Grass-Fed Hens Lay Bigger Eggs

Hens with the free run of a grass pasture not only lay more nutritious eggs, better-tasting eggs, they lay bigger eggs.

In spite of decades of selective breeding to ensure that most eggs fall into the Large size range, my hens insist on laying mostly Extra Large eggs. This is something of a nuisance, since customers prefer Large, but them’s the breaks.

The cause is presumably better nutrition. Like us, chickens should eat fresh greens in addition to processed stuff. Given half a chance, they do, and it improves the flavor, nutritional content, and size of the eggs.

Few people seem to know this, which is why people insist on building mud-yard free-range operations that have zero potential for producing a product that’s superior to what’s in the supermarket. The secret ingredient is not outdoor access, but grass.

Harvest Season vs. Seasonal Egg Decline

It’s harvest season on the farmers’ markets are packed. Hooray! Hey, where did all the eggs go?

Last week, for the first time this year, I ran out of eggs before the farmer’s market closed.

One of the sad things about being in the free-range egg business is that the seasonal peak in egg production (April and May) is horrendously mismatched with the seasonal peak in farmer’s market customers (August and September).

This is a hard problem without a very good solution. (Telling people that they should buy a whole fryer instead of eggs, because a chicken is nothing but an experienced egg, doesn’t work!) It’s made even more difficult because demand slackens after September, and it’s hard to engineer a two-month egg peak in the wrong season.

So it works out the same as always: get to the market early for the best selection. You snooze, you lose. That’s true of everything, not just my eggs.

Last Chance for Pastured Pork!

You, too, can have mouth-watering pastured pork if you get your order in by August 14.

Our six little piggies have become six big piggies and they’re going to make the big transition from “pigs” to “pork” next week. I don’t know if you’ve ever had pastured pork or not. It’s wonderful — our favorite meat. Lean bacon, mouth-watering pork chops … I’m not kidding, it’s impossible to overstate the quality of range-reared pork.

Our pigs are fed high-grade feed as well as pasture, featuring a daily feeding of cracked or otherwise unsaleable free-range eggs. They are happy outdoor pigs — a little too happy, since they keep escaping and making cheerful ambles around the neighborhood. They’re at the right weight now and have been in sparkling good health since day one.

Our pigs are slaughtered on the pasture by the area’s best butcher, “The Farmer’s Helper” of Harrisburg, Oregon. They never know what hits them: one moment they’re here, the next, they’re gone. On-field butchering means that they aren’t distressed by a truck ride before slaughter.

We sell pork by the half-pig, cut and cured to your specifications by The Farmer’s Helper. If you aren’t certain about that step, don’t worry — they’ll walk you through it.

But you have to place your order with us by August 14.

For more information, contact Karen at karen@plamondon.com or call her at 541-740-0612.

Free Ball-Point Pens: A Lesson in Bad Advertising

A while ago, Staples had a promotion that entitled me to a box of fifty ball-point pens. So I took them up on it and soon I had these pens all over my house. The only problem is, they don’t write. Okay, sometimes they write, but not often, and not for long. They don’t like some kinds of paper and they tend to just balk for no reason.

Now, I’m not stupid, and that means that I’m going to avoid Staples store brands for the rest of my life. From now on, every time I try to use a pen that doesn’t work, I will think of Staples. Even if the pen is someone else’s! In spite of many positive experiences over the years, they’ve convinced me that their company is run by the kind of morons who are happy to put their name on junk.

So I ordered a box of Bic Round Stic pens from Amazon.com, which is where I’m doing all my shopping these days because of Amazon Prime, which give me “free” second-day shipping if I pay $79 a year. I already bought enough stuff on Amazon that I’d save money on the deal, but it’s pretty wild that now I can buy a lens cap of a box of pens and have free shipping. I live in the country, and a trip into town is time-consuming. Hooray for mail-order!

But back to my story. So my Bic pens came in, and on the side of the box was the following statement: “Quality Promise: Bic Does Not Make Store Brands.”

What does this mean? I think it means that Staples is not the only group of idiots in charge of advertising and promotion, and that many, many companies are dissipating their customers’ goodwill by handing out inferior pens with their name on it. Why not put your competitor’s names on crummy pens, you dimwits! Or maybe pay the extra two cents and get a pen that writes.

Bic, on the other hand, makes a good-though-unpretentious pen that lives up to its motto of, “Writes first time, every time.” If I pick up a Bic pen that’s been lying around with its cap off for a few years, it usually writes perfectly. And on their boxes, they go to the trouble of distancing themselves from their so-called competition. If you buy a pen that doesn’t say “Bic” on it, they imply, you’re asking for trouble. Fair enough.

Sometimes people ask me about competition, and my answer is always, “What competition?” I think you can see why. Hardly anyone has Bic’s good sense. They’re mostly like Staples.

The Glove Trick for Clean Water

My livestock water is pumped out of a brook that have the usual kinds of crud in it — bits of plant matter, bugs, silt, etc. These tend to clog livestock waterers and also the foot valve at the bottom of the inlet pipe. Sure, the foot valve is screened, sort of, but the screen is too coarse, and sometimes I have to pull the twigs and crud out of it.

So I got tired of this and looked for a finer screen. My eyes fell on an old orange string glove. Bingo! I pulled it over the foot valve and held it on with a zip tie. The water is running cleaner and the foot valve probably won’t clog for a year.

This is probably the weirdest improvised repair I’ll do all year.

Update, August 15, 2009: The glove clogged with silt and I removed it. It didn’t look a lot different when clogged, so I’m going to replace it with something that looks a lot different when clogged — window screening, perhaps. It sure worked while it lasted, though!