Stunset
Wild Onion Market Building Out Rogers Park Store
As much as I try to cover the earth for our local food community, Year 1 of Local Food Forum has some gaps I can fill. One of those is featuring more coverage of our region’s food co-ops, which do such a marvelous job in bringing delicious, healthy local food to their communities and engaging members of their communities in their local food mission.
As a first step in the right direction, I am pleased to share this information provided by Wild Onion Market, which has settled on a location in Rogers Park (at Chicago’s northeastern edge) for its long-awaited store. The market will be located at 7007 N. Clark St. — former site of a small grocery store that is no longer in business — and is projected to open very late this year or very early in 2023.
Please read the following press release (it’s a copy so the links don’t work) and learn how you can become a Wild Onion Market member.
Coming soon… an update on Chicago Market, in development in the Uptown neighborhood, of which I’ve been a shareowner for several years.
And if you are a co-op manager and have a story or news you’d like to share about your market, please click the button below and send me a message.
Baby Goat Mania Comes Early for Gretta’s Goats
I have Gretta Winkelbauer of Gretta’s Goats to thank for my enduring joy about baby goats. When Barb and I visited her almost nine years ago at Prairie Crossing Farm in Grayslake (northeast Illinois), it was the first time I’d personally encountered these frenetically entertaining critters; we got to hold them and Barb’s nibbled at her neck, and we still joke about the time she got a goat hickey.
I’ve kept up with Gretta since she and husband Eric Strong purchased the land in the north-central Illinois town of Pecatonica that became their Short Leg Farm, and have paid a couple of visits. So I was delighted to see in their current newsletter that they are enjoying two early arrivals — their first winter kids — in the photo above.
This following is the back story from Gretta’s newsletter. Click the button below to visit their website to learn more and plan for the farm’s Artisan Goat Milk Soap Making Classes and Goat Hikes.
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When I first started farming I used to chat with another farmer at the farmer's market who would always tell me funny stories about when he and his wife would go on vacation. As soon as they tried to leave some sort of animal on their farm would get out, cause mischief, run down the road, or eat the neighbor's veggies (you get the idea, Pure mayhem!)
Well, we left the farm in September for a blissful and rare vacation and Yeti, one of our miniature Nubian goats, had an unexpected visit with Buck Rogers or Funkhauser (our bucks). She was discovered by our farmhand Connor having a lovely afternoon with the bucks. Long story short, we had twins born on Wednesday morning!
I typically have a gestation calendar set up for each kidding season with each mama goat's due date carefully mapped out. A goat's gestation is around 145 to 150 days. We try to shoot for April babies when it is not too cold and not too hot. These special twins are the first goats to be born on the farm in the winter. We are happy to report that they are chubby, healthy, and happy. Mama Yeti is super patient and loving. Yay! for this farm surprise.