Wednesday, August 25

on the subject of eggs

Once you've seen one homesteady slightly broken down [hey! -ed.] chicken coop you've pretty much seen them all. Me below circa 1977, in our second chicken run, this one attached to the coop which was part of the barn. Used to be mean and lock Sis in there... Beacon Feed bag stretched over as a swinging door. Beacon Milling (from upstate NY) was closed in 1986 after being subsumed by Cargill -though I don't know the politics of it all.

Putting aside the treament of the animals, or the danger of nationwide distribution by the industrial food complex (cough salmonella outbreak cough); fresh eggs from well fed freerangey type birds are simply light years better tasting. Shockingly so. Long/short good chickens can lay almost an egg a day -less in the winter (light patterns etc) so a family could get by with 6 hens I bet, Pops has more. So cool for the kids to see all this go down. Plus hearing a rooster crowing (not necessary for eggs) gets into your DNA.