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First!

Ah, I’ve been waiting for this! My girls stop laying in October and don’t pick up again until March. To be exact, March 14 (as it turns out). They’d lay all year if I gave them artificial light, but I don’t need the eggs and they need the break. Laying eggs is hard on a chook.

Yes, I know who it was. It was Jenny. I opened the door to the henhouse and she was sitting on the nest looking very serious. It’s very serious business, I tell you. Then she gave us a rousing chorus of the egg song. ‘Twas fine to hear.

I used to think the egg song was foolish from an evolutionary standpoint. You know, loudly calling attention to the vulnerable package you just delivered. But, observing them, they seem to wait a while and move away from the nest, so perhaps it’s a distraction technique. Whatevs.

Gosh, it was nice today. First day it truly felt like Spring. Won’t last. We’re expecting cold weather and maybe even snow at the weekend, but that won’t last either. It’ll be lambs before you know it!

Comments


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: March 15, 2018, 12:21 am

1. Do real fresh eggs taste better than your store bought eggs?

2. Is there some sort of ointment you can apply to chickens to make it easier on them?


Comment from SomeVegetable
Time: March 15, 2018, 12:42 am

Congratulations!

But… on the 14th of March? Didn’t they try to warn Caesar about the eggs of March – or was that just a bad yoke?

I’ll show myself out….


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: March 15, 2018, 12:52 am

Not that we have much of a winter here in Sarasota County, Florida, but I saw a sure sign of spring yesterday. Mama and Papa Sandhill Crane were teaching their two chicks how to probe for juicy bugs. This isn’t my photo, but it’s a good one.


Comment from Bob
Time: March 15, 2018, 1:55 am

Im in SoCal. Usually, my olive trees bloom in February, the green shoots appear on the Fuju Persimmons the first week of March, and the fruit on the luquot is ripe in April.
This year, the olive trees began to bud on March 12, there’s very little fruit on the luquot, half of it’s already ripe and half is still green, and still no shoots on the persimmon trees.
And it has been raining off and on for days.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: March 15, 2018, 1:56 am

Does a hen want to use the same spot each time she lays an egg, or will she pick a spot at random for each delivery?
When your egg skelter is full (or as full as it gets), would you take another photo for us?


Comment from gebrauchshund
Time: March 15, 2018, 2:01 am

Around here I figure winter is over when the overnight low temperature starts to stay above freezing.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: March 15, 2018, 2:07 am

it’ll be lambs before you know it…

0.o

Your chickens lay lambs?


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: March 15, 2018, 3:41 am

The shadows of that egg holder on the wood looks like those witch markings you find in the rafters of these old old homes. Spooky!


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 15, 2018, 8:20 am

Ric Fan: chicken keepers will tell you fresh eggs taste a bunch better. I couldn’t speak to that (my sense of smell, and therefore taste, is somewhat defective), but the color is unreal. Like, the yolks are vivid orange and make everything you cook with them an amazing color. And yes…do you not recall the time I rubbed olive oil up Mapp’s vent because I thought she was eggbound? Not an experiment I care to repeat.

Deborah, I try not to let the skelter get full! I do my best to stay ahead of them, but toward the height of the season they do start to get ahead of me. That’s when I begin giving eggs away at work.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: March 15, 2018, 11:11 am

Word for the day!
The skelter!

( Which my stupid kindle insists is the smelter)

Additional points if you can manage to pry it loose from GD Charlie Manson.


Comment from Wolfus Aurelius
Time: March 15, 2018, 1:26 pm

In one of her little comic monologues, Dorothy Parker had her character quote some bit of poetry about “Why did you die when lambs were cropping, you should have died when apples were dropping.” No idea who she was quoting, but the mention of lambs made me think of that.


Comment from svs
Time: March 15, 2018, 1:43 pm

Wolfus Aurelius – Christina Rossetti. See https://genius.com/Christina-rossetti-a-dirge-annotated


Comment from AliceH
Time: March 15, 2018, 5:37 pm

Ric Fan: Real fresh eggs definitely taste better than old eggs. I don’t think it’s significant in baking, but for quiche or custard or straight-up fried/scrambled eggs, freshness really makes a big taste and texture difference. (Except hard boiled eggs – for them, ok to use older eggs for easier peeling.)

It’s possible to get really fresh eggs from a store but more by luck than by anything else – most are nearly a week old by the time they are put the shelf. To guarantee fresh, best to get them straight from the chicken and/or friends with chickens.

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