In Search of a Good Egg (as Well as a Chicken or Two)

"You're probably going to get stuff on your shoes," Elizabeth apologized.

"That's to be expected," I told her. I'd come prepared. My old clogs had seen many things just as nasty as chicken poop.

I'd come to buy my chicken and eggs for the month.

(I don't buy such things from the nearby grocery store chain. I tend to avoid such places like the plague.)

This was the first time I'd toured the farm, altho I'd been purchasing my eggs from Elizabeth and her husband Michael for some months, every time I found them selling at my local farmer's market.

I was greeted by hens everywhere when I arrived. These birds are free-rangers during the day. Bantams, Barred Rocks, Black Sex Links and I know not what other breeds were happily, vocally pecking in leaf piles, scratching in dirt, and running around loose all over the property. "They even come up on the porch," Elizabeth grinned at me. This was evidenced by little "clues" everywhere, as we walked up into the farm house. "We're planning to put up a fence to block them from access to the house."

She talked about the chickens' different personalities as she showed me the barn, the various chicken houses, and their new baby pullets. "That's Ophelia," she said as a hen garbed in elegant black feathers sped by. "She needed a regal-sounding name."  "Rambo" was the lone mascot rooster, with a gorgeous, streaming tail comprised of many colors. "He's beautiful," I murmured. Rambo had been fated for the chicken processor, but - "He's had a hard life, and we decided he needs to stay here. He only has one eye." He lives with his "harem" in his own pen and house. Elizabeth pointed out "Dovey," who seemed to be at the top of the pecking order. "We had arrangements for them to get married, but, well... it didn't exactly work. They hate each other." Apparently, Dovey will have nothing to do with Rambo. Still, they seem to be comfortably enough situated, living together.

As the sun started setting and the chickens were returning to their homes, I helped Elizabeth collect eggs. She showed me how to gently ease my hand around and under chickens that had chosen to roost in nesting boxes. "That one's not a 'biter'" she assured me, as I hesitated to reach into a box that was already occupied by a hen. I marveled that, amongst some two hundred hens they keep, she can tell one from another.

I could tell the birds are happy. All that contented clucking really is a peaceful, soothing sound to the ear. They're happy, and therefore healthy. There didn't seem to be much spatting. Only once in my hour there did I note a some-what emotional "conversation." Unlike commercial birds, locked up in a tiny, dark room with their own filth and barely enough room to walk in (not that commercial chickens can walk, they're so fattened with grain and antibiotics!), these birds get to roam around and eat bugs. They're not sickly. And they receive a lot of affection and TLC from their owners.

I already knew these eggs that I eat were good. Just one look at that beautiful, deep yellow yolk as they're cracked into a bowl is enough to convince me.

But it just makes them that much "gooder" to get to see how they were raised. Not many people have the privilege of meeting the chickens that give them their eggs, talking to the people who lovingly raise them, and getting to enjoy the same fresh air that the chickens providing one's food also enjoy.

The State and Religion

Ultimately, politics has everything to do with religion. I do not mean it has anything to do with what particular church or religious organization a politician or political group may be part of. It is Statism to which I refer. This is the religion which the majority of today's politicians actively promote, whether consciously or no, and the religion which most of America's citizens buy into.

Succinctly put, what Statism means is that the state is god. The State has supreme power and authority over your life. The State is there to provide for you, protect you and keep you safe. The State, ultimately, oversees your daily business and has a role in your everyday life. The economy, social issues, agriculture, business, the environment, medicine, education, even churches and charities – all these, according to Statism, are, to varying degrees, to be overseen and controlled by the State.

Statism is antithetical to the presuppostion that man is created in the image of God. Its creed doesn't allow space for the possibility that anyone besides itself might possess the right to give anyone liberty. It doesn't recognize the sanctity and preciousness of human life. It holds no regard for private property. Instead it claims the State holds power to seize either of these things if that be what it so desires.

So it comes down, then, to a question very religious in nature: are we going to worship the Creator as our God, or are we going to worship the State as our god?

An Anniversary Meal Prepared with Local Seasonal Food

I made dinner the other nite for my parents' 28th anniversary. (That's them in the picture.) We had a large green salad with goat cheese and a shoulder roast that I crock-potted with potatoes, rosemary and bay leaves. Very simple but savoury.

It wasn't until afterward that I realised this meal had been almost entirely composed of locally-sourced ingredients. Until this year, it has seemed difficult, if not outright impossible, to be anything near a Locavore. Now to my satisfaction, almost everything on the table had been effortlessly found, practically in my backyard.

The beets, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes for our salad came from local farmers. (The only reason the lettuce wasn't is that with the extreme heat, no one has lettuce left. Or if they do, they're hoarding it.) The goat cheese was made and gifted us by a farmer friend of ours. The roast (oh, the roast... the best, most moist, most flavorful I've ever tasted) was raised on a ranch not 15 miles from us. One hundred percent grass fed meat can be tricky to find (even pasture-raised cows are usually supplemented with some grain), but to my delight I recently found a rancher who is strictly letting his cows graze on grass (nothing else) and of course not adding any antibiotics or hormones. He has taken several years to breed his steers to get the flavor and tenderness of the meat just so. Meat as God intended it!

 The potatoes in the roast were from a farmer's market, and the sprigs of rosemary I used came from a friend's garden. The wine, I will confess,  not local - in fact it was an organic Malbec from Argentina (about as far from local as you can get. Should I happen to find a vineyard somewhere nearby that raises grapes organically, I would be glad to support it.)

Of course, the reasons to buy local are many (healthier, economical, there is much value in supporting local farmers rather than huge food corporations) but one thing that I consider important as well, is the taste. Fresher, more vibrant, unhindered by chemicals and additives, food comes alive. Everyone comments on the flavor, when your table is spread with local food. And that makes for a very lovely anniversary dinner.