Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken, Lay A Little Egg For Me!

OK I think I need to admit something to the group... *stands up and takes a deep breath* "my name is Beth and I am an egg addict, I need help!"

I fear they want their eggs back!

I am desperate to get some chickens of my own but until then I'm going to have to make do with visiting my fabulously feathered friends at the farm.

Geoff the chicken trying to get in the car with us

Valerie the Bantam

We just happened to pop by the farm as I had gone into 'I've only got 4 eggs left in the house and I might run out' panic mode, I'm the same with milk, you just never know, do you? I got out of the car with my collection of pennies to put in the egg post box and as I looked through the box on the wall to hopefully find some bantam eggs poor Mr Lardshow was trying to prevent a steady stream of chickens from getting into the car!

As we herded the chucks out of the way another car approached, trundling down the lane. The chickens went clucking mad! As the people in the car got out, more and more chickens streamed through a gate. They obviously knew the people in the car!

 

Daddy's home and he's got food!

We asked the farm owners how many chickens they had, they have 'about' 200! can you believe that? But they're not all cooped up in a barn, they're roaming free around the farm, in the fields and outhouses. How wonderful is that? Happy chickens = happy eggs = Happy Betsan!

Happy Eggs

 So the question for all of you out there, hopefully reading this is...Do you think it's possible to have a house chicken? Finn and Berry wouldn't mind would they?

Happy Happy Chucks

Baby Bantams

We went back to the farm...

And inside the box of chicken delights there were some bantam eggs! Such excitement, much scrabbling to get enough pennies together to be able to buy the bantam and hen's eggs. Yup we now have enough eggs to keep us going until ooh at least next week. 

There's just something so perfect about the shape and colour of an egg that's come from a happy chicken. I just can't understand why any one would buy caged hen's eggs nowadays. 

I've never eaten bantam eggs before and I assumed that they would be just like mini eggs (not the chocolate ones!). When we cracked them open we were greeted with the sight of the brightest yellow-orange yolk I've ever seen  and when we fried it we realised the yolk was pretty much the same size as a normal egg. There was much less egg white, perfect for me!

So as you can probably tell I've been having a go at taking more photos using Mr Lardshow's camera, he says it's now my camera but I fear that if I say it's my camera he'll make me carry it and it weighs a bloomin ton! Much better to say I'm borrowing it... I've never really been that creative or arty (More of a home economics girl, me) but I'm trying to use different colours and textures to make my pictures more interesting. I'm now starting to look at everything with a camera's lense. The good thing is you can add shadow, depth and texture after you've taken a really bad photo!

An Egg-celent Adventure!

Good Morning to you! I say morning, it is, I know, the afternoon. My body clock has gone a bit haywire since I started taking more of my tablets. I've been awake for two hours and I'm exhausted again now. All I manage is a quick potter downstairs and then I flop back into bed. Finn looks at me each time I return, climbs on top of me and gives me that look. The look that means "Why don't you just stay in bed with me?"

Anyway to the adventure. Adventure I hear you say? Yes ADVENTURE! Let me just clarify, an adventure for me is just leaving the house, nothing fancy like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, just putting on outdoor shoes! So last night after tea, we decided to go out for a drive to get me out of the house. We packed the car bag (full of emergency tablets, moisturiser and lipsticks), filled the hot water bottles and away we went. Mr Lardshow wanted to try and work out how to get to a pond filled with trees that he wants to photograph, we couldn't actually work out how to get there but we did end up going down a road filled with hidden farmhouses. As we were trying to find a place to turn round and head back home we noticed a box attached to the wall of one of the farmhouses. We stopped and opened the box that was covered in little chickens. Inside were little egg boxes, full of the most perfect, freshly laid, free range eggs!

It is the simple things in life that give me pleasure and you would not believe the giddiness that buying these eggs has given me. They are just beautiful. I cannot wait to eat them.

So now the big question is what to use them for? I've got my eye on the biggest one for my lunch today. Although it'll probably be afternoon tea by the time I get round to making lunch. Mr Lardshow spent the night trying to persuade me that we should have a fry up for tea tonight, I have taken to responding with 'hmmmm' when he gets these fanciful ideas in his head. 'Hmmmm' means 'Er, I think you'll find my love, the answer to that request is NO!'

I want to bake with them, I can just picture the yellow fluffy sponge that you would get from these little delights...Now if I can just stay awake enough to do it...