City slickers play Old MacDonald

In the name of urban farming, there were a lot of ways BJ Hedahl could have transformed her

spacious, fenced backyard in Seattle's Wedgwood neighborhood: putting in an organic garden, a

beehive or a chicken coop maybe.

But no. Hedahl wanted ducks. Or rather duck eggs: richer, denser, with yolks bigger than your

chicken variety, she said.

Here on a recent afternoon were her four ducks, hopping out of the kiddie wading pool that's

plopped in the middle of her yard, each webfoot capable of producing about 300 eggs every

year.

As one after another waddled by, I couldn't help but do the math. That's a lot of quiche.

But these ducks aren't a lot of work, she said. "They're lower maintenance than chickens and

I think (the eggs) taste better." Hedahl now runs workshops showing Seattleites how to raise

ducks in their yards.

These days, around Seattle you can find just about every conceivable workshop related to

urban farming. The slow-food, eat-local movement has spurred hordes of city slickers to adopt

some small measure of homestead mentality into their daily life.

Workshops are packed.

The nonprofit Seattle Tilth, which offers the widest range of city farming know-how workshops

in Western Washington, reports record attendance in recent years. Chicken-raising courses

have wait lists. Sessions on beekeeping for honey fill quickly. The group's annual summer

self-guided tour of chicken coops around Seattle has expanded to include homes with bees,

ducks and goats, and now extends to the Eastside.

The widespread interest has led Seattle Tilth to diversify its class offerings to include

raising ducks and goats.

Raising urban dairy goats, which was previously rare (and before 2007 illegal) in Seattle,

has become trendy here and in other parts of the country.

Three years ago, Jennie Grant, who teaches the dairy-goat workshop at Tilth's Wallingford,

Wash., headquarters, convinced Seattle's city government to allow homeowners to raise

miniature (100 pounds or lighter), dehorned goats.

Urban farmers consider goats to be "the city cow," a smaller milk producer that needs no more

yard space than a typical dog.

Grant's class has gotten more popular with Seattleites who are curious about getting fresh

milk to make cheese and yogurt. She tells potential goat owners to buy a breed that's quiet.

Erect a 5-foot fence, build a shed and be prepared to milk day and night.

Grant lives in Seattle's Madrona neighborhood, with a backyard featuring seven chickens, two

goats and a view of Lake Washington. With the eggs and the goat milk, that's pretty much all

you need for a souffle, she said.

She took me out back to the pen and chicken coop. It felt like visiting a house on rural

Vashon Island.

Her La Mancha goat, Snowflake, greeted me with a couple of jumps. Her Oberhasli goat, Maple,

nibbled on my coat zipper and notebook.

She pulled Maple into the pen, gave her a pale of oatmeal treats and milked her, in the same

manner as you would a cow.

The trick is to finish milking before the goat finishes snacking, said Grant, or she might

not remain still.

Her goats each can produce around a gallon a day. Grant has it on her oatmeal, her husband

pours it over cold cereal and her 10-year-old son drinks it straight. The surplus is given to

neighbors or made into chevre and mozzarella. It makes for a mean goat-cheese pizza with sun

-dried tomatoes and caramelized onions, she said.