but then she and I agreed it was something of a meager pile of vegetable to feature. Much more abundant to celebrate this week was the Romanesco broccoli/cauliflower. This seasonal veg served the winter CSA for the month of February on Friday and supplemented the purchases from most farm stand customers.

Cauliflower season is now thoroughly upon us. It seems to correspond with the mustard blooms out there in the fields that surround our green and misty county. Similar plants to the mustards, many of the broccoli, kales, brussels and cauliflowers from the fall planting get closer to setting flowers and seeds as the spring weather pressures them to do so. Hence, flowering cauliflowers seem to kick in right alongside the mustards. This is my annual observation and it seems to make sense with some variability, I'm sure.