Pretty in pink

One of my customers, Emily, sent me this picture.  She said she just had to take it because, to quote her, "It's the prettiest dozen eggs I ever did see!"

Thanks for letting me copy this, Emily.  I think you are right, it is the prettiest!  The carton is the perfect backdrop for that.  Thanks, Elizabeth Zapf, for the great cartons!

Pretty in Pink!!

Modem problems

CenturyLink and I are best friends.  I call them about once a week.  This morning I couldn't get on internet.  Another half hour on the phone, and a technician who really knew her stuff. 

She walked me through resetting my modem.  I cannot believe how slick everything is working!  Well, I need to check emails.  I can see they are pouring in now that everything is working like it is supposed to.

Then back to the kitchen.  It is Purple Porch day, and I have a LOT of baking to do!  It seems that baking is my primary source of sales now.  Nice to know people like my bread and my brownies.  And I can't even eat them myself!  But I do love the smells in my house on Wednesdays.

You can't fool a Campine!

In the winter, when there is very little light, hens lay very few eggs.  I put a light in the Moop to fool them, and egg production did increase a bit.  But only BROWN eggs.  The Campines lay white eggs, and they were having none of it.  They can tell the difference between a light bulb and the sun!  For about six weeks, I got the occasional white egg, maybe one or two a week, but that was it.

Lo and behold, spring is upon us, the days are lengthening, and the Campines have decided to start laying again!  I don't have many left.  They are old hens, should have been put in the stew pot long ago, but they are my friends and I just didn't do it.  Some of these hens are hitting the five year mark.  And they are laying!  As a percentage of hens that are laying eggs each day, the Campines are laying more heavily than any of the other breeds.

I have named very few hens because they are impossible to tell apart.  But there are a few who are unique.  There is Fuzzy, who has fuzzy feathers around her neck, and Goldie, one of the four chicks who imprinted on me and who has unusual coloring, and there is Miss Blue who also has a fuzzy neck and beautiful blue gray feathers.  Miss Blue laid blue eggs until she quit laying altogether last summer.  I have thought that I should put her to rest.  I would get a pot of soup out of her, and I wouldn't have to feed her any more of that expensive certified organic soy-free feed.  But I didn't.

Friday I got a blue egg!  Well, I thought, that was a quirk.  Saturday I got another blue egg.  Is Miss Blue back in business?  We will see what is in the nest today.

One must just have faith in the girls.  I am not getting any more chicks this year, because I am unsure of whether or not the farm will sell, and the chickens are not part of the agreement with Steve.  So I am relying on my old girls to take care of my egg business.  They have gone from four a day to 16 a day in the last week.  You go, girls!  Three-egg omelet for breakfast today.

Note the blue egg from Miss Blue.

A new day

Yesterday I stopped by the river house with the man I hope will be doing the carpentry work.  He has agreed to use Cole if he takes the job.  Cole is a friend, a young man who has been doing the gutting on the property.  He is a good worker, and he wants to learn the trades.  What a great thing it would be if I can find contractors who will let him work for them.  The man whom I prefer to do the furnace, plumbing and wiring also said he would consider using Cole.

Anyway, this carpenter found the reason for my wavy floor in what is to become the kitchen.  Now how it will get fixed is another issue, but he thinks he knows.  I was impressed that he found it, when one person who had been in the house didn't seem to think it was an issue (the person who introduced me to Cole), or at least never mentioned it, and another person was totally puzzled about why it was so uneven.

There is still some tearing out to do - this person who brought Cole into the picture set him to putting in furring strips (without my authority) so that I could increase the amount of insulation in the side walls.  I had already done an analysis, and the extra insulation was going to save me $9.80 per year - yes, PER YEAR! - so why on earth would I spend money on the wood as well as the time it would take Cole to do it?  I had told Cole I didn't want to do it, and yet this other person came into my house and set Cole on the job, bought the furring strips, and by the time I found out what was going on, it was nearly done.  Now Cole is tearing them all out.

Why would I have them taken down when they are already there?  I do not want to pay for the wood, or for Cole's time to do it, or for the more expensive insulation that would be required in the walls.  At $9.80 savings per year, I would have to live to about 300 in order to recoup the cost!

I hope this person who interfered and took advantage of him will be big enough to pay Cole for his time.  While Cole had been told I didn't want to do it and he should not have started it without checking with me, this person took advantage of Cole's youth and their friendship to misdirect him into doing something that I didn't want done.  For all I know, he might even have told Cole that I wanted it done.  I don't know.  I am no longer speaking to him.  He has refused to return the key I gave him (so that he could let Cole into the house), and so I am changing the lock.

Cole understands that he takes his direction from me and no one else.  He also knows that the contractor key I give him is for his use only.  It is just one more lesson to be learned if he wants to be a tradesman.  You do what you are hired to do, and you take your direction from the person who writes the checks.

Anyway, now you know why I was so very upset the other day.  But life goes on, and as soon as the last furring strip is removed from the house, I can put it behind me.