The look on their faces yesterday bordered on pitying.
Or as Thomas Hardy might say, the smiles on their kinds of faces were the deadest things, alive enough to have strength to die.
And they all said the same thing:
“I’m so sorry.”
“Nope, sorry.”
“No, I’ve been out since 10: a.m.”
“These are my last ones,” (handing a carton to the person in front of me).
“Those are just my show eggs.” (Shells with the yolk and whites blown out).
“No, we don’t have any eggs today.”
Yes, the Billion Egg Scare has reached critical mass. As of late morning yesterday, there were no eggs to be had at the Salem Saturday Market.
To be completely honest, I’ve been getting my eggs from A&E Eggtopia, a tiny scale outfit run by 11-year-old twins in South Salem. The eggs cost $3 a dozen and are charmingly un-uniform (I often receive one tiny, gorgeous green egg in my cartons). Indeed, haven’t bought an egg from the market for about two months.
So can I really complain that more and more people in Salem are waking up to the dangers of mass-produced eggs and discovering the orange-yolked marvels of the market? Perhaps not.
But we can’t really eggspect our local egg purveyors to jump up production to respond to the agony of this eggstasy. Their flocks are small and lovingly cared for, and that’s the point.
So how about a backyard chicken?
The public hearing for allowing backyard chickens in Salem is September 20.
Get one, get your eggs, and leave the market marvels to peeps like me.
It takes 7-9 months for a chick to grow up enough to start laying. These things take time. And if egg ranchers increase their flocks who’s to say the demand will still be around in March of 2011?
This is an important question. I don’t think we can expect them to bump up production. Even the backyard chicken movement has been having trouble keeping momentum here because the bureaucratic wranglings have stretched the discussions out YEARS. I would like both. The chance to have a chicken (husband has already put the kibosh on this in our household) and the chance to buy a similar egg product at market.
As the parent of A&E Eggtopia entrepreneurs, I can say that two wanna-be customers called this weekend asking to be regular buyers. Sadly, our ten happy, healthy hens can’t meet the growing demand. The kids were measuring the coop in anticipation of a second expansion and deciding what breed of chicks to get this spring.
I don’t really understand the resistance to hens in the city. I would rather listen to a hen loudly brag over her egg than my neighbors yippy dog. But I do worry that city dwellers won’t know what to do with a hen that turns out to be a rooster. We had to butcher two roosters this spring, but I wonder if other people would abandon roosters at Minto Brown like they do their pet rabbits.
I figure the market can solve that too. I’m sure there are farms that can take care of the rooster butchering for a fee, right? In my house, A&E means eggs…
I will be happy to butcher any number of whining, complaining urbanites for you…
(SORRY… I JUST COULDN’T resist it.)
But in fact if those urbanites wouldn’t stay up all night snorting cocaine, they wouldn’t be *nearly* so upset at a rooster crowing at 6AM, either
(I better quit while I’m behind…)
Merinas, you might do better as a S-J commenter. You’re welcome to comment here, but we usually refrain from threatening violence (even jokingly), and making wild accusations and judgments.