Summer begins, and Co-op love
My days are full of animals, just how I dreamed. While cuteness abounds, I cannot lie – it is very overwhelming at times to manage all these little beings and make sure they are safe and sound and happy. I guess if I didn’t take it seriously, I wouldn’t feel so stressed out, but there is so much to constantly keep on the front burner when you are responsible for caring for animals. So I’ve been trying to figure out how I can simplify some elements of my farming life.
This spring I went to a meeting for a local Farmer’s Co-operative in Amery Wisconsin, thought about joining, but like many farmers, I have a bit of a stubborn and independent streak, and I just want to do it all. I want to be ABLE to do it all! But then after much thought and consideration and grappling with reality, I decided to join in because A) I love co-ops and have been involved with them for most of my life and B) I actually CANNOT do it all! Hungry Turtle Farmer’s Co-op provides delivery services for many of the small scale farmers out this way, they have been primarily dealing with veggies and fruits. I am elated to be working with them to offer my pastured duck eggs to more restaurants, and they are now delivering my eggs to all the Twin Cities Co-ops and Fresh & Natural Foods locations I was delivering to. This means I have one more day on the farm with my animals, instead of driving all over in a panic, just wanting to get back home because I would be worried about my babies the whole time I was gone. Pheww! Thank you HTFC, I am so grateful to have been brought into the fold and am excited about what the future holds for the small scale and sustainable farmers in this region of Western Wisconsin!
This is my little sister Melanie holding one of the male Muscovy Ducks I raised as an experiment. They are pretty bizarre birds and were a bit too feisty (with each other) for my liking.