buckwheat blossom farm - part 1

a few days ago, our friends and farmers amy and jeff (from buckwheat blossom farm) told us they needed some help. not wanting to pass up the opportunity for a small amount of money, plus a worthwhile day spent doing good stuff outdoors (and - oh yeah helping our friends), we drove on up to wiscasset to put in our day's work.

we got there at 7:30 and it was cold and raining, so we were put to the task of washing, sorting, and packaging eggs. TONS of eggs. they come out of the hen perfectly clean, but then random bedding and other detritus get stuck onto the shells. the egg inside is perfectly fine, but when buying eggs at a store or far-mar, customers want a consistently clean-looking egg.


also, with over 250 laying hens of different species, there are all sorts of colors of eggs (different shades of brown, white, and...green). we separated them by color, so when packing dozens, we could more easily make a pleasing color mix.

here's maggie washing eggs. did i mention she's vegan?


all in all, we hand-washed, sorted, and boxed 120 DOZEN eggs, one by one. you do the math. and that was all before noon.

far-mar

the day after the great fedco sale, our local saturday farmer's market started up. hot dog! this time of year, we're running out of storage onions and squash, our freezer is getting pretty derned low, but it still feels really weird to go out and just buy some produce from who knows where (definitely not maine!). so luckily, even though it's mostly seedlings and canned goods at this point, there are a few brave farmers out there who can offer us some good arugula, lettuce, leeks, and overwintered carrots. yum!

also, we can pet a llama.

fedco tree sale

ahh, fedco. purveyor of all things righteous. one beautiful spring day not too long ago, fedco seeds had their once-yearly tree sale - where they sell off a ton of trees, as well as greenhouse/garden/farm equipment, and any and all seedlings that they have leftover from their massive catalog sales. i've been itching to go since last year (when i couldn't go), and it was a treat. every kind of tree that you could possibly want, organic and locally grown. and thousands of different kinds of seeds, all from small growers. below is a quick snippet of how they did the trees - just lined up, roots shoved into some kinda mulch-y stuff. there must've been 30 different kinds of apples.