Do you remember earlier this year I wrote about my utter infatuation with my 5 new girls: Dot, Mildred, Petal, Rosie and Audrey? Well, today they finally came through for me! And not in a small way, either. You see, I gave up checking their laying boxes 2 weeks ago because they hadn't started laying by the time the weather turned cold (chooks usually go off the lay in winter). But today, to our surprise, we went into to change their straw and found not 2, not 5, but 18 EGGS! To say I was thrilled is an understatement!
Lucy, our 3-year-old, came running inside to declare that the girls had laid their first eggs. So out I went with an egg carton - kindly given by our neighbour Patricia, who takes great interest in our girls. Excited, but somewhat distracted by my dutiful washing and refilling of their water trough, I almost fell over when Clinton sent me back inside for a second carton! Yes, in 2 weeks and without our knowledge, our girls had laid a dozen-and-a-half perfect white eggs.
Alice, our 5-year-old, thought it was the best day ever! She cradled those precious parcels as if they were gold and thanked the girls for their hard work.
But what does one do with 18 eggs, in addition to the 12 store-bought ones already in the fridge? I'm planning pie, of course. Lemon meringue pie. With the fresh lemons from our little tree.
It's been a while since we harvested anything from home - setting up a vegetable garden going into a Canberra winter just didn't seem to make sense - so it felt really nice to go back to 'gathering' today. And if you're nice, I might even share tomorrow's baking with you. Maybe.
