Chickens Back in Business

“An egg! An egg! An egg!” You could hear the excitement in my voice carrying through the neighborhood on a recent, drizzly evening as I did my regular check on the chickens. A little brown egg quietly laid in the nesting box.

I then recalled how my urban hens seemed to be making quite a ruckus on a recent morning – and the dots connected. Someone was laying eggs again and they were all celebrating it each morning with some squawking to announce it to the world. I was just too sleepy with late nights with grad school midterms to piece that together without seeing the actual egg.

Just when it felt like this rainy, cold winter would go forever, I get a hint of Spring. The chickens only made me wait a couple months before they started laying again. How wonderful to have something producing food in our backyard again. The ground is soppy and my seeds are not planted yet, but at least my days of buying eggs are over for the next ten months.

I believe Florence, the Rhode Island Red, is the champion layer yet again. Maude, our Brahma, should start back up soon with slightly larger brown eggs. And old Pearl can lay when she feels like it and surprise us with sporadic blue eggs.

Crocuses are popping their heads up and thick, green reeds of daffodils are reaching for the sky, soon to open their flowers. President’s Day is this weekend, which means our pea seeds need to get in the ground. This much we can do, right?

And maybe while we are out there, we can direct sow some arugula and lettuces. And we could probably take a moment to shove a few more garlic cloves, an onion set or two, and some potatoes into the ground as well. It just takes a little time and a drop of motivation to get outside this weekend and stick our hands in the dirt again. I know I’ll find some peaceful sanity and we’ll also get a good start on the growing season.

Go get dirty!