Scrambled or Sunny Side

"There will be no thieving until you sign the petition" - this from Lorenz as I stood in front of a beautifully displayed pile of produce in the red barn. While he's no mind reader, Lorenz got it right on: I was intent on thieving (it's not that he's that extraordinarily perceptive, you know, it's that I indulge in a bit of thieving quite frequently. What? Sometimes I thieve produce, and cook him dinner. It's a big step up from my usual pattern, which is to conveniently show up at dinnertime when the produce is already turned to a meal!)

So... since there was to be no thieving until signing, and since I had volunteered to make dinner and didn't actually have any vegetables, there was a petition to sign. I don't know about you, but I am no fan of petitions - often, people sign them to get whoever wants them to sign out of their faces. I've rarely seen a petition-pusher who could discuss the issues as well as I would have liked, and I tend to treat people with petitions much the same as I respond to people trying to give me magazines on streetcorners - a quick no thanks and scurry on. And now, Lorenz wanted a petition signed! Sheesh.

This particular petition is pretty straight-forward. It originated with Frey's hatchery (the source of the Greenfields chickens, by the way), and it asks, quite succinctly, that the Government of Ontario establishes a public enquiry into marketing boards to reconsider the rights of citizens who don't hold quota. If you were to bother to read the background materials, you probably wouldn't have much of a problem with this. I read a fair bit on the egg and broiler issue last spring, when I got fascinated with the cute baby chicks and the rules surrounding them. I'm not going to re-hash the story, you can read it for yourself on the Frey's website. Go ahead, I'll wait.

The analogy used in the documents supplied is that letting the marketing boards make the regulations that become law on the commodities which are their mandate, then use those laws to charge and have prosecuted someone who is not part of their club is like letting Ontario Hydro make a law against solar and wind power. It's not that far off: we have a monopoly on chickens and eggs beyond a very low "hobby" or "family farm" scale, and the people defining the rules of that monopoly, including the scale definition of hobby and family farm, are those controlling the monopoly - which are, by definition, large producers. I've done the math before. So... I signed the petition, and not because I just wanted it out of the way so Lorenz wouldn't bug me about it. But really, petitions don't mean enough in the grand scheme of things, writing a letter would be much more effective. The petition fact sheet even encourages you to do so...

End of public service announcment. Beginning of new staff announcement:

Greenfields has a new retail manager, to replace Tarrah. His name is Mark, and, apparently, he can cook. I'm told he's going to start developing sunchoke recipes on the side. I don't exactly have history of loving sunchokes, though I gave them a fair shot last spring and was pretty favourably impressed - but I still don't know a lot of things to do with them. So this will be good! Mark worked his first Greenfields market, the one at home in the red barn, yesterday. Today will be the big day, since he's heading to Dufferin Grove, which is much much busier than the red barn.

The red barn market is remarkably low stress, because you don't have hundreds of people. Which is, in its own way, surprising: because it's the best market of them all! Think about it: you get first pick of the produce. It is displayed in the red barn, which is at a pretty low temperature, so there is no chance of it being exposed to too much warmth and not looking beautiful anymore. You never get the response of "sold out" when you ask for something, since the market is at home and the first one of the week - so everything is available in good quantities and fresh! And you get the chance to buy farm-fresh eggs. Which, in many cases, were still in or under a chicken eight hours earlier (they do get cleaned. You don't soak eggs, because that's bad for them, but you quickly wash them. By hand. It would be fun to dump them in the root washer, but I suspect if I came up with that idea, I'd also be eating the world's biggest, messiest omelet right after that!). Best of all, if you come to the Wednesday market, you get to come here.

But no thieving! Even if you sign the petition! You have to live here to do that!

Snowdays

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the reality that it is still winter. It's been months and months of snow, yet it's showing no signs of going away yet. Lorenz has been putting in his time on the tractor - one day this week, he had to clear the driveway several times. The kids have benefitted, since they have had a number of unexpected holidays when the school buses are cancelled. Alas, I have the ability to work from home (and can afford to wait until the roads have been cleared and then go into work), so my goofing off is a bit more limited. Still, though, it's been nice, being snowed in a couple of times and looking out the window at Lorenz on the tractor. As long as "in" is applied to me and "out" to Lorenz. Note that I have not yet clamored to be taught how to clear the driveway or yard.

Tarrah is already done her employment at Greenfields, and I failed to get a decent picture of her. She's still going to work the occasional market for Lorenz, but now, she's busy planning her own farm season at Everdale. I wish she were staying at Greenfields. Lorenz is busy interviewing potential replacements - when I last talked to him, he hadn't made a final decision on some apprentices or the harvest coordinator or retail manager jobs.

Tarrah did stick around long enough to get to use the new root washer. Lorenz's first report on it sounded a bit underwhelmed - but I watched it in action the other day, and it does, indeed wash roots. Unfortunately, it has a habit of loosening its own bolts and starting to rattle too, so something will have to be done about that (and I don't think locktight is an option, since the thing needs to be dissassemblable for service). I'll tell the story of how the root washer works in pictures...

Clearly, the root washer does the job it is designed for. However, it takes a lot longer than I had thought it would (not that I'd thought it through that much...) - the vegetables are still pre-soaked, and then they agitate in the washer for at least 15 minutes. Obviously, the longer you leave them in, the cleaner they get. Lorenz notes that the brush could be stiffer, and he's not thrilled that the chain that drives the belt is a bit too long and thus slips (resulting in a horrid clanking noise) - so on his to do list is to remove a link and then lengthen the remaining chain to be just right.

While Lorenz focuses on root washers and the coming growing season on these snowy days, the kids are having a good time - what with school buses cancelled and being in possession of Glen Eden ski passes (courtesy of their grandmother at Christmas). Malcolm came home with a shiner the other day. He'd prefer for me to tell you he's an aspiring tough, but reality is - he's only started snowboarding this year, and thus control is not all that it could be, and there was an incident between a metal bar and Malcolm's face... After that, he stuck to playing his new board game, Gobblet, for a while. Gaille gave it to him for his 11th birthday a few weeks back - and it's surprisingly sophisticated. While Lorenz and Adrian were at hockey a few nights back, Malcolm and I got increasingly competitive, and we continued the matches over breakfast the next morning. Malcolm has now managed to beat both me and his father. But not as often as I beat him! (Lorenz is too chicken to play me).