Egg Watch Continued: A new Era.

When last we left our faithful chickens, the score looked something like this:
Now it looks something like this:

That's Right! Not only has our faithful Dotty started laying, but she's actually starting to catch up. And! We've added a third chicken to "that thing we've got going on". She's an adoptee from the Redding Clan and she's..... really funny.

(No.... she's the one on the left..)

Her breed is white crested black polish, which is a very docile breed. This means she makes a really good pet but she's also always the lowest on the pecking order. She was getting picked on in her old flock, and she's still getting picked on here but to a lesser extent. Her feathers that had been pecked away are starting to fill in again. Her name is Mo, M and I call her "Me-Mo".
We think she's pretty cool, and she's the perfect addition to our Victory Farm.
(Victory over what, you ask?... Egglessness! We are victorious over Egglessness I say!)

The Key Words Were: OH NO!

As thanksgiving approaches, I'd like to start off with why I am thankful for my husband.
Yeah, blah, blah, he's a good dad, strikingly good looking and funny. Whatever. Let's get to the real reasons and to the story:

A couple of weeks ago, we are loading M in the car to go downtown. Everything is fine, we drive through our neighborhood and then got onto the freeway. Suddenly we hear something on the roof of the car.
Did something hit it?
Is something rolling across the roof?
I couldn't even describe what it sounded like before, poof, it stopped. Nothing.
Mr. Zimny looks at me, I can see him thinking.
"Do you have your keys? Did you leave them on the roof?"
Mama Pajama! He just knew.
Yes, I totally left my keys on the roof and while they couldn't fall off during the 19 bazillion turns we took on surface streets, they decided to fly off just as we merge on to the freeway.
Wait. It gets better.

Keep in mind, I have keys from multiple institutions on that key chain. Multiple Institutions that will require Multiple Re-keying for Multiple Buildings which I assume requires Multiple Large Fees from the person that lost their keys.
But I don't mention this in the car. It's too overwhelming. I just sit there.
But not Mr. Zimny... Mr. Zimny decides to find them.
Find them on the freeway. The freeway with 3 lanes of speeding cars.

He does a couple of loops of the section of freeway where we heard them fall. I had given up before we even started. But he is sees them, a tiny handful of keys on a mile stretch of highway. They are between the two lanes furthest from us and he pulls over.

I remember saying something about being careful and he stepped out and waited for traffic to clear. I didn't think it would. I turned to M in the backseat and said "This is where daddy gets pummeled doing something for mommy because she is an idiot."

Then, like magic, there were no cars in any of the 3 lanes and Mr. Zimny jogged across and picked them up.

Let's just say they're not the same.

Every key was bent, some where crumpled. They had been run over many times. My electronic opener was a shell of it's former self. Literally.
But they were all there. Mr. Zimny was also all there.
When we got home, he helped me straighten the salvageable ones and didn't mention it again.
Reasons #112 thru 115 why I am thankful for my husband: He knows and accepts and my faults, he is brave, determined and resourceful.
It doesn't hurt that he is strikingly good looking though.

Egg watch 2009

One day (about a week or so after the chix moved into the Chalet) The Leghorn started making a ton of noise. All of a sudden, in a "there is a cat trying to eat me" kind of tone.
I could hear her from the inside the kitchen, and walked out to make sure everything was ok.

What I found was an egg. A real egg.
I was egg-static.
It was egg-citing.
I was egg-normously relieved.
We're coming closer to egg-rarian living.
Com'on... bear with me here.
I've been waiting along time for these jokes.
The wait has been egg-scruciating.

Anyways, of course we started with the testing.
We compared our leghorn egg to a store bought egg and also to El Machinist's egg (from a Rhode Island Red).
Our Data:

Our's is a little smaller than both...
but it's her first egg in a long time....
On the inside:
You can see that ours had the darkest yellow yolk and also the highest yolk to egg white ratio. Hopefully they will keep getting bigger.
After the eggs kept coming, we started keeping a tally and this is what we are up to:
Ms. Egghorn is currently on about a 27 hour cycle, so every couple of days she skips the day. As the day time gets shorter, she will slow down more. Maybe when the weather gets warmer we'll be able to share!

Just Wrong.

Location, Location, Location

I just realized that the only difference between "pajamas" and "gym clothes" is your location. If you are in bed, they are "pajamas". If you're at the gym they are "gym clothes". The main difference is the presence of shoes. This brings new possibilities to my life.

Also, is it wrong that I am wearing my new heart monitor at the coffee shop? Mr. Zimny bought one for me, and my first thought was: "huh, I could use this to see how much coffee raises my heart rate."

I guess I could use it at the gym too.
Again, it comes down to location.