I've been getting eggs from a local lady here in Topanga recently. I love how un-uniform they are. They come in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors. I really can't wait to have my own chickens. It's incredible the difference in fresh eggs from healthy, happy chickens, eating a proper, pastured diet. The yolks are bigger, thicker, darker, and the whole egg just tastes better. Not to mention how pretty it is to open up my box of eggs to find blue, green, pink, white, brown eggs, some tiny, some big. I love it. I've never liked eggs that much, but I've been eating them a lot more these days. They are an easy source of protein and once I get my own chickens, will put me that much closer to being self-sustaining.
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| Nothing like a goat cheese, asparagus, green garlic, and baby scallion omelet, made with freshly gathered eggs, and cup of double strength black tea on a Sunday afternoon. |
The weather has greatly improved in the last week and we've been spending a lot more time outside, our favorite place. The garden is growing and I've been shocked at the difference in growth rate and sturdiness between the heirloom arugula I originally planted (delicate and insanely slow growing and I lost a lot of it in the storm) and the regular ol' arugula (super fast growing, strong, huge sprouts). I finally had to confront thinning some of my rows and was rewarded with a very tasty sprout salad.
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| Yup, that's it...my first little garden bed, see all that green! |
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| Some of the heirloom arugula and carrots. |
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| Borage |
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| Cilantro! |
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| Dill! |
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| Beets |
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| I find it fascinating how even teensy tiny onion sprouts look like perfect little scallions, and they are so full of flavor! |
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| Sprout salad! Beets, arugula, onions, parsley, hazelnut oil and tiny sprinkle of truffle salt. Full of incredible flavor, good reward for the agony of pulling up all these tiny plants! |
The bean decided that his new favorite thing is playing in mud...a lot of clean up, but he loves it!
I must've gotten a splash of water on this little guy's head while watering the garden. It was funny, he just sat there and let the bean pet him, never tried to get away. Maybe he was just playing dead. Either way, the bean enjoyed it.
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| Our honey bee friend, hard at work pollinating our weeds. |
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| Baby plums! |
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| Best friends forever. |
Like I said, simple things make me happy.
Oh, I love that last photo. I grew up with cats, too, and still love them dearly.
ReplyDeleteAnd we are super lucky with our cats. They are siblings, adopted feral cats, but they are sooo friendly. This one is the most friendly and gets along sooo well with my little monkey. She tolerates his abuse and follows him around like a little puppy. We just need to keep them from being eaten now! We'd all be soooo sad!
ReplyDeletemmm eggs.... lovely pics... i love seeing happy outside children :D
ReplyDeleteHere are some ideas for raising chickens.
ReplyDeleteIf I'd had more time on my trip, I would have driven slowly down Topanga, yelling out the window until you came and gave me eggs. Maybe next time.
ReplyDeleteThat would have been awesome! You'd just have to come wandering down Happy Trail yelling and you would have found me! :) So pissed I STILL don't have a computer to upload all my pictures to to show off how insane my garden is right now. It's out of control. I'm pretty proud of myself since this is the first year I've had a real garden and I always thought I had a black thumb!
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