David has been evaluating our egg production and prices.  We purchase only organic feed for our chickens and provide them with organic greens as supplement.  In the process of evaluating our egg size, we found that our large eggs are BIG, bigger than commercial large eggs.  So we will have a mix of large and jumbo eggs, and a smattering of medium eggs.  We have increased our price per dozen to $6.00.

I can't believe how far we have come.  Here is a video with Mike Nowak in May 2011.  What a change!  We started with two goats, and a small pen on mulch.  Since then, we took over the empty lot and now have a soil base to plant feed crops for the goats. Our five nannies have a lot of space to browse.  We are working on three to four lots for grazing.  We are very grateful to our heavenly power, to our neighbors, to the Austin Community at large for continuing this adventure.

The Illinois Stewardship Alliance works with the State Legislature to help local farmers with useful legislation.  Please please call your legislators regarding two bills in both the House and Senate.  Here is a review of the bills and a URL link to call your state representatives.

Farm Fresh Unprocessed Milk (SB1662/HB2466) (Raw Milk): This one has a
lot of opposition and is going to be the most challenging bill. Please see
my updated fact sheet attached. Here is a link to an action item on our
Facebook page. *Please share this widely. * We need people calling their
legislators and getting cosponsors as soon as possible, and this post links
to tips on calling.
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1101894121878&ca=34525706-c370-4732-868f-d0d483ba68e3
 
The bill allows IDPH to write rules for off-farm distribution and sales.
At the very least, we want to legalize what people are already doing. It
should not be a criminal act for a farmer to meet a customer at some agreed
location off the farm to deliver milk to them. Right now, both the farmer
and the customer could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor, a criminal
charge. This is just wrong, and IDPH has its hands tied. It currently
cannot oversee off-farm delivery because the statute prohibits it, so they
currently could not write rules to allow it. It would be a huge help to
have lots of Chicago consumers calling their legislators.

Since GlennArt sells only raw milk, we support these two bills, one in the House and one in the Senate.

Here is a quote from Nicole Snyder's summary of our farm.

"I  walked down into a bright corner of Carolyn’s basement, her hands dug deep into a box of rich black worm compost. To my surprise, out comes a large golden tuber of turmeric. “In Chicago?” I thought."  

We received two knuckles of turmeric last year in a compost box for the goats from Sugar Beet.  From tiny buds, we grew about 2 pounds of the roots before retiring the plants in October.  We did little but plant them.  

We organize our worms and starter plants in the basement in the winter.  We created our own indoor worm box from three bee boxes or 'supers.'  So this year we put two pounds of tubers into the worm box to sprout them.  They will be planted into the ground in May.  Our basement compost box  is a great place to organize seedlings for Spring.  By the way the green torpedoes in the photo are decomposing cucumbers, which worms absolutely love.

Nicole Snyder had the most delightful project to finish her degree in Sustainable Agriculture.  She traveled through the Midwest to California visiting farms.  We had the delightful experience to receive her for a day as a WOOFer volunteer.  Nicole managed community gardens for a few years in Ohio.  So I picked her brain to plan our garden, add to our perennials in our permaculture plans and received a lovely summary page of Glennart Farm.  Because of Nicole I now have a schedule plan to start garden veggies, a review of forage plants  for the goats this year and a series of of great ideas to plant perennials like Salmon Berry plants and Hardy Kiwi vines.
Thank you Nicole, and God Speed as you take the trains and buses on your next adventure.