Comes the time, comes the word.

The word is "pwned," or "pwnd." According to Urban Dictionary, it "basically means...to be dominated by an opponent or situation, especially by some god-like or computer-like force." It is a voguish, Internet-based word, and lacks vowels to an unpronounceable extent. All of which council against its usage in general writing.

But comes the time, comes the word. I could write that, yesterday, Molson was bested by an opponent or situation beyond his comprehension. But the most elegant way to express yesterday's events? Molson got PWNED.

Molson loves to do his egg eating trick--you know, the one where he eats an egg. He'd do it all day long if we let him. So we are careful never to leave him alone in a room with eggs.

He, in turn, waits patiently to be left alone in a room with eggs. He knows it's going to happen sooner or later. And he's picky about his opportunities--he doesn't risk egg theft when we might hear him standing up on the counter, or if we might come back before he is through. But yesterday morning, when Amy got in the shower, Molson knew his time had come.

There was an egg in a plastic produce bag on the counter. Molson took down the bag, and carefully removed the egg without damaging the bag. Then he went to bask in front of the wood stove with his ill-gotten treasure. Which is where Amy found him, sulky and confused, twenty minutes later. He had been working hard on this:

(remember these?)

PWNED!

PS: Come to think of it, that wooden egg fooled three completely different species yesterday. The chickens were fooled by it and laid eggs around it; the human egg collector was fooled by it and collected it with the real eggs, and then Molson was fooled so hard he was epically pwned. Of all domestic species, only the cat escaped being tricked by that egg... or, if it did fool him, he'll never tell.

IT FINALLY HAPPENED!

Green egg! Green egg! Green egg!



Ever since this year's crop of young 'uns started producing their first eggs, I have been waiting on tenterhooks--TENTERHOOKS!--for the Ameraucanas' first pastel eggs. I have been checking, like, five times a day. Finally, today, hooray!! One of the Ameraucana hens has become a woman! (er, a hen woman...who makes eggs...)


Green egg!!

But what happens when you find an egg with a crack in it?

Dog heaven.

Molson has a 7-step procedure he follows to the letter when he is offered an egg:

1. Take egg!
2. Find perfect place to lie down with egg.
3. Gingerly allow egg to roll from mouth. (Not too far!!!)
4. Using front teeth only: gently, gently, gently crack egg.
5. Now, quickly! Lap the goodness from inside.
6. Shell = gross. Leave the shell for some other sucker to clean up.


7. Point belly to the sky. Bask.

Ahhhh.

Joke for a Southern accent

{Note: Joke involves meringue, and must be told while wearing a ring, using a Southern accent, in the presence of lemon meringue pie. Ready? Go:}
Q: How is this pie like mah hand?
A: It's got meringue on it! {display your ring.}


Today's goal was "meringue." I have never made meringue before, but apparently it's mostly just egg whites (which I possess in abundance), and sugar (which is delicious). It requires some fancy accoutrements, though: it is supposed to be piped from a piping bag, plus it is supposed to be baked on parchment paper. Both of which items are so exotically domestic that meringues seem to come straight from a filmstrip about a 1950's housewife. (The phrase "stiff peaks" is also involved with meringues, which phrase reminds me of bras of that era.)

Lost in my own little cinematic time warp, I preheated the oven and set out my ingredients. But suddenly my oven went nuts. "BEEEEP," it went, in an unfamiliar way. "BEEEEP...BEEEEP...BEEEEP" I turned around to find out what it wanted. "-F4-" said its digital display. I started pushing buttons at random.
When I hit the "Oven Cancel" button, the beeping subsided and the digital display reverted to clock mode. "Hmmm," I thought. Experimentally, I hit the "Bake" button again, and the beeping and F4'ing started all over again. I hastily canceled the oven once more.

We have cracked the code to ovenspeak: "-F4-" means "NO MERINGUES FOR YOU!"

Free tatas:

Or, as they are normally spelled, frittatas.

If you are plumb out of dinner ingredients, but you have some chickens and some plants, frittatas are here to save the day.

Tonight's tasty dinner frittata (hastily planned after a brief 'no-ingredients' freakout) featured the following home-grown goods: broccoli, red onions, basil, and eggs, plus sliced cherry tomatoes on the side. From-the-cupboard ingredients were garlic, olive oil, and grated cheese. And voila, a tasty meal was pulled out of my...hat. Out of my hat.

Only egg whites went into the frittata, per the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home recipe for Light Broccoli Frittata on p. 296. This did make the product admirably light and not too eggy, but left six extraneous egg yolks. These were fed back to the chickens when I went out to the garden to cut the broccoli. It's a little gruesome to the thoughtful person, but the hens with egg yolks are like me with ice cream. They get inexpressibly delighted, rendered incapable for a minute even of making their normal 'great food here!' noises. They peck and glug, peck and glug singlemindedly at the delicious, sticky nectar.

Mmmmm...you know what's good dessert after frittatas? Ice cream.

Mmmmmm...iiiiice cream. I have to go now.

Infotainment: Shelf life

Q & A ON SHELF LIFE

Q: What is the shelf life of a farm-fresh egg?
A: According to the American Egg Board (www.aeb.org), raw eggs can be kept refrigerated for 4 to 5 weeks without much loss of quality. Those weeks start when the egg is created, though—so for grocery store eggs, aim for 3 weeks in your refrigerator. With the farm-fresh eggs in this carton, you get your full 4 to 5 weeks.

Q: What is the shelf life of a hard-boiled egg?
A: Properly refrigerated, hard-boiled eggs keep for 1 week.

Q: Why is the shelf life of a hard-boiled egg less than a raw egg??
A: Hard-boiling an egg removes the bloom from its shell. (Remember the protective bloom?) Therefore, on a microscopic level, the shell is now 'drafty.' Bacteria, off-flavors, and weird refrigerator odors can drift in. So 1 week it is.

Infotainment: Part ONE

Each week I include an informative and entertaining insert with the eggs from my little flock. The first insert, "About Our Eggs" is essential; it's about egg safety. There is a difference between handling grocery store eggs and farm-fresh eggs. What is this difference? Read on...

About Our Eggs
EGG SAFETY!
We don't wash our eggs, and you shouldn't either until just before you are ready to use the egg.
* Why DON'T we wash the eggs?? Are we lazy?
When a chicken lays an egg, there is a microscopically thin membrane that covers the egg's shell. This membrane is called "the bloom". The bloom is the egg's way of protecting itself against germs and harmful bacteria. It blocks the egg's pores, sealing it off from outside contamination and slowing down the aging process. Washing off the egg also washes off the protective bloom.
* Why SHOULD you wash an egg?? Isn't it organic?
There is pretty much only one exit from a chicken. It's called a 'vent.' Eggs go out the vent, and so does...everything else. (Now you know why eggs need a protective bloom.) So it's good to give the egg a wash off before you use it.
*I've never heard of this.
Grocery store eggs are washed when they are produced, then coated with mineral oil to re-seal the shell--like a man-made bloom. So you don't have to wash those eggs, because somebody already did.

As always, keep eggs refrigerated. Cook eggs, and food containing eggs, thoroughly.

Take THAT, conventional wisdom!

All eggs. ONE basket. Whoa!!!
Our hens produced 15 beautiful eggs yesterday, 13 of which are pictured. The other two...

Here's a tip: Conventional wisdom would suggest that you do not put all your eggs in one basket. But I'm here to tell you straight up, it is more important that you do not put five eggs in your pants pockets, four in each hand, and two clutched precariously in the crooks of your elbows. That is going to end badly.

"Uh, someone's IN here! Just a minute!"

"Jeez."
There is sometimes a line at the most popular nest box. Why is it so popular? I do not know.

But now you know why the Ledge Layer has such a good short-term plan. Lines are a thing of the past when you lay your egg in a crazy place.

Easter Eggs...

But no need for an Easter Egg Hunt, since no one told the hens that today is Easter. (Shhh.) These suckers were just in their nest boxes as per usual.

EXCEPT...for the egg that is always laid above the door. I'm pretty sure this egg is laid by a Barred Rock with poor long-term planning skills. Her babies would have a dangerous and circumscribed life, stranded on that ledge. It's pretty high--I know, because I have to hoist myself up to it, using a crossbeam and the door, to check for her egg every day.

Here is a blurry photo of the suspect:

The milk crate in the picture represents a failed experiment in chicken psychology. I thought if it blocked the Ledge Layer from getting into the small, secure corner of the eaves, she would quit laying up there, and go downstairs into the cozy, snug nest boxes. Wrong! Instead, she deposits her egg in the middle of the ledge, and the red hen sits on the crate to sleep.
So in some small way, we have an Easter Egg Hunt every day.