The big news today is that Maud, one of our three hens, has laid her second egg.
An egg to equal the first in size; a dear little egg–and all her own work.
The joy was written on Meredith’s face as she announced it in the kitchen.
We now have enough for an omelette–albeit the smallest two egg omelet in the world.
It may be more fun to poach or fry them individually and “lay” them ceremonially on a serving of the Swiss chard gratin that’s waiting to go into the oven for lunch.
The hens are new to the gaff–delivered by our dear friend and neighbour, Florence.
There are two Poules Soies* (Silkies) and one slightly larger Araucana**.
The Silkies are smaller than your average hen and delightful to look at.
They pad around together, pick over the compost heap together and shelter from rain under an outdoor furniture together. Safety in numbers!
Three Sisters–our Chekhovian hens.
They don’t know how calming their pad, pad, padding and peck, peck pecking is in these troubling times. Just watching them go about their business slows the heart-rate and diverts the mind.
As the sun sets and darkness descends, they make their way–together–to the newly-created chicken-run, an improvised enclosure, constructed between two buttresses of the church. Perfect.
Inside the pen is a little hen house–lent to us by Flo–that any house-proud hen would be happy to be seen in.
In the nesting box, Meredith placed a marble egg–pour encourager les autres–and it worked!
There’s just room for all three inside. There they huddle for the night, without a sound.
Last night though–while Amber and Lucette snoozed off–Maud was busy!
*The Silkie is a breed of chicken originally from China, named for its atypically fluffy plumage. The breed has several other unusual qualities, such as black skin and bones, blue earlobes, and five toes on each foot (most chickens have four). They are friendly and sociable too!
** The Araucana breed is originally from Chile and famous for laying blue eggs–though no proof of that yet!
Love your books, live in Spain and I’m neither diabetic or vegitarian, but my oh my. Done lots from the 2 books I have all work, wonderful flavours and for not a lot of work in the kitchen. Book 3 please.
Book 2–Healthy Eating for Life is my favourite.Smaller format and no photos but I am continually going back to it. Available on Amazon.
Hi Robin. I love Silkies. There’s a pub on Dartmoor with a big garden with tables and chairs for clients, where their poultry run free, most of them Silkies – delightful birds.Mind you, one of them seemed to have a very strange ‘topknot’ so we told it to get a refund from the hairdresser!
Hope it can still open…
Robin thank you for sharing with us. I remember when I was little, my grandmother had placed an object in the nest for the same reason, and a snake swallowed it. Poor snake. I don’t know if he made it or not.
Hi Robin, please congratulate Maud. Seems like you’re leading the good life what with all the vegetables you grow and animals you keep. Who says that chickens don’t have personalities? Wishing you Buona Salute.
Too right–every one is an individual.
When we were very young our mother had little money making schemes – donuts, night crawlers (to fishermen), chickens. We had a tiny frying pan, for my Dad’s daily egg. I remember she fried up the little pullet eggs for us, from the young hens. They were so funny and cute! Alas, the egg scheme did not make much pocket money for Lulu. So she had the chickens slaughtered (sorry), and put up the most delicious canned chicken meat, which she added to soups and stews. She always topped her stews with dumplings, mmm. A sweetly scented memory of our Mother, Lulu.
Lovely!
I love your messages about your idyllic life in France. Do your cat’s not mind the hens strutting their stuff around their territory? xx🐔🐈
They are respectful!
Dear Robin,
I love to receive your emails thank you. Always interesting and many bring a smile to my face and memories. Your and Meredith’s hens are lovely. My grandfather kept hens when I was a child so this bought back happy memories of finding and collecting up the eggs for my grandmother to make into lovely cakes and boiled for tea time with bread and butter soldiers. I was quite young and had to be so careful when collecting not to drop them. I didn’t realise when collecting I was bringing back the real eggs and the ones that where not real which encouraged the hens to lay. I can still see my Grandmother a smile on her face waiting at the back door in her pinafore apron to have the eggs of me the real eggs and the pretend ones. Kind Regards Jane.
Great memory, Jane.
I love this! I always wanted chickens, but our neighbor has a pair that visit our yard often. I love their clucking. What a terrific place for the coop, and I love the other one in your courtyard.
My best to you and Meredith!
Claudia
Claudia Gallant
yayagal1@hotmail.com
619 972-4307
Thank you Claudia.Take care.
Hello Robin,
Long ago, my dad was a pigeon fancier and had a flock of racing pigeons in the suburbs of New Jersey. The birds would circle the house in flight, round and round. My dad would whistle a little tune and the birds would know to come back home, especially as they knew food was in the offing. All these decades later, I have a little parakeet, and I find myself whistling that same little tune to my bird. I also carry a very small marble egg in my handbag, my lucky charm and a remembrance of my dear dad.
Lovely memory, Julie. Made think of Marlon Brando’s pigeons in On the Waterfront.
Thank you Robin! As always a delightful little glimpse into life In your little ‘Eden’ It most certainly diverts the mind and slows the heart- rate! Bless you both
Country life is the best! But what do your Meows think?
They keep their distance!
These joys much needed in these times. THANK YOU FROM BROOKLYN NY
A lively posting. Three sweet hens!!
Lovely hens. Reminded me of my grandmother’s little farm in 1960’s rural Mississippi.
We called it a glass egg but I realize that I am not sure of the material.
I liked to watch Moemoe’s hens QUICKLY peck the leftover part of a watermelon down to the rind.
I bet those eggs are so much more flavorful than store bought.
There’s nothing to compare with fresh eggs laid by free-range hens. Factory-farmed eggs are blah.
So lovely …do you have predators to worry about? Here in West MArin CA there are fox, raccoons and even squirrels sometime!
That’s the reason for the hen house.
That’s great. Fresh eggs. Had never seen that type of hen before. They look sweet.
Very luck hens, we use to have them, they enjoyed being cuddled and would go to sleep in our arms, napkin to sit on, just in case! 🥰 a good tip it to crumble the shells and bake in a low temp oven then feed them to the hens, the calcium will help to keep them healthy, producing good firm shells to their eggs! Keep safe both of you, Cornwall has a very low number of infections, but still lots of visitors here! Regards Beryl
We will follow your tip. Thanks Beryl.
The hens we use to have, when our daughters were young, were rescued by them from the local farm, where they use to help exercise and look after the horses. The farm also reared chicks to point of lay, then a large lorry would turn up to take them onward to the egg farms, one or two would inevitably evade capture to the joy of our youngest Linda, who would arrive home on her bike, all smiles, straw in her hair from cleaning out the horses, but tucked inside her zipped up jacket would be the rescued bird all cosy, need I say, they were all given names, Mrs Perkins, Henny Penny etc., looked after like Royalty and provided us with lovely brown eggs. One day we bought two Aylesbury ducks to save them from slaughter, they enjoyed a happy life with us, they rewarded us with lovely eggs, the best for cake making. Happy days!
Best Regards Beryl
Lovely stories.