Ah, the urban farmyard.
Thumper and I had some damn fine timing today when we headed out to play. Our chicken-keeping neighbor was just about to gather the eggs from his coop and invited Thumper in to help him. This happens fairly often. The kid is going to be an expert chicken tender by the time he’s ten. Already you should see his style shooing them back into the coop after they’ve had some free range time along the sidewalk and the neighbors’ yards. There were four eggs gathered today and the neighbor gave them to Thumper (who kindly allowed me to carry them home and cook them).
Here they are fresh from the coop:
They looked rather more appetizing after a good washing:
After we parted ways with the chicken-keeping neighbor, we dropped in on another favorite neighbor, who handed me a freshly baked soda bread. I was tempted to keep visiting neighbors to see if I could turn up an entire meal that way, but decided to head home and get started on the split pea soup I’d planned.
Dinner tonight: split pea soup, scrambled eggs, broccoli, soda bread. Obviously we’re neither carnivores nor Irish.
Have I mentioned lately how very much I love our neighborhood?
Those eggs look lovely – maybe I should look into moving so I can have chickens…but the husband is against chickens too (not just the neighbors). Can’t really replace the husband : )
That’s how we get our eggs. It’s always amazing to me to crack one open and witness how much richer and yellowier the yolk the runs than those pale imitations one finds in the supermarket. On our last batch, there was an egg in there with a hair sprouting from the shit. I had to sit there and think about that for a while.
Oh I love those blue-green eggs; I’ve admired them on (gasp) Martha Stewart. The one show of hers I ever watched. No really, I only watched it because there were baby chicks. Honest. Uh-huh.
Ohhhhh, I have chicken envy. All except the upkeep part — the fencing and the cooping, etc. Sigh.
Wow. Sigh. Sounds like utopia. We are moving to a small town in a month, & many of my dreams go something like that.
My youngest as a little kid used to get frustrated about gathering eggs cause my mother got up so early, the eggs were generally gathered by the time he got up. One day, he snuck out to the barn alone (not supposed to – roosters attack!) then came back in with 2 eggs. Since she’d already gathered the eggs, Mum asked him how he got those. His reply: “I shook em out of the chickens.”
I’m so jealous of your neighbour’s hens! Our city recently banned the keeping of hens – and despite public outcry about the benfits of urban farming, they aren’t reversing their decision.
Dumb arses.
It sounds like you have very nice neighbors in Utopia. I would love to have chickens. I think I am legally allowed to have three in my city.