This past weekend I got a chance to visit my friend Hector Tejada's farm in New Paltz, New York. Hector has 11 acres on which he grows vegetables like squash, kale, radish, turnips, kohlrabi, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, sunflower greens, and more and more and more. He sells his crop at the Ft. Greene Greenmarket every Saturday, if you'd like to see/eat first hand. I'm not sure I captured everything but I'm going to try and paint as bright and vivid of a picture as I can. It was so wonderful there. And here's why:
These hens (and one brute of a rooster) were roaming around the farm in such a hilariously chicken way. They pecked around constantly and everywhere with a To-Do List on their minds. But when I watched them a bit longer, I noticed that they just pecked around in hurried circles, committed to getting in the way of our feet and our steps and our legs...Chickens with their heads cut on go nowhere at all.
Note the blackish chicken that is sitting in a hole in the ground. Chickens create these little potholes to sit in, to keep cool in hot weather. If you want to hear the heck out of the rooster go
here.
These white chickens are Araucana hens: the hens that lay small blue eggs. You can tell an Araucana apart from other hens because of the tufts on either side of their faces.
Look at those eggs! It was a bit weird to pick them up and feel that they were still warm. Hector says the hens lay about 70 eggs a week.
These sunflower greens were growing in a greenhouse. The top picture is a crop of greens that is just about to bud. The picture on the bottom is a crop that is one week older than the first. (Growing fast!) These pictures were taken on a Monday and the group on the bottom will be ready to sell by Saturday's market.
These squash were curing in a different greenhouse. Squash must be cured for a week or longer in order to harden the skin and to develop a sweet taste.
So much more to show you but I will compile it for my next post.
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