Eggs!!! Yuck!!!!!

I think some of my new country friends don’t really understand just how much of a big city girl I have always been.  Since they have only seen my country self… I don’t think they can truly understand the changes that have come with this move for me.  I mean, I was a full on, corporate ladder climbing, suit wearing, holder of meetings, career lady.  I travelled extensively in the course of my job, hopping on planes (jets, prop and float planes) onto ferries, into cabs and rental cars of every description.  I went to seminars, conferences and corporate events regularly and was never without my cell phone, my laptop and my iPad.  l did corporate lunches and dinners, I went to the spa, I drank Starbucks and I carried Coach handbags……… for years!

It really shouldn’t shock too many of my city friends that I would one day walk away from all of that.   It had it’s time, and believe me there was much of that world that I did enjoy….. (I have eaten at some truly amazing restaurants!) but after a while it all just becomes exhausting.  The country was always where we wanted to land…. after all that crazy corporate stuff.

What IS completely shocking to my very best friends and the members of my immediate family – they know me so well – is the huge role that the simple chicken egg is playing in my life these days!  Let me be clear here….. I detest eggs…. in every form that you can serve them.  Since I was a kid I have refused to have anything to do with the humble chicken egg.   Not fried, poached, deviled, hard boiled, scrambled, sunny side up, basted, pickled or raw.  If it is not buried in a recipe as a binding agent – I refuse to eat anything with them in it.  Don’t put them in my fried rice, my potatoe salad, or my chef salad because if you do, I won’t eat it.  My Mom insisted that I keep trying them, that I would grow to like them….. nope, never!

SO…….. here I am, on a farm, with 36 egg laying hens and a couple roosters.  Eggs and those that lay them have become a large part of my life…. how the hell did that happen???

Now, don’t get me wrong… these hens are mostly all Chuck’s to deal with.  He has done all the research on them and what they need to be strong and healthy, and how to care for the eggs.  But I help!  I go with him to open up the coop and let the girls out, fill the feeders and make sure that they have fresh water all around.  I know they love to go outside to scratch around in the grass, adore vegetables (Brussel sprouts are a favorite) and will rip a piece of it right out of a fellow sister’s beak if given the chance.

I know the rooster likes to jump on them first thing in the morning and last thing at night!  They like to run around under the rabbit hutches and try to steal the rabbit treats – they are sneaky buggers!  They squawk incessantly at each other if one of them is in the favourite brooding box…. which isn’t even the ones Chuck made for them, they love a couple of dog crates that we put when we were introducing the new rooster to them! I even know which ones will do everything they can to stay outside later – we always have to round them up and shoo them into the coop.

Now I even talk to them!! All the time!!  And I worry if they are getting enough calcium (for the egg shells), their fair share of the treats Chuck gives them, should they have fresh bedding, have they had a dust bath to keep mites away?  I have even picked a couple of them up and pet them…. like a cat!  I am clearly losing it.

I gather eggs from all their little hidey spots.  They take to hiding them in the tall grass sometimes – I have no idea what the hell is wrong with the perfectly good brooding bins they have – it’s like an Easter egg hunt everyday, figuring out where they have laid them this time.  I wash the eggs and get them ready to sell to the crazy egg lovers out there and tell everyone who buys them how great they are ….. feel how heavy they are!   I talk about how orange the yolks are and how many we have had with double yolks!  People tell me they are super tasty and so much better than store bought eggs – and I smile!  and nod!  and say “you bet”, when clearly I wouldn’t know a good egg from a bad one.

I sat on the cold basement floor with Chuck and Fallon and watched a baby chick fight it’s way out of it’s shell in a chicken incubator.  I painted the Eggs for Sale sign we put out when we have extra eggs to sell, and I even have a pair of chicken garden shoes (Thanks Mom!!).  How could I have known that the chickens would be so much fun??

But eat a chicken egg??  Hell’s no!