Seven Sons Meat Sale!

I just received an e-ad from Seven Sons. Cut-up free range chickens and whole turkeys are 50% off. Visit the farm store to get this great deal.

Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon!

I know I already mentioned that we purchased a half a pig from Seven Sons Meat Company, but as of yet we haven't tried all our cuts of meat. We gave half our bacon to our neighbor, since we don't eat bacon much and they enjoy it from time to time.

But we got some out today to enjoy over potato soup, and ohhhhhhhhhh. I don't think we can ever go back to grocery store bacon. This, I agree, was one happy pig.

Meat, wonderful meat!

Have we taken the time to praise Seven Sons on this blog? I don't sleep enough to remember, so if this is a repeat, my apologies.
Seven Sons is located in Roanoke, they have chicken, pork, beef and more that I don't even know about. Grass-fed, hormone free.
We are the proud owners of half of a pig from Seven Sons. We visited the farm store and saw the pig that would become our dinner. The pigs were running free in the mud and they did look like they were living good pig lives. Our eldest says as she is scarfing down ham: "This was a happy pig!"
If you aren't interested in such a large investment, you can find roasts & chickens either at the farm store or at the Three Rivers Co-Op. The Co-op also has packs of hamburger patties. You get 1 lb or 3 patties for about $5. These are GOOD burgers. Highly recommended for local carnivores.

Eggs: The Continuing Saga

This evening I checked out the PBS 39 video Eggs: A Video Field Trip. This fascinating 15 minute video shows the egg's journey from hen to plate. It was filmed at an egg "factory" in North Manchester. If you would like to see where Kroger eggs come from, please watch this video. The video was underwritten by the egg company, so of course their intention was not to scare away customers, but it is hard to look at the mass-production and not be alarmed.

We thought that we had found a solution to the egg issue with Eggland's Best, but they aren't local, they are big business and we don't exactly trust them. So we wandered over to the Co-op, but their local farm hasn't been selling them eggs. So we bought the brand on the shelf, who wouldn't trust the Co-op, surely Phil's Fresh Eggs would be the answer! Well, not so much. They are shipped in from Illinois, not exactly local. The company has a seal on the carton & website: "Free Farmed" so we decided to find out what exactly "free farmed" means. That took us to the American Humane Association website where we discoverd that "free farmed" is an outdated term. It has been replaced by "American Humane Certified" which means "cage free" and a few other things, understand that doesn't necessary mean "free to roam in the sunshine", but outside of cages at least. Regardless, we checked the listing of "American Humane Certified" producers of which Phil's Fresh Eggs is not one. So where does that leave us? Eggless.

Seven Sons, the farm where we buy our meat, has eggs, but they are in Roanoke and that is too far to go for eggs.

All of that to ask: where do you get your eggs? We would love to have a local farm to go to.