#66 - An Egg! A Perfect Egg! And More...

This past weekend, Deputy Dave and I were puttering around the house and we could hear one of the feathered gals in the coop making lots of clucking sounds.

CLUCK, CLUCK, CLLLLUUUUCCCCKKKK! Kind of sounds, over and over. We figured it was egg laying time.

My chickens are weird; they are not morning layers, they are afternoon layers.

Since the day of my mangled egg discovery, I had found one other egg and began to get all happy-dance-ready, then I realized the bottom of the egg had a long crack.

We figured out the problem for the cracked eggs, we simply needed more hay in their nest boxes. The chickens were scratching every bit of the hay to the sides or over the edge to form a nice nest, like you see in the trees with regular birds, but they pulled so much hay aside that the bottom was left with only board. So, they'd lay an egg, the egg would have no cushion and SPLAT, we get cracks.

On the side corner of the house, the chickens love
taking refuge from the sun by staying beneath
the shade of elephant ears.

Deputy Dave added more compacted hay and this has helped, but the chickens still do their best to scratch every bit of hay away so that they can have an even bottom for their bottom.

So, this weekend, on Sunday, I lifted the side door to the coop and the Heavens above me began to sing because THERE IT WAS, a truly gorgeous brown egg. Again, I run to get the camera, praying all along that this egg won't have a cracked bottom. Once I pulled it out, I could see it was a beauty! I am happy to report that I've FINALLY found my first WHOLE egg instead of discovering a leaky mess.

How can an egg hold such beauty? I don't know, but it does.

Another exciting thing in my life right now is that I get to take care of my Shaye-Bear for the next couple of weeks, until she officially begins Kindergarten! My sister is a school counselor and had to go back to work August 1st (yesterday) so I volunteered to keep my sweet niece until school begins.

Shaye and I also got to have a
"Messy Hair Day." I think we'll have
 a couple more of these...

So, Shaye and I spend our mornings outside. We feed the chickens, check for eggs and do a bit of yard work. As the day wears on, we can't do much outside due to the overwhelming heat, unless it involves a water activity.

Putting down a bit of feed in one spot so we can
divert the chickens and check the nests.

Every day, I have a little project for Shaye and I to complete together. Yesterday, we planted seeds in some old pots I had pulled out. Years ago, I had decorated those pots...Shaye got a kick out of the funky pots. Then, we planted more seeds in any container we could find.

Planting fruit tree seeds in an old
Bluebell ice-cream container.

We planted peach and plum seeds. Then, we planted tomato, jalapeno and radish seeds. Yesterday was a good start with getting more seeds planted. Today, we'll probably plant some flower seeds in the pots at my front door.

Meanwhile, this is the room where I had my office, years ago. After Hurricane Ike hit our house, my office was taken over by everything else imaginable. Deputy Dave is helping to get this room under control and to re-purpose it as a Relaxation Room that will have our musical instruments, our home computer and a tv in the corner for old-style video games. I have floor to ceiling built-in bookshelves on the other side of the room that Deputy Dave custom built for me, so the Relaxation Room always has a good book ready to be enjoyed.

That's my old piano I've played since childhood. My brother and sister,
 while growing up, each had our own instruments
to play...my brother, the Trombone, my sister, the Clarinet
and I selected the piano...the non-portable instrument.
But, I still play, every week. I've never stopped playing.
The good thing with my instrument, it was not small
enough to shove in a closet and it never bored me.

We're far from finished, but here is the old office as it is making its transformation from qualifying to be on the "Hoarding" show to being a room of enjoyment and organization. I'll post updated pictures after we get finished, it'll take another week.

Shaye and I are going to do another project today. I'm thinking we'll make her a beaded necklace that says, "Kindergarten." We have little lettered beads to add to the design and she is a big girl headed off to Kindergarten in a couple of weeks, so we might as well make fun jewelry and celebrate!

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P.S. Go visit http://www.georgiafarmwoman.blogspot.com/ today for an awesome give-away contest of a chicken nesting box that her husband makes on their farm. "FarmMan" is very talented and you'd love to simply read about all of their farm happenings and you'd get to take a look at the HenPals nest box that FarmMan builds himself.