Locations

You can find Grama Sue's Rainbow Eggs at:

The Hy Vee on Agency in Burlington, IA


Markets:

Wednesday - Friday 9am to 1pm at the farm 1/2 mi east of the Nauvoo-Colusa Jr. High then 3/4 mile North on 1050.

Wednesday 3-7 pm at the Painted Corners on HWY 96 in Lomax, IL

Saturday:

7 - 11 am Keokuk Farmer's Market at the mall





Thursday, March 31, 2011

Grandkids!

We just love it when our grandkids visit. Last week, we had lots of fun with our 22 month old grandson from New Jersey. He and his folks were here for a few days. Wally was excited to sit on Grampa Tom's big tractor, but he didn't like it much when Daddy tried to take him for a ride. Too loud!


We gathered eggs.


And watched the sheep.


Got our hands all dirty!


Was stalked by a curious cat.


And just generally wore everyone out trying to keep up with Wally!


When it was time to go home, Wally didn't want to go. Can we get custody due to the parental neglect this child is under having to live a thousand miles away from the farm? His mother (who is from a rival state) says the state they live in is a horrible place to live ;) hmmm....

Friday, March 18, 2011

Chicken Eggs

Got the coolest picture today. I was outside trying to get a good picture of our egg carton. We keep our hay in a large wooden trailer in the garage. This little lady had climbed in and was doing her job. I put the egg carton in beside her. She was concentrating so hard, she didn't even budge, so viola! This is one of our Easter Egg chickens. apparently someone else had made a deposit earlier. You can see a blue egg poking out from under her wing.

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God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Thursday, March 17, 2011

More Gardens, Goose Eggs and Profits!

Wooo Hoo! We've got 3 1/4 gardens planted! Yesterday we got lettuce, chard, radishes and kohlrabi planted. Today, Grampa decided to follow the St. Patrick's day rule and plant a bed of potatoes.


In Nehemiah (a book in the Bible) the Israelites rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem with a hammer in one hand and a sword in the other. We had our own battle as we planted our delicious little transplants in the raised beds. Couldn't turn our backs without a silly chicken jumping in and plucking them up. This hungry little invader has been foiled by cattle panels and plastic!!!!!!!!!!


The lambs are getting really big. hopefully they will all be ready for the Easter market. If anyone is interested in buying directly from us, we will have whole or 1/2 lambs available for $4.25/lb hanging weight. We will take them to the Carthage locker plant for free or to any other plant for $1.00/ mile one way.



Our geese are really laying! This one was laid on top of the nest. There were two others underneath the hay today. If you are interested in goose eggs, we sell fresh eggs for 75 cents each or $4.00/6-pack. Blown eggs ready for crafts are $1.00 each.


In other news:

We finally got our taxes done! Betty managed to find enough deductions that we didn't show a profit, but it was really close. I was rather disappointed, but on the other hand, I didn't claim all the deductions I could take on my off farm jobs just to make sure we wouldn't get stuck with a big tax bill, so now I'm going to get a nice refund and a much needed new computer! My ancient desktop has been needing to be replaced for quite a while now. I'm planning to get a mini. These computers have about the lowest memory space you can buy now and yet they have about 100 times the memory that my desktop has.

Grama Sue's Rainbow Eggs are now available at the Harrison Street Hy Vee in Quincy! We will be there Saturday to do a promotion. Stop by if you are in town.

This week we will probably sell around 150 dozen eggs! Thanks so much to all you wonderful people who have made that happen. Did a little figuring a few minutes ago. Looks like we're up to about $4.50/hour for our labor. Of course, we are plowing all that back in to the farm to make it more efficient, but someday we hope to be able to afford to pay someone at least minimum wage to help around here. 

I read somewhere that the difference between the entrepreneur mindset and a job mindset is that the person looking for a job looks at the immediate paycheck and the entrepreneur looks at the longterm profit. There's a lot of sacrifice in building a farm from scratch, but we believe the rewards are worth it. The first year, Grampa worked and worked and made about $1/hour. He kept saying, "I may not be making much money, but it's MY money." It will keep on growing!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue  

Monday, March 14, 2011

My Cat House


So my cats have taken over the little "greenhouse" I put over my lemon balm patch. Hope they don't kill the lemon balm! We use so much of this herb that we don't have enough to sell at  the markets!






God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Gardens, Goose Eggs and Gabbing



Well, we are going to try it again! This time Grampa Tom wired down the hoops and only did two. We'll see what happens. Our son came by as I was putting rocks on the ends and gave Grampa a hard time about allowing me to use rocks. (If you don't understand all this, check out my 11/26/10 post.)


I have been eying these mini greenhouses for a few years now. The other day as I was drooling over them again, it occurred to me that it could actually serve a variety of purposes throughout the year. In the spring it can house seedlings. In the summer it can sun dry noodles. It has a shade cover that would enable it to be used to dry herbs. And in the winter, I can take it to craft shows to use for shelving. I'm planning to get at least one more!


My window garden is quite the jungle! I found a deal on a couple of grow lights soon after I planted it so my worries about things getting all spindly aren't nearly as strong. I'm going to transfer the early spring plants to the little green house tomorrow so I have room to start some more plants.


Our geese are laying, well actually I think it is only one, but hopefully the others will start laying soon. Let me know if you want either fresh or blown goose eggs. Blown eggs are $1 each. Fresh eggs are $4.00/ 6-pack.
I put a couple of chicken eggs in with them so you could get an idea of the size.


Yesterday, we spent the day at the Broadway Hy Vee in Quincy. I just love all the wonderful people we get to talk to. One woman lives in Mt. Sterling. She told us she usually shops in Quincy, but had been making special trips to the Macomb Hy Vee just to buy our eggs. She was so glad to discover that we were in Quincy too. I went and talked to the dairy manager at the other Hy Vee store while we were there. Hopefully we'll get in there in the next few weeks. If you are in there, be sure to ask about Grama Sue's Rainbow Eggs!

God Bless You All!


~Grama Sue