Farm notes:
Happy new year friends! Welp, we kicked off 2021 with some pretty dan miserable cold + rainy weather, so I spent very little time outside, mostly just to check on our chickens (aka “the ladies” aka “the dollys”). We have 34 laying hens (a red sexlink hybrid called novogen brown) and I’ve been impressed (and honestly surprised) by how consistently they are laying through the winter (we’re currently getting about 30 eggs a day).
I’m doing my best to rotate the ladies around the garden area so they can eat as much fresh grass as possible, but it’s tougher to have a constant supply of lush pasture since grass barely grows this time of year. To compensate for the limited grass, every day I throw in excess greens from our market garden (like extra lettuces, radishes, collard greens etc), which means our eggs will still have rich, orange-hued yolks, even in the dead of winter. If you’re curious to learn more about what determines the color of eg yolks (hint: it’s all about their diet!) here’s a helpful article that digs into all the nitty gritty.
Kitchen notes:
Dinner hit the spot on this cold, rainy night – polish sausages with apples, bacon and sauerkraut – a recipe from Andrea Bemis’ wonderful new cookbook, Local Dirt. I’ll always share my own recipes in these kitchen notes, but because this dish is from Andrea’s beautiful new book (which took her 2+ years to write and publish), I’m going to encourage you to snag yourself a copy so you can enjoy all her seasonal, simple, and nourishing recipes in your own kitchen! But if you really can’t wait, here’s a different recipe I found from Food & Wine that has a similar vibe. Sauerkraut is really the star of this dish, and I definitely recommend using homemade kraut if you can. Homemade kraut may seem intimidating if you haven’t made it before, but I promise you can do it! Here’s a great guide on all things homemade sauerkraut if you want to give it a try.
Today’s stats:
Low temp: 40F
High temp: 48F
Sunrise: 7:28am
Sunset: 5:14pm
Moon Phase: Waning Gibbous
Additional Notes: Foggy and rainy all day.