The Evolution of the Blue Egg Farm


Two of our winning charlolais bulls

The Best Beef There Ever Was


Back in the 1960's we had Totally grass fed and pampered beef cattle, and it was the best beef around. As it happened our farm produced some of the biggest and best quality Charalolis breeding cattle in the nation at that time. Standing 5 feet at the shoulder they were very impressive indeed.
Our cattle won almost every show and class they were entered into. We have mountains of trophies to show for all our families hard work.

 

The Blue Egg Farm is born


Naked eggs next to my artwork eggs.

Then came the 90's and our herd of cattle was dispersed so that we could focus on raising our own small family. A few years later with small children ready and willing to learn about animals I traded some of my artwork for a few egg laying hens. This was the perfect livestock to start my children on to learn about farm animals and to take to 4H.
One of these dear little hens laid beautiful Blue Eggs which named our farm.

We started with just three, three little hens, which soon turned to 12, just 12 little hens. These hens provided us with all the eggs we could ever want plus at that time most of my income came from being an artist there were just enough eggs for me to decorate and sell as artwork.

Lots of new Blue Egg Farm Friends
It was at this time a combinations of powerful new local food movements came to the Cleveland Ohio area namely SlowFood and the concept of CSA or
Community Supported Agriculture.
Hungry folks from all walks of life seemed to be scouring the landscape trying to find small farmers who were still raising their own fruits, veggies and meats. And eventually they also found me.
It was a little scary at first since I didn't know what was going on or what all the fuss about food could be about. Why was it the things I was raising so special? Didn't everyone do it this way? I was totally puzzled until one day when a few good people that I now consider dear friends came by to enlighten me. I was told about what factory farming was doing to our earth, and how processed foods are ruining the health of America, how fresh food is disappearing from the dinner table and how only a handful of large corporations are taking over the way the American people are being fed and animals raised, and how the diversity of species and breeds of vegetables, fruits and livestock was dwindling down and in some cases going extinct just as the small farmers sell off their land to the land developers and housing communities which spring up in their place.
And how we should all be supporting the small farmer who raises food as organically as possible, in as humane of settings as possible with plenty of fresh air, sunshine and exercise, without the use of antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides or overcrowded, and to choose locally grown foods over shipped in foods whenever possible.
While the ideas about the food we put into our bodies did not surprise me, the numbers of people that wanted to support My farm and share in MY food did.
They came and observed how we do things and how we take care of our land and animals.
We were encouraged by many good people and restaurants to continue raising food this way and appreciated our hard work.


Eggs Eggs Eggs

During this time my eggs became rather popular, folks from all around were enjoying my eggs, not for the artwork, nooooo , but to actually eat ,cook with and write stories about.
Here it seems that our eggs from our totally free ranging hens were and still are far superior to any egg you can buy from the grocery store and the differences start right at the shell. The shells are stronger, the whites of the egg thicker and the yolks of the egg thicker, richer, with a deeper color and containing more natural nutrients than store bought eggs. Again due to the fact that our hens live a stress free life, get to range freely over the whole farm eating the grasses and insects which provide nutrients only nature could provide.
More request for eggs meant more buying of breeding stock, hatching, raising of chicks to hens for me and over the years, my tiny flock of 12 grew to over 300.
In short time we had eggs going everywhere, into homes, schools and restaurants.

 

Really turning on the Farm
As our little farm evolved and the children grew I received more and more requests from our Blue Egg Farm Food Friends to add more farm food items.
Soon we were raising meat chicken ,ducks, geese, turkeys and hogs.


Some of the livestock was for our own person use, some raised by my children for their 4H projects and the rest for our Farm Friends.
Our garden was expanded so that our children could raise their own little patch of goodies and I could grow tomatoes to can and make sauce.
A few Farm Friends and Restaurant Buddies also enjoyed the bounty of our garden and still do.

I have been working hard ever since, raising veggies, meat and beekeeping for honey not only for our own family but for our many, many new farm friends and a few local Restaurant Buddies.
The experience has been very rewarding not with money but with lots of happy people and the new friends we have made over the years and the encouragement they have given me to continue raising wholesome food.

A Year of Great Change: Becoming a Shepherd

In 2007 and our children older and stronger we wanted to bring a full herd of breeding animals back to the farm to compliment our farm food raising plus my daughter wanted a larger animal to take as a 4H project to the Jr. fair.
Beef cattle? Funny thing, after not having full sized breeding beef cattle for so long the thought of having a full herd of breeder beef cattle seems very imposing, and was off the table. We decided it would be goats or sheep. Checking the pros and cons between the two we decided on Sheep. So what breed of sheep to get, hmmmm, we knew we wanted a meat sheep, something manageable, something that was not high maintenance, something that could put on meat on just grass alone and we found it. The dorper sheep is a medium sized sheep that can shed its wool, so is considered a purely meat breed, gets fat on grass, doesn't require docking , shearing or massive quantifies of parasite medicine.
We found our breed and have fallen in love with them. They have adapted very well to our farmlife and are prospering.So now to compliment everything else going on around our farm, we raise sheep.
It is our intention to raise our purebred and fullblood Dorper Sheep for other breeders, and to provide humanely raised, tender mild lamb that has been grassfed and pasture raised
for farm friends and restaurants.


Season of Sadness but Still Going
In 2008 our large flock of blue egg layers was significantly reduce through a series of unfortunate, catastrophic events.
Yes, things aren't always rainbows and butterflies and bad things DO happen on farms.
We were never able to recover from it financially. And now with a bad economy, all costs have sky rocketed so much that replacing them at this time is unattainable, plus with so many of our dear friends suffering even worse hardships than ours it would be total wrong to ask for help. Raising the prices for eggs in these times wouldn't help. It wouldn't matter how much we sold eggs for we would never be able to afford new hens, a new barn and now the new high costs of organic feed, so sadly we are unable to sustain a large enough egglayer flock to serve the public, but god willing we will slowly build our flock up and try to start providing eggs again.

Sad times, sad times, but we must not dwell in the past, nothing stays the same, we must evolve for the future or parish.

We will continue to grow wholesome foods for all who would call us their Blue Egg Farm Friend. What we grow will not be in massive quantities
nor will it be the same year to year, but that is what makes it interesting.

Ohhh yes, almost forgot, we still have a couple surviving blue egg laying hens, they range freely and lay just enough eggs for us to keep calling our farm the Blue Egg Farm. That is who we are and will be for a long time to come.

Thank you to these good people
and publications
who have come to our farm.
Publications mentioned in -

(Currents- www.currentsnews.com -
volume20, issue 4 November 18th, 2004-
page 10 by Linda Griffith)

(Happenings-www.westlifenews.com
-A west Life publication- november 24, 2004-
page 12B)

(Feast-cleveland magazine
-summer 2005-page 36-by Laura Taxel)

( NorthRidgeville Press-
november14th, 2007 by Beth Mlady )

(Northern Ohio Live magazine-
November 2006- page 6 by Ivan J. Sheehan)

(The Chronicle Telegram -
July 30th, 2007-by Stephen Szucs)

(http://blog.cleveland.com
/pdextra/2008/05/where_to_find_a_csa.html)

(book-farms and food of Ohio
- Marilou Suszko-2007)

( and more!)  

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