Playing Chicken

Learn about the birds and the bees from White Rock Local Market

Learn how to build a coop and care for chickens at the Birds and the Beesworkshop November 3.
White Rock Local Market/Facebook
Instructor Caroline Fruth has been ranching since 2000, when she ditched hercorporate job.
White Rock Local Market/Facebook

“Local” is a buzzword in food these days. The idea, of course, is that food sourced locally is fresher, more seasonal and, presumably, more delicious.

It’s also how we support our neighbors who make a living growing and producing edibles. And, perhaps more important, it puts us in touch with the source of the food we eat every day.

Those most committed to local eating look to their own backyards. But it’s one thing to stick a tomato plant in the ground in the summertime. It’s quite another to raise your own chickens for eggs or keep a beehive and extract your own honey.

“We hope to demonstrate that raising chickens for eggs or bees for honey is not only easy, but also affordable,” says WRLM director Sarah Perry. “It gives what you eat even greater value.”

That said, the idea is gaining traction, and to help those with an interest in these endeavors, White Rock Local Market is presenting a three-part Birds and the Bees workshop November 3.

“Part of White Rock Local Market’s mission is to create awareness of the environmental, health and social benefits of eating local food,” says director Sarah Perry. “With our workshops we hope to encourage more local food production, and we hope to demonstrate that growing our own food — and, in this case, raising chickens for eggs or bees for honey — is not only easy, but also affordable. It gives what you eat even greater value.”

At the Saturday workshop, participants join Caroline Fruth of Fruth Farms Southwest and Bob Richie of the Bob’s Custom Coops to learn the ins and outs of chicken raising, from breeds and nutrition to egg production to coop building. That and a crash course in backyard bee keeping comprise the morning class.

Next step is learning how to process your chickens humanely, which also serves to paint an accurate picture about how food goes from the farm to your plate.

“We’ve had an interesting response to this one,” Perry says. “Some of our customers have suggested that killing animals and eating flesh is cruel at all times, and others have said they are just squeamish, and though they eat chicken would not want to see one killed.

“We hope Birds and the Bees will bring people that much closer to the realities of how food goes from a farm to their plate,” Perry says.

“Well, this just shows how our relationship to our food supply is complicated, and we hope Birds and the Bees will bring people that much closer to the realities of how food goes from a farm to their plate. We feel really great to make these connections.”

If you’re one of the squeamish ones, you can opt out of part two. But you’ll want to stick around for part three, when the group heads to Fruth Farms for a Love Your Farmer Day. Participants can volunteer to work on the farm, preparing crops, building a shelter in the goat paddock or helping to vaccinate the baby goats.

Did you get that? Baby goats? They’re pretty cute.

Fruth has been ranching since 2000, when she fled the corporate world. According to Perry, Fruth likes to say that animals are much easier to get along with than people.

“I appreciate her practical approach to being a steward of her herds and flock,” Perry says. “I would hope to be as glamorous a rancher as she is if I ever get to own some cattle!”

As for Richie, he’s been keeping bees since he was 13. He got into raising chickens as the result of a standoff with his teenage son, who announced he either wanted to get chickens or a mohawk. (You can guess which way Dad went.) Richie has been helping others with their backyard coops ever since.

Perry admits that the urban-farming endeavors may be part of a trend — but a good one, she says. “I like to think people really want to connect with the natural world, which, like it or not, is where all of our food is supposed to come from.

“I think it’s great that people might see both a smart phone and a flock of chickens as essential in life. What a great world!”

The Birds and the Bees workshop presented by White Rock Local Market starts with a 9 am class at First Unitarian Church of Dallas to learn the basics of raising chickens and bee keeping. The last two parts take place at Fruth Farms Southwest in Cash, Texas. The day wraps up at 4 pm. Register online for one or all workshops.

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Eco Warrior News

Dallas restaurants doing amazing little things for the environment

Southwest Airlines

Cute bamboo cup from Southwest Airlines

One unfortunate legacy left by the pandemic has been a huge increase in the use of plastics — setting back progress that was being made pre-pandemic.

Plastics are bad. They harm everything they touch: the environment, health, food security, and economies. But they're convenient, subsidized, and in some cases necessary.

Before the pandemic, a growing awareness had started to snowball regarding the negative impact of plastics, particularly plastic straws and single-use plastic containers — and it was significant enough to make the plastics industry very nervous.

"In the two years leading up to the pandemic, the public backlash against plastic was a major concern for industry leaders," says a story about plastics and the pandemic in The Guardian. "As a corporate executive remarked during an industry event early in 2019: 'We need to get the image of plastic in oceans out of the public’s mind. Otherwise, we could lose our social license to operate.'"

But then the pandemic came along, igniting mass hysteria about contagion, and suddenly, bans on single-use plastics that had been in the works were reversed in countries around the world: North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

“Overnight, plastics went from public enemy No. 1 to consumers asking for everything to have as much packaging as possible and to be single use," said one gleeful analyst for Shell Oil, who are a major plastics player.

The urgency of the plastics situation remains invisible to most people, lined up at the drive-thru for their coffee or Chick-Fil-A, piling up nearly 250 pounds of plastic waste every year. (That's what the average American amasses — more than any other country.)

But there are brave, pro-environment efforts being made by Dallas companies and organizations, big and small.

La Casita Bakeshop cup Revolutionary compostable cup at La Casita Bakeshop.Facebook

Dallas efforts
The Dallas restaurants and organizations listed below have taken steps to fight waste, even though it costs them money.

Plastic Free Lunch Day is November 22
Dallas ISD’s Food and Child Nutrition Services will participate in Plastic Free Lunch Day on November 22, to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic in school cafeterias.

Plastic Free Lunch Day was started by middle school students in Brooklyn. The initiative was such a success that it was adopted by all New York City public schools in 2022. The concept has since spread to public schools across the country — including Dallas ISD, which was the first in Texas to participate, when it joined up in 2022.

It creates an opportunity to educate students and the community on ways to positively impact the environment, including skipping plastic. Dallas school cafeterias will replace the plastic items they regularly use during lunch with biodegradable alternatives. (Plastic cutlery, cups, and straws will be available upon request for the crybabies.)

Southwest Airlines bamboo cup
Southwest Airlines Co., the Dallas-based airline, has introduced a new bamboo cup for inflight cold beverages, and a wood stir stick in place of a plastic stick. The airline expects the new items to reduce its inflight single-use plastics by more than 1.5 million pounds annually.

In July 2024, Southwest transitioned to a paper overwrap for its napkins made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials — fully eliminating plastic from this service item. The airline is making an effort to eliminate single-use plastics from inflight service by 2030.

La Casita Bakeshop compostable cups
La Casita Bakeshop, the award-winning bakery and cafe operation, recently debuted fabulous new cups that are 100 percent compostable, soil- and marine-biodegradable, breaking down naturally after 90 days. and are made from natural materials.

"We are always trying to find ways to be more environmentally friendly and this is a big way we can," they said in their post announcing the new cups. "We just want to be proud of our paper trail and being a restaurant it's hard to do that."

Smoothie King biodegrable cups
Smoothie King, the Dallas-based smoothie chain, previously used styrofoam cups, but began testing a biodegradable cup in 2019. They now offer it as the default choice. They're using Vio Foam, specially made cups that biodegrade 92 percent in four years. They'll still accommodate whiny selfish customers who insist on getting a plastic cup instead, but their Vio foam cup not only helps the environment, it also keeps their smoothies cold a little longer.

Kate Weiser Recycle Box Program
Kate Weiser, the Dallas chocolatier, sells its gorgeous eye-catching bon-bons in a variety of boxes, from 4 pieces all the way up to 35 pieces. (OK, they'll sell them individually, too, but who goes to a chocolate shop and buys a single chocolate?) They have a program where you can bring your empty box to the store and get a refill and get 5 percent off. (Weiser amusingly calls it a "secret hack.")

Dude Sweet Chocolate freezer packaging
Dude Sweet Chocolate, the Oak Cliff chocolatier, has a next-level campaign in which they will accept cold-ship packaging you've received in the mail and re-use it. Say, for example, that you ordered an 8-pack of ice cream pints from Double Rainbow in San Francisco, and it arrived in a box with freezer packs and a foil liner. You can drop that packaging off at Dude Sweet's factory location at 1340 Inwood Rd., and they'll re-use it in one way or another when they're doing shipments of their chocolate.

Note: Whether you're putting it in the blue bin or the gray bin, your plastic is not being recycled. The best course when it comes to plastic, especially single-use plastic, is to not use it at all.

sustainability