It’s been quite a few weeks now that we’ve been collecting eggs from our hens. We usually get five eggs a day, once in a while one of them might skip a day and we search the coop in vain for the 5^th egg – but even at 4 eggs a day, we are rolling in eggs.

During Christmas baking season, I was just about keeping up with supply. An Angel Food cake (12 egg whites) for Christmas Day dinner eliminated one carton of eggs from the refrigerator at a time when refrigerator space was at a premium, what with that standing rib roast and various accompaniments.

Now we are finding that a dinner or two a week centers around eggs. We’ve had egg casserole, egg omelets, eggs over easy with toast, quiche and my personal favorite – one of those glorious French salads with greens, pancetta, fresh croutons and a pouched egg – the yolk running through the salad makes the best dressing ever!  And pasta is nothing but EGGS and flour, so that can be on the menu every week too — just think of all the options that brings to the table!

The girls seem happy in their coop. They hear us approaching, waddle down their chicken ladder and cluster around the coop door waiting to see what we’ve brought for them.  They get lots of goodies from the kitchen – well, they consider them goodies – things like the discards from celery stalks or heads of lettuce, peels from potatoes, cores of apples – all stuff that would go in the garbage disposal if we had one – but goes to the chickens instead.  We also give them chicken scratch – a combination of cracked corn and other grains that they go crazy for.  They know when they are getting scratch and are likely to try to fly out of the coop door in anticipation.  They eat out of our hands and they talk to us – a soft clucking that gets louder and more excited as we approach.  The fact that Chris “peeps” back to them only adds to their excitement.  Arianna (who is learning Spanish in school), wants to know how he learned to speak chicken.  Maybe they’ll have to add that to the course selection at her school.