Yes, the first quarter-dozen of chicks have arrived on the micro-farm and – OMG – they are just so cute. The second batch of three is in the mail – no, really – as we speak and will be delivered about the time you are reading this. Assuming, that is, you’re reading this on Friday.

The first clutch of chicks, now just nine days old, is a type called Ameraucanas. The new peeps, arriving today, will be a breed originally from France: Salmon Faverolles, which are these very pretty, pinkish birds. There are literally hundreds of other breeds to select from. There are the Asturian Painted Hen, Sicilian Buttercup, Egyptian Fayoumi, Norwegian Jærhøne, and the White-Faced Black Spanish breeds. There are Ancona, Andalusian, Araucana, Barnevelder, Campine, Catalana, Kraienköppe, Lakenvelder, Leghorn, and Penedesenca among others. And all of those are just in the “egg producing” class. There are also meat birds, dual-purpose birds, bantam birds, fancy birds, and hybrids. 

What made us choose these two types of chickens? That is, out of all the hundreds of other equally-noble breeds of chickens out there, why did these two jump out at us as special?

In a word: Money.

OK, well, two words: Money and Availability.

Hmmm. Maybe, three: Money, Availability, and Dr. Seuss.

Or is that four?

First, availability. If you want some of the rarer breeds of chickens you have to go to specialized hatcheries that hatch those breeds or get your chicks through show-breeders or, as people fond of chickens are known, fanciers. The first source has the drawback of not being located anywhere near where you are, which forces you to go mail order – no, really – and takes away your ability to look your chick in the eye before you lay down your hard-earned cash. Plus, you risk opening the box and finding your new pet, now recently deceased. The second source requires you to enter the strange world of chicken exhibitions, homemade chicken-feather dream-catchers, and people sitting around county fairs tatting doilies out of scrap bailing twine while they wait for the judges to weigh in on the merits of their fowl.

Both of these have their obvious drawbacks.

Enter Bay Hay and Feed, possibly my favorite store on the planet. There is no mention of chickens in Bay Hay’s name. Nor sheep, goats, cows, and horses. Just hay and feed. You know, the things those other species eat. Bay Hay has figured out that, in order to sell their customers more feed, it helps if they actually have animals, and, in the case of chickens, Bay Hay goes out of their way to make sure you do. I’m pretty sure Bay Hay doesn’t make a dime on their baby chick sales. But everybody buying chicks is also walking out the door with coops, feeders, waterers – or fountains as they are called for some reason, heat lamps, bulbs, bedding material, and food. Lots and lots of food. Before the first chick set foot in the brooding box, we were already out about two-hundred-fifty bucks and we won’t see the first egg until sometime in the fall.

Along with the aforementioned avian accoutrements, Bay Hay also watches some three-thousand chicks fly out their door every year. Or they would if the birds were bigger and had more feathers.

But these guys at Bay Hay are some wily characters. In addition to moving chicken-feed and supplies in ton-lots, they realize that by bringing in a variety of chicken breeds they can induce people to get more chickens to build up a diverse flock; diversity being a “big deal” here on white-bread Bainbridge Island. Plus, since they don’t sell too many Leghorn chicks, which are the commercial staple of white-egg America, they can offer breeds that produce the oh-so-much-better-for-you brown eggs preying on customers logic that brown eggs must be better for you because: 1) they’re brown and 2) they cost more at the grocery store.

Bay Hay and Co sit back and watch the chickens sell faster than peanuts at a Mariners game along with pallets-full of everything else you need for your happy, healthy, and diverse brown-egg flock. Which brings us to…

…Dr. Seuss.

I admit, at one time, I knew all fifty words of Green Eggs and Ham in the correct order. I have read that book more than any other I can recall, except, maybe, the one with all the pictures when I was in eighth grade. It is thus with every other member of my generation and the generations that followed. Mention “Sam” in any context and “Sam I am”, “not in a box”, and “not with a fox” immediately jump into your consciousness like some Pavlovian response to single-syllable literature. Green eggs are the touchstone of three generations.

And Ameraucanas lay green eggs. Well, they shade from a washed out turquoise to a sea-foam greenish-brown, but that’s close enough for Dr. Seuss and, more importantly, close enough for the citizens of Bainbridge Island, Washington.

I tried. I really, really tried. I even promised. But I couldn’t. More importantly, I can’t. I tried not to make fun of my fellow islanders but I’m about to break that promise and all I can say is: It’s their own damn fault.

I always have a freaking heart attack when I walk into Town and Country Market (T&C) in Winslow and pick up a loaf of bread that costs five or six or seven dollars. Nah, when I first got here I thought it was the “island living premium” too, but the same bread costs the same amount throughout the Puget Sound area. From tiny villages to the heart of the high-tech life in downtown Seattle, Macrina Bakery cinnamon-swirl brioche costs six dollars a loaf. That’s like twice what the same stuff costs in the poverty stricken hinterland, AKA the continent of North America less the twenty mile-wide coastal strip along the Pacific Ocean. Brioche is an egg-bread, I knew it as challah growing up in New York City, that is basically yellow Wonder Bread and provides the same level of gustatorial satisfaction. Six bucks.

You have no doubt heard the very old joke: Q – What’s a buccaneer? A – Too much to pay for corn. At T&C Market it’s currently a buck-twenty-five.

The examples of high priced food are endless. Although, oddly enough, Florida orange juice costs about the same as, or even a bit less than, it does in Florida. But by-and-large locally made, grown, or raised food commands a price markup large enough to nightly make bankers stain their sheets in somnambulant delight.

I’ve mentioned before that a dozen locally-laid eggs sell for five to six dollars. Well it turns out that the upper end of that range is most easily reached when a few of the eggs in the dozen are green.

Touchstone. Remember?

In my typical over-the-top-logic I asked the question: What would make people pay even more than fifty-cents per egg? The answer I got from my co-farmer: make the full dozen green. But, I asked rubbing my hands together with pecuniary pleasure, what if we wanted to sell them for even more? Her answer: You’d have to make them exotic. You’d have to make them French.

Ca-ching.

It would be nice if the micro-farm could pay for itself. Doesn’t need to make a lot of money, but if it paid for itself and let us get a little extra for our own use, then that would be great. But, as you know, I am what is kindly called “work-averse” so it has to reap these financial windfalls with as little effort as possible on my part. Hence, creatures like bees which basically do all the work for you and allow you to sell Bainbridge Island Honey for way more than what you should, and chickens, which turn table scraps, weeds, bugs, and a bit of corn into eggs at profit margins which, in any other industry, would typically incite a congressional investigation.

Bainbridge Island is a place of image. It is also a place of environmental responsibility and free-range and organic and drum circles and kumba-freaking-ya. It is a place where those tangents frequently get tangled up in rather unpredictable ways. Bainbridge Island is the only place on the planet where I have seen Bob Marley, Greenpeace, “Think Global, Act Local”, “Save the Whales”, McCain/Palin 2008 and “Spill, Baby, Spill” bumper stickers all together on the back of a single Cadillac Escalade. Like I said: unpredictable.

To take advantage of this extreme level of self-delusion, we decided that the micro-farm will offer two initial barnyard products. For the over-worked, stressed-out parents who drive by our farm stand still feeling guilty about passing up a stop at McDonalds to subdue the back-seat brouhaha with a large order of fries and a sickly-sweet drink, we will offer “Green Eggs”. There will of course be a cartoony label with an appropriate Seussian typeface but also, taking a page from Eggland’s Best marketing strategy, each egg’s shell will be stamped with one of the fifty words from the Dr. Seuss classic. Save the shells, write a book, win a free dozen. Or something like that.

For the adult consumer, looking to brighten their ferry-worn, drear-fest that is the life of a Bainbridge Island commuter, we’ll give them a little savior fairewith – what else? – “Les Oeufs”. One dozen perfectly brown, perfectly French, plain, old, ordinary eggs. I’m thinking maybe a fleur-de-lis stamped on each.

Then it will be on to the honey, the micro-pumpkins, and the recently-snipped micro-salad mix. It will be, it will be… oh, how do the French say it?

Ah, oui! C’est la vie!