By Jennifer Crain
In a book of photos that Barbara Long loaned me, there is a series of images of a sun-bathed patch of land filled with chickens. In the background is a fence and, beyond, a bank of trees full of new leaves.
Long is in the middle of each of shot, with her sleeves rolled up. In one, she pushes a green wheelbarrow. In the next, she’s digging into it with gloved hands. A blurry-headed chicken darts toward half a broken watermelon in another. She tosses vegetable cast-offs into a crowd of hens, the collection of green stalks and leaves caught in mid-air.
This is The Egg Lady Farm, which Long has been operating since 2002.
After their children graduated from high school, Long and her husband, Don, kept goats and horses on two acres in Snohomish for a stint, then joined a couple of camping clubs and took odd jobs while they toured in their 34-foot RV. When the tight living quarters got to her, Long said she either needed a bigger RV or another house. So, in 1999, they moved to a 26-acre farm located south of Tumwater and started keeping chickens, cows, and pigs.
A city kid, Long came of age in Seattle. Though she didn’t grow up farming, her father bought her a horse that they boarded at a cousin’s house. The 13-year-old Long would spend time riding her horse on the weekends, learning how to care for the animal in the process. Asked about her farming inclinations, Long says she partially credits her horse experience with her current occupation. But the real reason is more an intrinsic trait than the result of an isolated experience. “I just like animals,” she explains.
Though she sells the beef from her cows, Long won’t slaughter the layers. When they’re no longer productive she moves them to another part of the farm where they live out their natural lives.
After raising chickens for two years, friends convinced her that the eggs from their hens were good enough to sell. In 2004, Long sold to her first store in the area and was soon delivering the eggs to a handful of places around town. The Longs eventually expanded the operation from the 45 hens they kept at the beginning to the farm’s current count of about 1,200 hens, a tiny number compared to some industrial egg producers, whose flocks can reach 100,000 or even up to one million layers in a single location.
Long, whose husband passed away earlier this year, runs a one-woman operation. She says her day starts around 4:30 a.m. when she heads out to tend the flock. In inclement weather, her days are even longer. During the recent cold spell, for instance, she spent many hours making sure the chickens’ water didn’t freeze and dealing with a water pipe that burst in one of the coops.
By the time Spud’s Produce Market opened in 2012, the farm was an established business and trusted provider of quality eggs from well-fed hens. The multi-hued eggs sell in Tacoma, Yelm, and in multiple stores throughout the Olympia area.
Kari Jekel, co-owner of Spud’s, says they already knew Long from the community and had eaten her eggs prior to the store’s opening last summer. When they were looking for products to sell, Long was one of the first people they contacted.
“When we opened the store we started buying her eggs regularly and right away we noticed the quality,” Jekel says. “You can actually taste the difference.
She adds that their seven-year-old daughter wouldn’t touch eggs before but “now she eats scrambled eggs or sunny-side-up every morning. She just loves to eat Egg Lady eggs.”
Jekel guesses that their daughter’s palate may have changed since their family started visiting the farm. The Jekel kids talk with Long when they stop in and watch the chickens run free on the other side of the fence.
“It’s nice to just know where your food is coming from, knowing how she raises her chickens,” Jekel says. “It’s kind. She takes good care of them. It makes a difference.”
In their own house, Jekel bakes with the eggs, saying “once you taste them and realize the difference it’s hard to not buy them.” In addition to holiday sugar cookie cut-outs, the family looks forward to a traditional cream cheese pumpkin roll that they slice into pinwheels and serve at holiday parties (or just after dinner).
In addition to The Egg Lady eggs, Spud’s also carries other baking staples, including quite a few organic items. They stock dairy items, vanilla and spices, cane sugar and alternative sweeteners, oats, chocolate, local raw honey, and more.
Spud’s Produce Market is located at 2828 Capitol Boulevard in the Wildwood neighborhood of Olympia.
