Eggs

Monday the kids went into their playhouse to discover our first egg!  There was quite the hubbub.  I was humored to see where queen laid her egg.  Here in this opened bag of wood chips, the highest place in the play house.

Monday night after some quick back yard chicken web surfing, we made a nesting box.  An old wire basket on wheels outfitted with a deep pile of straw repurposed for the chickens in hopes that the eggs would be laid there.  

Yesterday I kept finding one of our roosters chilling in the nesting box.  Queen was no where near it, but she was spending a lot of alone time in the freshly weeded tree patch behind the coop.  A quick sweep in the dark by flashlight revealed nothing unusual to me.  I saw no sign of nests or eggs.

Today after loading up their feeders, I went to fill the water.  I didn't quite get the play house shut all the way.  When I returned I saw queen poking around trying to find a suitable nesting spot.  I closed the door caught her and moved her into the coops nesting box.  I closed the door so she wouldn't leave.  At breakfast I informed the girls that I suspected queen would lay an egg and they weren't to go in either door (the play house is the other half of the chicken coop outfitted with concrete floors, electricity and a rocket stove for heat).  Ninety minutes later our curioursity got the better of us and the girls went to peek in the play house windows.  They saw queen had wiggled through their peeking spot hole in the adjoining wall, and entered through the coop door.  To their delight queen had laid an egg in the nesting box.  She was singing her egg laying song and the egg was hot so she must have laid it just a minute before they entered!

Now our dilemma is whether to take the egg for our own eating or to leave it so she knows that is where to continue nesting.  Ahh the tough choices we are sometimes faced with out here on the farm :)

Pickles

Yesterday we had a family effort on canning pickles.  Wesley helped picked cucumbers.  Lizzi and Abi found the jars in the storage bin.  We talked about preserving foods and the importance of everything being clean and sterile.  Once the chopping commenced there was some resistance from the oldest one.  I told her it was important to me that she knew how to preserve food, so she can take care of her family someday and not be trying to learn in her 30's.

This projects held a lot of firsts for us.

This was my first time using a hot water bath, and it showed as I over filled the pot and had a mess of water on the stove.  Abi learned about garlic, how to pull apart the cloves and peel them.  Lizzi improved her knife skills by making slices.  Both girls made spears as well.

We are anxious to crack open a jar and taste our hard work.  Perhaps we can convince Phil to grill this weekend so we can pop some home grown pickle slices on top.