Free The Wisdom of the Radish by Lynda Browning Page B

the final punctuation on a long-standing should-we-or-shouldn’t-we
debate. From the very first time we visited the farmers’ markets as customers and prospective vendors—when the Windsor market manager casually mentioned a local shortage of farm-fresh eggs—my mind had been made up. We should raise chickens—thirty of them. Rhode Island Reds, White Leghorns, and Ameraucanas, starting with day-old chicks.
    Emmett’s main resistance to my idea had to do with our status as rootless—if not outright itinerant—farmers. What would we do with a flock of thirty chickens once we found our own land to farm? We couldn’t just administer a sedative and toss them in a suitcase when moving day came. In contrast to our stoic, seasonal vegetables, these moving, breathing creatures could live upwards of ten years. And our ability to keep a future flock with us would depend on whether we ultimately settled nearby or somewhere across the country. It wasn’t just the birds themselves that would require a substantial investment of time and money either. There were also the coop, yard, and fence, none of which would be easily transferable. Why put in all the work now, Emmett wondered, if we’re just going to have to do it all over again a few years down the road?
    It was this risk of loss that made Emmett hesitant to invest his time, money, and emotions in my poultry idea. He had a point, but when push comes to shove, I’m just not particularly risk averse. I prefer to plow ahead and deal with the consequences later—a personality trait that becomes particularly prominent when cute baby animals are involved.
    After the market manager planted the idea in my head, I quickly became a pro-chicken pest, badgering Emmett with a variety of arguments to convince him that chickens would be integral and irreplaceable members of our farm. My lines of attack were manifold.

    First, there was market demand. In Healdsburg, farm-fresh eggs sold for six dollars a dozen—and even at that rather appalling (to customers) price, there were never enough. The primary egg vendor would often sell out in the first hour or two. Only a few other farmers offered a small number of eggs from backyard flocks. Some, lacking the proper egg-vending permit, even sold them under the table. Eggs were so popular that they functioned as an effective marketing strategy, drawing customers to the produce stand. While customers were admiring the multicolored eggs and chatting up the farmer about her chickens, heck, they might as well pick up some tomatoes and onions for an all-local omelet. The rainbow assortments of eggs offered by local farmers were especially popular, and they were not something a person could find at the grocery store. Hence my choice of chicken breeds: White Leghorns for white eggs, Rhode Island Reds for brown, and hatchery Ameraucanas (a.k.a. Easter Eggers) to lay the much-coveted blue and green eggs. And if we bought day-old chicks—as opposed to laying hens or started pullets—we’d only be out about two dollars per bird, rather than the twenty dollars per bird that quality laying-age hens cost. Never mind that baby chicks are a hell of a lot cuter than big chickens, and are also more likely to bond with their owners.
    So marketing was my first line of argument. Then there was the concept of a closed-loop agricultural system: a farm that requires no additional inputs (specifically in the form of fertilizers) in order to maintain productivity from year to year. This sustainable ideal is a particularly difficult thing to achieve because every farm, with every harvest, exports nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium. Drawn from the soil, contained in beet bulbs, chard leaves, broccoli heads, and green beans, these essential elements are
destined for customers’ bellies. And what doesn’t go into bone, muscle, and nervous system function ends up in the john, not back on the