Egg-cellent!

I've been a bit quiet on this blog for the past week or so. Mostly due to the fact that I was "unplugged" up in the Northern part of Minnesota at a much-needed Women's Retreat at Camp du Nord with some of my dear friends. We've been snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, getting naked in the sauna (seriously), gathering, laughing, crying, sleeping and just BEING. It was perfect and just what I needed.

One of the biggest pieces of this life of homeschooling and living outside of the city (both of which are fairly new to me), is having a circle of women - a community of people - that you can come together with on a regular basis. These women support me and accept me for who I am, right where I'm at, on any given day. And for that I am so grateful. I don't know what I'd do without them...

And I don't know what I'd do without access to Mother Nature...

BUT, as important as that is, that's not what made me pull out my computer today! What made me pull out my computer is...WE'VE BEEN GETTING EGGS AGAIN!

I know, I know...some of you that have chickens are wondering why our ladies ever stopped. I know plenty of people that get eggs all year long without skipping a day. Blissful. Well, the truth is that in preparation for the winter, we don't heat the coop; we don't add supplemental light; we don't "mess" with their "natural" rhythm and cycles and therefore, there are plenty of days in the dead of winter where we don't see a single egg. This is due to many factors including, but not limited to, the lack of light (chickens need at least 12 hours of sunshine a day to lay) and the extreme cold. Minnesota gets DARN TOOTIN' COLD. When it dropped to -25 degrees, the ladies put the majority of their energy just into staying warm (understandably so as I was doing the same except I was cuddled under a down comforter in my warm bed)...and the egg strike was on. We didn't see a single egg for weeks. Maybe months.

But, times have changed. They have been venturing out with the longer, warmer days and they seem happy to be clucking, scratching and pecking around again. With happy chickens, come beautiful nutritious eggs! Now we're getting at least an egg or two a day (which is a big deal in this neck of the woods).

You know what that means! Eggs and toast for breakfast and hard-boiled eggs for snack. I'm a happy camper.

Simply put, I think it's EGG-CELLENT!