Our six Isa Browns ready to roost for the night
On these late autumn mornings, I wait for
the fog to burn off before hen chores. This allows the ladies time to lay a
handful or two of eggs for the freshest and most nutritious breakfast known to mankind.
As
I’d expected with the shorter days and cooler weather, our six Isa Browns have
reduced production. No more ten eggs a day, nor a surprise dozen, handy for
batches of summer’s potato salads.
Even so, half a
dozen eggs a day are more than enough for meals and baking. The recipients of our
surplus call me “The Egg Lady.”
The only friend
who declined a carton said, “I’m sorry, Iris, but I’ve never been able to eat a
brown egg.”
Astonished, I
replied, “But they’re not brown inside! They’re the same as a white egg!”
She shook her head
in all sincerity. “Give them to someone who will appreciate them.”
Very wise advice to
a gift-giver.
Truly, when Andy, our
late friend and handyman, built our henhouse, I had no experience with hen
husbandry. Sure, my mother grew up on a farm and told stories about feisty
roosters, broody hens, and fluffy baby chicks.
On summer
vacations, when my sisters and I were young, we ran races and climbed apple
trees where Uncle Herm’s chickens roamed in the McCoy Bottom. I knew hens didn’t
need a rooster to lay eggs. Now, how the hen laid an egg with a chick inside remained
a mystery.
However, Andy
spoke frankly about the propensity of free range hens to do exactly that on a
neighbor’s property.
“Keep it simple,”
he said. “I’ll build an enclosed pen on wheels so you can move the hens around to
range safely.”
He promptly delivered
our “tractor pen” with “A Guide to Raising Chickens” by Gail Damerow. “All you
need to know about hens and eggs is in this book,” Andy said.
On page 150 is
this piece of folk medicine: “To treat a wound and speed healing, the
protein-rich membrane inside the shell is peeled away and bandaged in place
over a cut. Raw eggs are also used as beauty aids—whites in facials, yolks in
shampoos and hair conditioners.”
I cannot remember Mom
using egg membranes for bandages or for her beautification. After years mucking
their house, feeding, watering, doctoring, and gathering their eggs, I cannot
imagine sacrificing an Isa Brown’s labor for my beauty.
However, that may
change as my skin wrinkles and hair thins.
Meanwhile, I find
my captive companions waiting at their chute, thank them for their food, and
let them loose into their pen. They run to kitchen scraps and a head of cabbage
they peck to the core.
Dear Reader, when
I saunter back up the ridge these concluding, golden days of falling sugar
maple leaves, I look to the west—wave to the long-legged shadow of the Egg Lady
cast upon the bright red landscape.
“Keep it simple,” she
says. “Give this goodness to someone who will appreciate it.”
