The Egg Car
When a stop for eggs leaves you with so much more
You can buy your eggs at the grocery store.
Heck, you can buy your eggs at Costco, 2 dozen, 5 dozen at a time if you like.
You can buy them at the gas station and at Target … eggs are pretty much everywhere.
And who can blame you for buying your eggs where it’s most convenient? Eggs are eggs, right?
Wrong!
Don’t worry, I’m not going to get on a high horse about buying local, or nutrition, or the ethics of big agriculture. (I’ll leave that to others: the internet is awash in articles extolling the virtues of local eggs, and these articles from The Eater and Eat This will give you the gist. Or read anything by Michael Pollan if you like it deeper.)
I just want to ask you: Does buying eggs at the grocery store make you smile? Does it make you feel more connected to your neighbors? Does it make you happy?
Because it can do all these things, if you buy eggs carefully.
I’ve found such a place. It’s the Egg Car, my informal name for Sunny Hill Farm, located in the rolling hills just west and a little north of Snohomish, on the flanks of Fobes Hill.
When I crest the hill on my drive over to walk at the Slough, I look for whether the hood of the car is open: open means eggs. And when I root around in the cooler to grab my eggs, I’m looking for the best colors. For a long time I kept my eye out to spot the “farmer,” but I never did so finally I left a note—and that’s how I got to know Jeannine.
Sunny Hill Farm is the creation of Jeannine Egglady (not her real last name, just what I call her). She named it after her husband’s family farm in Redmond; that’s the original sign out front. The chicken coop started life as a treehouse her uncle built for the kids, but the kids grew up so now, naturally, chicken. (Sunny Hill Farm is also on Facebook here, if you’re interested.)
When she moved to Snohomish in 2017 Jeannine started raising chickens, and they were soon producing so many eggs that she needed something to do with the surplus. So she—like a surprising number of others in our little community (see my Egg Map below)—decided to sell her eggs by the side of the road. She convinced her husband, Darren, to modify a 1955 Packard Clipper Super Panama to be her “farm stand.” When she first opened on May 30, 2021, it was just eggs, but then she started making jam and apple butter, and soon enough she added honey harvested by her neighbors, who also had a surplus (and it’s delicious). Today, there’s a full menu of goodies at this gloriously funky, quintessentially Snohomish farm stand.
Jeannine’s got about 40 chickens right now—but she’s adding more all the time, choosing chickens who will add new colors to the kaleidoscope. The chickens often roam her yard—as long as she or the dog are out there to help scare off the coyotes or hawks that will occasionally visit, hoping for a meal. The cat just keeps an eye out.
Like a lot of stands, Sunny Hill is run on the honor system. You drive up, grab your eggs and whatever else, and deposit your cash in the cash box. Jeannine recently added a nod to the modern world by accepting electronic payment via Zelle (thank you!), so now I no longer stock up on $1 bills. She’s had money disappear once or twice–but never enough to convince her to change.
“I never thought this old car with eggs for sale at the end of my driveway would bring a smile to so many peoples faces, including mine,” she told me. “ I love seeing people stop and just take pictures. At first I thought it would be cool and nostalgic but when I meet people at the end of the driveway and they tell me how much they enjoy the eggs or when I hear the apple butter is just like their mom's, it makes me realize I'm bringing a touch of home to everyone who stops. It's more than just ‘the egg car,’ it’s memories of places my neighbors have been or people they know and love.”
So the next time you’re at the grocery store, pass up those boring old eggs (or those expensive boutique eggs) and just add a short side trip to a place that brings you delight–either the Egg Car or another hobby farm near you. I guarantee you, it’ll feel a whole lot better than buying them at the grocery store.
The Best Eggs are Right Down the Street …
As I fell in love with the Egg Car, I began to experience my own egg-car version of the “Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon”: I saw egg stands everywhere. (This phenomenon, also called the frequency bias, says that once you decide to pay attention to something, suddenly you notice it all over the place.) The egg car isn’t even the only egg stand on my drive to the Slough—there’s another one, a blue cooler beneath a tree, that offers eggs only once in a long while.
But I wondered how many there were in Snohomish, so I posed the question on a Facebook group called “Snohomies” and quickly got a dozen responses, ranging from “my neighbor sells them to a few people” to full operations like Skylight Farms, and everything in between. I’ve identified all of those egg stands that I could find and they’re on the Egg Layer of my Snohomish valley map.
At first, I thought I’d go try the eggs at all these different places … but then I realized that I had a pretty good thing going with Jeannine and the Egg Car. It fits into my life, the eggs and honey and apple butter are delicious, and I smile every time I stop. Local eggs remind me that my life is grounded in a cool and very real place; that’s the perfect counterpoint to a world that sometimes seems too full of social media and online shopping and commercial noise. What more could I ask from my eggs?
Thanks for the inspiration:
Thanks this week go to:
Michael Pollan, whose many books—but especially The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Cooked—got me thinking about where I buy my food. Check him out here: https://michaelpollan.com/books/
Noah Kalina, whose photo essays and newsletter are just cool as hell. Check him out here:
Cass Hebron, whose commitment to saving the world scares me and inspires me. Check her out here:
Butt nuggets! That's hilarious. I wish I liked eggs more. They're so good for you, but to me they taste like you would think a butt nugget would taste! And also, I love this story. It makes me want to drive all the way out there to just buy eggs that I won't eat. I wish I had something similar to me in the hood. Guess I'd better go google if I do or not.
What a cool story--wish I lived near Snohomish! I'll definitely keep my eyes open for egg stands in the ABQ area. Your story brought back a memory from when I was a kid in SW Iowa. My folks used to stop at a roadside stand near Hancock, IA, for honey. The stand featured several jars of honey and an old cigar box. The owners posted prices, and people left money for the honey they bought. We never saw the owners, but we sure loved their honey!