Free range eggs

Last Easter, DH was at the local hardware store.  They had chicks there, and he came home with three.  Why? I asked.  He laughed and said it would be good for the boys, and when they got bigger, he would give the chickens away.

Well, they did get bigger.  But he didn't give them away.  Instead, he threw them out into the yard.  One of the two white ones wandered too close to the dog and perished.  The remaining chickens (both hens) have become free-range suburban chickens.

I protested having the birds in the yard.  We live in a restricted covenent community, and I don't want to draw the attention of the neighborhood PTB.  I'd like to fly under the radar with our critters.

DH continued to laugh.  One of the neighbors did ask him about the chickens.  DH said that they were wild chickens - and that wasn't exactly a lie.  Because you can't catch them.  The white one is especially skittish.  Which, if you're a chicken and not in possession of much grey matter, is probably a good thing.


Lately they have been wandering into the neighbor's yards.  Our buddy Bubba (4 doors up, across the street) got a call from his wife the other morning.  She was laughing at the chickens wandering through their front yard.

DH says they're hell on bugs, and will pounce on those little lizards.  They roost in a big fig tree in our side yard, safe from the coyotes.  My sister has chickens (and a pen and a chicken house) at her home, and she gets eggs.  So we started looking.  And looking.  They were spending a lot of time in our front shrubbery.  So DH looked a bit further.

(I think the red hen is quite pretty.)

Lo and behold, we found eggs!  So we've been gathering the eggs as often as we can.  DH has made a little house for them in the shrubbery, and they're using it.

There are two kinds of eggs - white and brown.  The egg in the back is a store-bought large eggs, the other two are home grown.  Want to see what was inside?

The light yellow yolk is from the store-bought egg - the orangy one is a free range egg.  It sits up high and is full of nutrients.

I scrambled it up and ate it for breakfast.  Yum!

And here is the sunset from Saturday, in our neighborhood.

(I'll show you some tatting next time.  I promise.)