The Best Part of Waking Up...

This weekend I heard a story of a little boy who wanted to make breakfast for his dad on Father's Day.  The boy made a big mess in the kitchen, but the thought was there and he made a bowl of Cheerio's and a cup of coffee for his dad.  He brought it to his Dad's room and sat the tray on the bed.  The dad said, "What's this?"  "Well, it's breakfast in bed, Dad," the boy said.  Milk and cheerios were all over the tray and the coffee didn't look too good, but the Dad didn't want to discourage his son, so he began to eat and drink.  The coffee was horrible!  The dad was forcing himself to take more sips of the terrible brew while his son watched.  The boy said, "Drink it all, Dad.  There's a surprise at the bottom!"  Well, that scared the dad as he carefully sipped to the end.  At the bottom of the cup lay two plastic toy soldiers.  "Son, why are there two soldiers in the bottom of my coffee cup?" the Dad asked.

"Because Dad, the best part of waking up is soldiers in your cup!"  A 'dad' joke for sure.

Truly the best part of waking up is eating a big heaping plateful of the free range, pastured eggs from our laying hens.  Take a look at this breakfast!  The yolks are a dark yellow from all the grass they are eating out there, along with bugs, worms and other stuff.  Store bought eggs don't hold a candle to the taste of our hens' eggs.  You can taste and see the difference!

Our hens put out some delicious eggs which we cook in a cast iron skillet covered with fresh grown peppers and onions, tomatoes and cilantro with a slice of hot, buttered sourdough bread on the side.  Forget it Wheaties.  THIS is the breakfast of champions.  Our hen population is down to about 20 now and they're all getting older.  As the days get shorter, we're only picking up 8 eggs a day.  As soon as we butcher the meat birds giving us space in the brooder/chicken tractor, we're going to raise some replacement laying hens to freshen the flock and keep these delicious breakfasts coming!

We have quite a few breeds currently out free ranging on the pasture: Rhode Island Reds, Golden Comets, Aracaunas, Black Stars and some leghorn crosses.  I'd like to get some Barred Rocks and maybe try some Jersey Giants this go round.  It usually takes roughly 24 weeks until they begin to lay, so I hope our 20 hens keep laying until the reinforcements arrive and mature.

Who Fliipped The Switch to the "ON" Position?

Fresh pastured country eggs laid by our happy hens that roam around on 3 acres are a blessing to us.  We love to eat 'em!  Each and every afternoon Benjamin goes out with his basket and gathers eggs in the hen house, the barn, the chicken tractor and numerous other hiding places like in the loft, behind the box fan, in the goat stall, in the trough in the goat barn, at the bottom of the burn pile...  Well, you get the picture.  The hens will lay eggs most anywhere.

Except, Benjamin's egg gathering was slim to none for a while.  On December 5, 2016 a hen laid ONE EGG (you read that right) and then none on the next day, or the next or the next.  Not a single egg in the month of January!  No eggs for the first two weeks of February.  Finally on February 17th he picked up one egg.  The number kept growing and growing and during the month of April, he is picking up about 5 dozen eggs a day.

When the hens weren't producing eggs, we hardly ate or cooked with eggs.  There is a HUGE difference between store-bought eggs and ours.  Now we have plenty eggs to scramble, fry, make quiche with, or cook with in any number of recipes.  We also have plenty to sell to our egg customers and plenty to give away to our family, our neighbors and our friends.  Friends don't let friends eat store-bought eggs!!

So, back to talking about finding hidden nests of eggs, we learned a test to determine the freshness of eggs.  If you take a bucket of water and drop the eggs found in a 'hidden nest,' the rotten ones will float, the old eggs will sink but stand up at the bottom of the bucket, and the fresh ones will lie flat on the bottom.  The rotten eggs get thrown back in the woods or composted in the garden.  The old or questionable eggs get fed to the dogs.  And obviously the fresh eggs get eaten by our family.

The hens are very healthy and fat right now and the yolks of their eggs are a deep yellow-orange color.  The eggs are just beautiful and tasty, too!  We don't wash them unless we absolutely need to. When the hens lay the eggs, they coat the eggs with a "bloom" that seals the eggs from bacteria and gives the eggs a longer shelf life. Once they are washed, their shelf life is shortened.  In the late fall and winter, the hens' production will taper off, but for right now, we are enjoying the eggs.

The incredible, edible egg.  I'm thankful that they are laying in abundance again.