Eggs, eggcups and other silly things!

Hard boiled egg with a wee sprinkling of

fresh ground organic pepper

and Celtic Sea Salt

I bought some cute little egg cups for Easter this year

and used a couple at breakfast one day last week.

Poor Gentleman Farmer quite often has to wait

for his meals as I take a picture just in case

I need to post it along with a recipe!

He needed a little more than two hard boiled eggs

and a couple of pieces of toast for his breakfast

this morning, so he fixed himself a little addition.

He grabbed the camera and took a picture and

said I needed to post this on my blog,

'cuz' two can play this game! (silly boy!)

(Photo by GF)

He loves graham crackers and milk!

(I have been thinking of making my own graham crackers.

Does anyone have a good recipe?

And can anyone tell me why 'graham' crackers

are NOT made with graham flour? Why are they named

Graham?)

And then I find eggs like this one on the left

every now and then in the chickens' nests!

I did a little research on odd shaped eggs ( and

eggs with blood spots and/or meat specs) to find the

cause. I wondered if perhaps I was not providing

something in their feed (I feed only organic chicken feed)

or how I could prevent this from occurring.

The consensus from the sites I visited were

that both the odd shaped eggs and the spots

were generally caused by heredity

or

age in the hens ~

either being young and just starting to lay

(Not the case in my hens) Or old and production

and quality goes down.

All my hens but one,

are about six ~ eight years old. Old by most standards,

but they are laying quite well. In fact, as far as average

life span for my girls, this is quite young! I have been

keeping chickens for nearly 50 years, and most of my hens

have lived to a ripe old age if not killed

by coyotes, raccoon or bald eagles.

My oldest hen, Granny, was 13 years old when she passed,

and was still laying well. She was a beautiful Black Austrolorp.

I caught a glimpse of her one day out my window, sunning herself on an old

gate in the chicken yard. I thought to myself that I should go

out and give little ol' Granny a treat. I grabbed a crust

of bread and headed out to the hen house.

I found Granny dead!

In the time that I had seen her and grabbed that bread,

she, I later assumed, had flown off the gate and the

gate fell over and hit Granny on the head

breaking her neck!

I wasn't sure if she was dead, so looking cautiously around,

proceeded to .....

(WAIT FOR IT)
~

~

~

~

~

~

~

~

...give her mouth to beak resuscitation!

( I can hear you laughing!)

The CPR did not revive my poor little Granny!

All this to say ~ I don't think we should 'cull' our

older hens because they don't lay as well!

She was still producing eggs and was a

dear little companion, as well.

These little creatures feed us with

more than food for the stomach,

but with food for the soul ~

gracing our lives with companionship

and a little humor as we watch

their daily capers!

Joining Amy at Homestead Revival

and the others for

Homestead Barn Hop #3.

~*~

"Can something tasteless be eaten without salt, or is there any taste in the white of an egg?"

Job 6:6