egg

In March, Priya picked out 10 chicks for her birthday. One didn't make the week, but the other nine happily spend their days eating fallen apples and catching bugs around here during the day. At night, they all crowd into the doghouse they inherited from Molly who has never spent even one blizzard or rainy day in.

They are big now - four brown ("yellow" as Priya calls them) and five black speckled and they are tame in a sort of strange way. When was the last time you walked across the yard and looked down to see nine hens keeping up with you.

But their real purpose is to lay eggs. Yesterday, there was one little egg in the doghouse. Priya and Sam were quite sure it was from the chickens and even discussed the possibility of launching a acreage-wide egg hunt to look for more. On the way home from church, we settled the question of how many eggs each chicken would lay a day. Today at dinner, they discussed some various theories how chickens make eggs.

Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until the next egg is laid to analyze it since the first egg didn't make it back into the fridge after show-and-tell last night.