Munger Place - grace grits and gardening

Backyard Chickens in Munger Place

March 27, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

Meet Liam McGregor. Liam is the Chief Eggsecutive Officer of Munger Place Natural Egg Company. Only six blocks from my house (less really), Liam raises backyard chickens in Munger Place where he lives with his family and a menagerie of pets… A young Dr. Doolittle? Maybe so. One thing’s for sure, his chicken operation is impressive.

The garden is not half bad either.

What you see in the picture above is an off-the-grid ecosystem. The chickens not only provide eggs, but they produce rich manure fertilizer for the raised beds and serve as a natural exterminator by eating insects in the backyard compost and garden.

Liam became interested in chickens while attending preschool in College Station. Now at age thirteen, chickens are a big part of Liam’s life. Last December, he began selling eggs to Munger Place neighbors. His brood currently totals thirteen and includes several ancient breeds— Silkies, Rhode Island Reds, Frizzle, Polish and Barred Rocks.

According to Liam the most fun thing about keeping chickens is the chickens themselves. Each has her own language, he says of his all female chicken population. They “talk” to each other. And they have unique personalities just like people.

This is Princess, a beautiful white Silkie.

And the most difficult thing about being an egg entrepreneur? The time requirement. Liam (a busy seventh grader at William B. Travis) also plays violin and lacrosse, so my Mom helps out a lot, he says.

Eggs are harvested each morning and immediately washed and refrigerated. The chickens lay about 8 eggs a day. Liam’s customers are patient and willing to wait for fresh eggs. The rules of purchase are simple—leave an empty carton on Liam’s front porch with contact information, and arrangements will be made to deliver when the eggs are available. Eggs sell for $0.30/each, $1.80/half dozen or $3.60/dozen.

Proceeds go to the Liam Doesn’t Get An Allowance Fund.

Beautiful eggs, great variety.

Sounds like a great cause!

For additional information, email Liam or his mom at [email protected].

To read information on backyard chickens and the many benefits, click HERE.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Chickens aren’t background animals like fish or sheep or horses. Chickens are in-your-face animals. Chickens if you have them, come to bracket your days. The rooster hollers all morning, and then in the evening the hens have left you their mysterious gift of eggs. – Jeanne Marie Laskas

Redenta’s Garden

January 17, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

This week on Six Blocks from my house… Redenta’s Garden. Redenta’s is my go-to place for organic gardening everything. The staff is knowledgeable and friendly and willingly spreads gardening love via free Saturday morning classes. (Last weekend John and I took a vegetable gardening class—timely for us with our new community garden plot.)

And if free classes aren’t cool enough, on the third Thursday of each month (5-7 PM) Redenta’s hosts a monthly Happy Hour Potting Bar. Genius!

Last night my girlfriends and I checked it out. We studied the happy hour menu for quite some time. It was difficult to choose from all the options, plus there is the added option of a “market price” creation.

Your hostess will pot your new plant in the container of your choice while you enjoy cocktails and chips and salsa. Or, you can get your hands dirty and pot your own. The folks at Redenta’s are very accommodating and fun people.

Since John had to be out of town on the night of our 15th wedding anniversary, he bought me two plants:)

Very Dr. Suess-ish, don’t you think?

Follow Redenta’s Garden on Facebook for up-to-date happenings.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Six Blocks from my house is something new for 2014. Each week or two I’ll highlight a few things going on only six blocks (or so) from my house. Maybe a new place, an event, a person, who knows? East Dallas is funky and fabulous and filled with unique history. I plan to show it off.

There’s also disparity between the haves and have nots. The hidden, disregarded and not-so-clean-and-tidy will sometimes be included. That’s part of our neighborhood too.

Oral History of Howard Peak – Visiting Our Grandparents – Part II

November 21, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

The following is a continuation from Part II – Oral History of Howard Peak – Visiting Our Grandparents. Click HERE to read Part I before the next section…

Captain Jefferson Peak's House. First brick house in Dallas, Texas.

Part II:

My! What a supper was spread for us tired and hungry visitors. There was a great steak from Neussbaumers, the Butchers, fried chicken with milk gravy, fresh eggs, vegetables of all kinds, cornbread, hot biscuits, butter and sorghum molasses, milk, tea, peach cobbler, etc.
The dining room adjoined the kitchen which set off from the main building, a great East portico between, and on this porch we would sit after supper and listen to Grand Pa relate experiences of the Mexican war, while Pa would in turn tell of Indian depredations in West Texas. Grand Ma in her cap and smoking her clay pipe would entertain Ma and the female contingent, whilst we boys would nestle around the Sires. A good nights sleep and morning would bring a much relished breakfast.
Here let me state that Captain Jefferson Peak and his wife (nee Malviny Reser) emigrated from Warsaw, Kentucky in 1855, coming direct to the Village of Dallas. At Warsaw, Captain Peak (he subsequently attained the title of Captain during the War with Mexico, 1846-47 being attached to General Marchall’s brigade of Kentucky Volunteers). Preceding the war he, with his brothers Willis and Jordan were merchants at Warsaw and also conducted a transportation business from Cincinnati to New Orleans. Captain Jefferson made many trips on flat boats down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, trading merchandise for mules and various commodities which they brought back with them to the North.
I also desire to impress the fact that both Grandparents were very aristocratic. Grand Pa being over 6 feet tall and slender, was always clean shaven and very neat in his person. Wearing as he always did a beaver (stove pipe) hat (he wore one on week days, keeping a new one for Sunday’s) a long Prince Albert Coat, with pleated shirt front and black tie, ever presented a distinguished appearance. Grand Ma with her silk gown and lace cap with her elegant manners presented ever a queenly appearance.
They were strict disciplinarians and most fervent worshipers, belonging to the First Christian Church of which they were pillars. Grand Pa never failed to give good advice to his children and ever admonished them to live upright and clean lives. He was morally clean and never had a vice-neither swearing, drinking or smoking.
Grand Pa lived to be 83 years old and Grand Ma 78. Both are buried in the old Burying Ground in the City of Dallas. Both having the respect and confidence of all who knew them.
Then the days pleasure and work would begin, for Grand Pa always laid out some work for us boys believing as he did that the vacation from school should be attended by more or less work. Our work consisted of a variety of performances. It may have been gathering fodder, hauling corn, shaking down red apples or Indian peaches or some other duties incident to a farm life.
One of our delights was to saddle Navajo, Mack and Ay the gray pony and ride over to the Butchers and get steak or ride down into the pasture and drive the cows to the pen for evening milking, then too, we would take old Carlo and the hounds and go down to the branch and hunt cottontail rabbits and on moonlit nights, go after coons and possums.
It was Grand Pa’s rule to require each person at the table to memorize and repeat a verse in the Bible at breakfast, as he was very religious. We would make an occasional visit to Aunt Sara’s where we would spend the day with cousins Ripley and Juliette and return by town where Grand Pa would give us red striped stick candy and a glass of lemonade without ice as a reward for the work that we had done.
Playing stick horse with Matt and romping with the dogs in the cedars, gathering pears and dew berries, swimming in the big tank, cutting hay and feeding the stock, with various other amusements and exercises incident to a boys life, enabled us to enjoy every moment of our two weeks visit and to mourn the hour, when our visit being ended, we had to dress early in the morning and pursue our way back home.

Howard W. Peak