You may have noticed in the last few weeks that the egg compartment looks a little more spacious than usual. Our egg numbers have been slowly dwindling and we are now down to about half the usual yield. It is typical for numbers to bounce around a bit, with some dips and rises. It seems that this often happens after a hot spell, which we’ve certainly had a couple of this summer, but the full reason for a slow down is always hard to gauge. 
 

Add to this general decline the brittle shell phenomenon we’ve been experiencing—shells so thin that your finger can slip right through them when you pick them up from the nest boxes. These thin shelled eggs have been breaking in the boxes when the next hen goes in to lay, we lose quite a few this way every day. Add to this a clever raccoon who has figured out how to pull birds off of their perches at night and eat them through the bottom of the mesh coop floor. Losing birds certainly doesn’t help the production numbers.

We called around looking to buy eggs from another local farm to fill out our numbers and everyone was tight right now. We did get some pullet eggs from Rehoboth Homestead up in Peru. Pullets are young laying hens, and their eggs are smaller than full size. We’ll be packaging the pullet eggs up in 18s to make up for the difference. These hens are pasture raised and organically fed. We’re working on resolving the brittle shell problem as well as the raccoon. Hopefully the numbers will rebound before long.

Garlic Scapes

We have lots of great veggies in the share this week—bountiful broccoli and pungent garlic scapes are the newbies. As well as the first rush of strawberries.

A garlic scape is the stalk that the garlic plant sends up. If left on the plant these would turn into flowers. Taken off of the plant they are incredibly flavored additions to just about any recipe. Cook them like garlic, chop up and saute with oil or butter at the start of a recipe. Use them in pesto, raw in salad dressing, or add to scrambled eggs for some garlicky goodness.

In the Farm Shares

In the veggie share: strawberries, broccoli, garlic scapes, basil, rhubarb, bunching onions, lettuce mix, mesclun mix, chard, kale, turnips, napa cabbage, dry beans, oat and wheat berries, cornmeal, whole wheat flour.

In the meat share: All cuts of beef, pork and broiler chickens in the freezer. Lard available by request. Fresh broiler chickens next week.

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• Full and By Farm: Fresh Greens Still Coming In (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)