Hopefully Back to Normal

It has been a long road getting back to my normal routine. But hopefully, I am back. I will have to have about a year of physical therapy to get total use of my left foot back. But at least I can walk!!

We have replenished the chickens that were killed by the neighbor's dogs and now we have more eggs than we know what to do with. Greg has found one customer who uses about 6 dozen a week and that will help a lot. We are getting more than a dozen eggs a day now.

I have been researching egg recipes on Pinterest. You can follow me at  https://www.pinterest.com/maen/. Eggs are a very economical way to feed your family. When you think about the price of meat these days and compare that to a dozen eggs it's pretty easy to see that eggs, even though they seem expensive, are still a cheap way to feed your family.  You take a dozen eggs add a few leftovers to them and have a meal that will feed your family for around $3.00.  And it's a great way to use up the leftovers. Add a little leftover green vegetable, some leftover meat and some cheese, maybe some chopped onions or other herbs and bake a fritata or crustless quiche and you have a complete meal in just a few minutes. Serve it with toast and it's a great meal.

One of the bee hives didn't make it over the winter so we ordered more bees and established them in the hive yesterday. If the weather permits we will open the hive on Wednesday to see if the queen has been released.

We still haven't planted anything, it's been too wet to get into the garden. We are thinking about turning our garden into a strawberry bed and moving the garden to one of the fenced in areas. It will be a bigger garden than what we have now. And, this year we are going to make a real herb garden. In the past I have just planted all of my herbs in pots or containers. I am really excited about that. I also want to plant some Asparagus, Rhubarb, and grapes this year.

We are also looking into buying goats again. It has been a while since we have had goats but we really want to get some more and start over.

How is your Spring going?

Have a great day!
Mae

What to Expect When You're Expecting...Your First Eggs, That Is.

I can remember when we first got chickens. It seemed like we waited forever to get our first egg. Twenty weeks sure seemed like a long time! Then when we got that first egg as exciting as it was it was still a little surprising to see how tiny it was. So if you are about to get chickens or already have chickens and are waiting on your first egg, this post is for you.

When I walked into the chicken coop to find that first little egg, I was so excited. Then I realized just how little it was and began to wonder if I had the wrong kind of chicken. I wanted those big brown eggs, I had seen so often. Then I took that little egg into the kitchen and cracked it. Well let me tell you, it would have taken a dozen of those eggs to make a meal. And cracking it was a whole other story. The membrane was tough and hard to pull apart. But finally there was a little tiny yolk surrounded by a fair amount of white.

Since that time we have had many first eggs and our newest batch of chicks started laying last week. We have had about 2 dozen of those little tiny eggs so I thought you might like to see what they look like.

Tiny Eggs

 As you can see from the picture above they barely are taller than the dividers of the egg carton. And this is a carton for large eggs.

What you can expect from your fist eggs.

1. They will tiny.
2. The shells will be a little harder than what you may be used to.
3. The membranes will be tough.
4. They yolks will be hard to break.

Scrambled eggs

I scrambled 12 of the eggs for 3 adults (2 hungry men) and it was just the right amount. As you can see from the picture above, they scrambled up nicely. It's really about all you can use them for. But please use them. They are a little harder to scramble because the yolks take a lot of beating before they break.

You should still get excited when that first egg appears, because it just means there are bigger and better ones to come. But enjoy the little ones, also.

Have a great day!
Mae

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