Apis Adventures

If you've been around here for awhile, then you'll know that a long time ago (seven years, to be more precise), I decided to look into adding beekeeping to our Holler adventures. I attended a workshop and then have done nothing more about it since then. Interestingly, the guy (and his family) who taught the workshop is now our neighbor--they live on the ridge; we live in the Holler. Our families have become good friends, and they have a few hives on their property.

Earlier this year, I had once again asked Seth if we could think about beekeeping and if I could go ahead and order a Flow Hive. Much to my surprise (since he had repeatedly said "no" in the past), he said yes. So I immediately placed an order and it arrived rather quickly.

Seth and the boys worked on putting it together.

After it was built, I put some tung oil on it, as per the suggestion that came with the hive.

So, we had a hive. Now we just needed bees.

I wasn't quite sure how to accomplish that. Should we order a colony of bees and have them delivered via UPS? Should I put signs up around the neighborhood, "This way to rent-free, clean, new apartment living designed especially for bees"? Should I stand outside and yell, "Here, bees! Here, bees!" It was a bit perplexing trying to figure out our next course of action.

Remember the guy who had hives that lived up the road from us? A few weeks ago, I was at their house for a Bible study on a Friday afternoon, and Tina had again offered to "catch a swarm" for us if the opportunity arose. Soon after that conversation, her oldest son walked into the house and said, "Did you know there's a swarm of bees down at the end our lane?"

Not wanting to deny that bit of providence, we quickly concluded the Bible study, I rushed home to get the brood box and lid, and Tina suited up (and also suited up one of her sons and Kieran).

We met up at the end of their lane, near the tree where the bees were swarming.  From what I've learned, bee swarms don't stay in one place for very long, so we just had a small window of time to catch them (just a few hours).

Tina got in position and proceeded to catch the swarm, with the help of her son Elijah (who was not suited but only suffered one sting in the process).

 

After the bees were in the box, Tina put the lid on, and then told me to return that evening to pick it up and bring it home. Really? I just put the box in my car and drive it home? Doesn't that seem . . . um . . . dangerous, fool-hardy, and like a really, really bad idea?



But, since they are the bee experts, I trusted them and returned later that evening, after it was dark. Sure enough, all the bees were in the box, and I very carefully placed a strip of tape across the opening. Then somehow I maneuvered it up and into the back of my car. I very carefully closed the door, drove back to our place, and very carefully maneuvered the box into the spot we had fixed for it, inside the chicken fence.

We put it in there because we thought the chickens could keep the grass around it short, so we wouldn't need to weed whack around it. And also so that they could eat any of the hive beetle larva that may fall out of the hive in the future, thus providing a nice symbiotic relationship.

As I look at it now, the set up seems a little rickety.
We may need to fix that in the future. 

For a few reasons, I've opened the hive and worked in it a couple times. It was actually much less stressful than I thought it would be. This bee suit makes me brave. I feel like I should start naming the bees.

And so now we wait. Let the Apis Adventures begin!

Another one bites the dust

Last year, I mentioned that we had a suicidal chicken. One of the new chickens recently began to join the suicidal one on her forays outside the fence. We hadn't clipped the wings of the new ones and one red chook (she was smaller and lighter than her sisters) was taking advantage of that and jumping over the fence to forage in the woods and the rest of our yard. She was taking her life in her own wings, and we never got around to stopping her by clipping her wing.

In fact, this was a video I took of her when she forgot how to get back in the yard. I take food out to the girls at night when I close up their coop, and she would get excited to get the food and couldn't remember how to get back inside so I would need to coax her back in. 

Alas, last night, when Seth and the boys went out to put the chickens away, they found her just outside the fence, unmoving (i.e., she was dead). We don't know what happened to her. She didn't have any obvious signs of trauma on her and there were no signs around her that she had been attacked. She hadn't been acting sick lately, either. 

Unlike, say, this black one. 

Notice that her tail feathers are down -- not up like the other chickens' feathers. She didn't have much energy and eventually we found her dead in the coop a few weeks ago. 

The red one that is recently deceased, however, had not been acting that way. Her demise was a surprise and a shock to the boys, who were sad. 

Since Seth was home at the time, he determined to bury her. Call me heartless and cruel (or maybe lazy), but I don't take such care when I find dead chickens -- I toss them over the fence into the neighbor's yard (the house has been foreclosed on and no one lives there any more).

At any rate, the boys were sad as they helped Seth turn her into garden fertilizer (we like to recycle as much as possible in the Holler).

Kieran said the eulogy for the chicken, "I want to remember all the good times we had together." (Those mainly consisted of him watching the chickens wander around the yard.)

 And Cael placed a rock and some flowers over her final resting place.

As they mourned the loss of another chicken, I let them be sad for a bit. In a way, I want them to feel the weight of what our sin (in a general sense) has brought about. We talked, again, about the reason chickens die -- because Adam and Eve sinned and we are living under the curse God placed on His creation as a result of that sin. That the God-decreed punishment for sin is death and that sin has affected the entire creation (Romans 8). And that our hope of salvation from death and eternal separation from God comes through repentance and faith in Jesus, what He did on the cross on our behalf, and His resurrection. And that we look forward to a new heaven and earth, when the curse will be no more and we will be able to enjoy God (and, most likely, chickens) forever.

BOGO Chicks

For as much as Seth calls the chickens "your chickens," they really our ours now. He buys them treats (mealworms and "fancy scratch grains"), likes to collect the eggs, and makes sure their coop is secure. He also likes the variety of egg colors we currently have (greenish and various shades of light brown) and has been wanting to add a few more chooks to the flock that would bring more variety to those colors. In March, he set out to look for new hens and ordered three Black Copper Marans, which lay dark chocolate-colored brown eggs. Because they are in such high demand, the earliest date they would be hatched and shipped was mid-June. (Note: I just read that Martha Stewart ordered Marans this year and when I told Seth, he said, "So, you're saying we need to send them back?") 

So we've been waiting since March for our new chicks to arrive. On Wednesday, I got an email notifying me they had been shipped (having hatched at 5am that morning) and on Friday, I got a call from the post office saying they had arrived and I needed to come pick them up. 

We pulled out the little coop Seth made a few years ago and got it all set up with food, pine chips, and water. And then we went to pick up the chicks. 

When we opened the box, there were three brownish chicks in the box, which I thought was a bit odd since we had ordered black chickens. I expected the chicks to be black, too. 

And I wondered why they were in such a confined space -- just that small area between the outer box and the inner box. 

We put those in the coop and then I opened the inner box to see if there was anything else we needed. And was surprised to find three more -- black -- chickens! 

That box had a small heating pack attached to the outside back of it and a bit of green food-type thing in. So . . . instead of three chicks, we now have six. I texted Seth and asked him how many he'd ordered and then I checked the original order -- sure enough, we had requested three. Not six.

I called the hatchery and apparently they send an extra chick or two with the order just in case one of the ones you order doesn't make it. We got three extra chicks. BOGO, I guess. They weren't able to tell me the breed of the extras they sent so we'll see what they turn out to be. My guess is Rhode Island Red.


Cael did the math ("Mom, what's 8 plus 3 plus 3?") and we now have 14 chickens. That's a lot more than I ever figured we'd have when we first started this chicken thing many years ago, but thanks to Seth's (and BIL Nate's) hard work over the years in expanding the coop, we have the space to keep that many.

Four of our current chickens are over two years old and have gone through their first molt, which means their egg production will start to drop soon (each chicken is born with a certain number of eggs they will produce and once they deplete that number, they are finished laying). The other four are just over a year old and have awhile to go before they are finished. So, these new six will pick up the egg-laying slack in a few months.

(As an aside, I'm not sure what we'll do when the older hens stop laying -- we've actually never had that problem before since all our previous chickens have always died in some form or fashion before they reached the end of their egg-producing capacity. I don't like the idea of keeping free-loaders around but I also don't like the idea of dispatching them myself . . . .)

Elizabeth and Cael have enjoyed holding the chickies, while Kieran will only pet them when someone else holds them.

We are moving ever onward with our little chicken farm. 

The Suicidal Chicken

While we were away during Christmas, we lost one of our chickens in an unfortunate accident. She was one of three Easter eggers (the ones that lay the greenish-colored eggs). It was a good opportunity to talk about the concept of subtraction with the boys -- ten chickens take away one leaves nine chickens. And sure enough, the boys counted nine chickens when we got home. They were, perhaps understandably, sad about the loss. 

It seems there was another who was also sad about the loss of her sister. This is one of the other Easter eggers. They are smaller than the other chickens and, this one in particular, seems to be on the low end of the pecking order (and the "pecking order" is very much a thing, amazingly enough). She keeps to herself in the nesting box area, gets hen-pecked by some of the larger chooks when they're in the yard, and keeps her distance when I bring food treats out to them in the evenings. Apparently, she knows her place (either that, or she's the smart one sleeping in the area with the heat lamp). But she and the one who went to the Great Coop in the Sky palled around together quite a bit. 

So, perhaps understandably, she was sad after the tragic passing of her friend. So much so that she began jumping over the five-foot fence we have around the enclosure and truly free-ranging in the yard and woods. We had clipped their wings last year but after they molted during the winter, their feathers grew back and she was, once again, able to spread her wings and take flight (at least a few feet in the air). 

I warned her several times that if she didn't stay in the coop she could potentially become fox/dog/coyote/coon (take her pick) feed. But she didn't seem to care. She'd jump up on the rail, pick her way across the wood, look back at her compadres, jump down to the ground, and then strut along the fence, as if to say to the others, "Betcha can't do that, kin ya?" (she is a Holler chicken, after all). And, it's true -- because the other chickens are bigger and heavier than she is, they aren't able to jump as high as she can and are resigned to free-ranging safely in the large enclosure Seth built for them.

However, it's almost as if she were taking her life into her own hands (or wings) on purpose. Maybe she was so bereft after her sister's untimely demise that she wanted to join her in the Great Chicken Coop in the Sky.

Cael would weep and wail whenever she jumped out, "Mommy, the chicken's out again, do something, Mommy! She'll get eaten by a coyote!" Until I explained that if she could jump out by herself then she could jolly well jump back in by herself and we needn't go chasing after a suicidal chicken every time her jumping whim struck.

Chewing on some fresh straw. Cuz that's what farmers do.

I really have been expecting to one day find her cold, dead body lying in the woods during roll call in the evenings. "Serves her right," I'd say. (I may or may not have the gift of mercy.)

So, perhaps understandably, I was surprised last Thursday when we got home, checked on the girls, and found one of the black hens dead as a doornail on the floor underneath the nesting boxes. She would stay with the suicidal chicken during the nights, so perhaps the tension in the coop became too much for her. Maybe the stress of watching her sister daily take her life in her wings was too difficult. Maybe she, even moreso than the suicidal one, felt the loss of the other sister deeply but was hiding it well until it just became too much. 

As usual, I texted Seth, told him about the loss, asked him what to do, and then asked him when he'd be home to do it.

He didn't find any signs of obvious trauma on her and we didn't see any evidence that something had gotten into the coop (all feathers were intact, there were not signs of struggle), so we're not sure what happened. Seth's theory is that a spider bit her. Cael thinks it was a snake. Kieran suggested an auger got her (his latest obsession). And I googled "Sudden Chicken Death" . . . again. 

Sometimes, when we're outside in the evenings,
we let the chickens out in the yard for a bit
since we're around to keep the predators at bay.

I don't have an answer for why the black one died and the suicidal one is still alive. But then, sometimes in life, there are no answers. Only chickens.

A new layer

Gathering the eggs from the chickens at the end of the day is one of those things that we all find enjoyable, including Seth. The other day, he brought them in and let me know he'd gathered 7. We have 6 currently laying chickens and four that we've been waiting on to reach the point of lay. So having 7 eggs meant that I had missed an egg the night before. Or so I thought. 

Until I looked at the eggs he'd brought in and realized that we did, indeed, have a new layer. When a hen first starts laying, the eggs are smaller. They gradually increase in size until they reach their max size after a few months. 

And one of the eggs was definitely smaller than the others. 

It was even more clear when I cracked them for my morning omelette. 

I'm not quite sure which of the new chicks to congratulate and welcome to hen-hood, however. The barred rock (black and white) and Rhode Island Red (dark red) chickens in this picture are the newer ones. We had given them the leftovers of a pumpkin pie that had accidentally been made without sugar. And Kieran, who LOVES all things pumpkin, refused to eat it, so out it went to the chickens who LOVED it. 

In the past, I've seen a change in the color of their legs when they begin laying -- they tend to go from a brighter yellow to a softer yellow. I haven't seen any major change yet, although I have seen a black and white feather in the nesting boxes, so I'm thinking one of barred rocks may our new contributor. 

(Kieran went out the other day to check on them and decided to play tag with them. "Tag, you're it!" he said to one of them before running the other way. I don't think the chicken quite knew what to do . . . . .)

I had some older cartons of yogurt in the fridge that were still good but that no one was eating, so we shared them with the chickens. They enjoyed them. 

What are we doing with 7 eggs a day? Great question. We don't always get 7 eggs every day -- it varies from 2-7 (not all the chickens lay every day). And everyone in our family likes eggs in some form, so we end up eating our share of them. But when we do have an overabundance, we sell them to colleagues. Seth sells his dozen for $3 to a bodybuilder who offered that price (and said if we had a dozen every day, he would buy them from us). And I sell mine for $2. Because I've always sold them at that price and don't want to raise the rates on my loyal customers. I'm good like that. 

So now we wait for the other three chicks to begin their contributions to the Holler Farm . . . hopefully soon. 

Moving out

When I was cleaning out the barn last week, I serendipitously found this bag of diatomaceous earth that I ordered quite a long time ago. I had forgotten that I ordered two bags when I originally ordered it, so it was nice to find this one, especially since we were running low on the current bin of DE and I would have needed to order more soon. I use the DE with the chickens -- we mix it with their food and also scatter it around the coop. 

This past week, I used the DE to help clean up the coop and then put down some straw for the chickens. Rain water from the hill behind the coop runs right through it, so the straw helps to keep the mud at bay.

And since it was all freshly strawed, I figured it would be a good time to move the little chicks into their new home.

Last Wednesday, we carried them out to the Eglu, which sits inside the larger coop, and put them inside.

They weren't quite four weeks old, younger than when I usually kick them out of the house, but they seemed ready for the adventure. And I was definitely ready to send them on their way. 

The older chickens have pretty much ignored them for the most part. They sit on top of the Eglu to roost at night, but haven't made a big deal out of have visitors in their coop. Of course, that may all change once the little peeps are a few weeks old and I let them out of the Eglu and into the wide, wide world . . . .

He rides again, too

Today was one of those days that I wish we could have year-round. Sunny, warmish, a nice breeze, and nothing much to do except take it easy and get a few things done around the house (or barn, as the case may be). 

The little chicks even got to spend the afternoon outside. They seemed to enjoy their first foray into the outside world. 

Last year, we got a bike for Cael to ride but had problems finding training wheels that would fit it, so he's had to make do with sharing Kieran's little bike. Since we've retired Kieran's 12-inch bike (as of yesterday), I took the training wheels off that one and put them on Cael's and voila! They fit. So Cael spent some time today trying out his "new" bike. 

I mentioned to Cael that I thought we'd gotten him that bike for his birthday last year. And that maybe since he's now able to ride it, we could consider it his birthday present for this year (his birthday is in May) and not worry about getting him anything else. 

"No!" he said. "Wait, I already have presents for this year! They're in the boxes!" And, that's true. His grandparents shipped his presents to us already and we have them hiding in boxes in the closet. We didn't such a good job of hiding them, apparently.

In the process of cleaning out our barn, we were finally able to access Seth's mountain bike. He cleaned it up and took it for a ride down the lane.

We had started the barn clean up so we could get to my bike so that I could go for a ride with the boys. Kieran asked about it all day. But when we pulled out my bike, the tires were flat and one popped while Seth was pumping it up. So I never did get to take a bike ride with the boys, but the rest of the family enjoyed their bikes today and I enjoyed the feeling of having cleaned up (one area of) the barn.

The Biggest Loser

Seth wrestled his way through high school. And, by that, I mean that he was on the wrestling team at his high school. Wrestling was his "thing" because his parents wouldn't let him play football (he's still convinced he could have been a star running back in the NFL). He still likes to watch college wrestling on TV (if you follow college wrestling, you may note that the coach of the Penn State wrestling team has a name that may sound familiar . . . for the record, I did not know this until after we had named our youngest son). 

A few years ago, he saw that Rulon Gardner (an Olympic wrestler) would be appearing on The Biggest Loser TV show and decided to watch the show for that season, just to see Rulon. Sadly, Rulon ended up quitting half-way through the show, which made the rest of the season less than exciting for Seth. He (we) watched a few more seasons of The Biggest Loser and then, for some reason, we stopped. This year, Seth had the opportunity to participate in a "biggest loser" contest of his own, and he jumped (but didn't wrestle) at the chance. 

In an effort to encourage their employees toward better health (and, presumably, help lower their health insurance costs), Seth's employer held a "biggest loser" contest from February 1 through March 31. The prize was about $300 for the individual who won and $25/per person for the members of the winning team. This contest held appeal for him on several levels. 

1. It was a biggest loser contest. He didn't really have that much to lose to begin with but he thought he could stand to lose a few of those extra pounds that everyone has hanging around (what? you don't?!?). 

2. It was a biggest loser contest. If you don't know Seth well, you might miss the competitive streak that lurks underneath his mild-mannered exterior. I'm always surprised when it surfaces, as it did during the past two months. At the beginning, everyone said Seth would never win, which only served to further his desire to compete in the contest. 

3. Part of his plan of attack included riding the exercise bike that's been sitting in the corner of our living room for quite some time. He figured he could work on rehabbing his knee while he exercised the weight off -- a two-for-one bonus to the weight loss. 

And so, on February 1, he weighed in at work and then set about becoming the biggest loser among his coworkers. He started by hard-boiled eggs or yogurt for breakfast, salad for lunch, and then whatever we were eating for dinner, minus any carbs in the meal. He stopped going out to eat for lunch. And he began riding the exercise bike for 30 minutes to an hour every night. He also added a "metabolism booster" tea from Celestial Seasonsings, just in case that helped. He drank only water. 

And the weight loss began almost immediately. He figured if he lost 30 pounds over the next two months, that would secure his spot as the number 1 biggest loser, and he was counting on his experience as a wrestler (and all the weight loss that goes on in order to make weight) to help him. 

At the mid-way weigh-in on March 1, he registered a 24-pound weight loss. In one month. He was out-losing to all of his competitors, except his boss, who was on his team and who is just as competitive as he is. Luke (his boss) had lost nearly as much as he had percentage-wise. 

The competition continued. He ratcheted up the intensity on his workout on the bike, wanted more salad in his salad and less "extras," drank more metabolism tea, and, during the last week, switched to eating salads twice a day. 

I noticed the weight loss around his neck and face -- and several others commented to me about it, too. 

Yesterday, after two months of hard work (and salads), he weighed in for the last time. He had lost another 10 pounds, bringing his total to 34.5 pounds loss. A 17.6% decrease. And he was back to what he weighed when we got married. His team lost a total of 77 pounds -- a 9% decrease in their weight. The other four teams in the competition didn't get above a 3% decrease. 

And no one else, apart from Luke, who lost 27 pounds, even came close to losing as much as he did. I'm proud to say that my husband Seth is the biggest loser at his company. 

(I wish I were just as proud to say that I, too, joined him and lost just as much as he did. And, although I did somewhat engage in a weight-loss program, my loss has not been nearly as dramatic or quick as his (go figure). But at least I'm on the downward spiral.) 

Congratulations, Seth! Now, how about we have a date night at Outback to spend that money you won on some good, hearty food . . . . 

The Missing Ingredient

A long time ago, when I was a teenager, I made a batch of whoopie pies for some friends for Easter. Whoopie pies were considered a delicacy where we lived at the time, and I still enjoy them (Seth has made them a time or two). Whoopie pies have a chocolate (or other) cookie part and in between the two cookies is a bit of frosting. As I made the sugary frosting, I kept the blender going, wondering why the texture stayed grainy and wasn't smooth like the other whoopie pies I'd had. Finally, after many minutes of blending with no change to the texture, I added a bit of food coloring to the white frosting (in celebration of Easter) and blended some more. I never did get the smooth consistency I was looking for, and since it was time to go, I put the whoopie pies together and went to my friend's house. After I displayed my creations and mentioned that they had turned out a bit different than I thought, my friend Patti let me in on a secret -- the sugar I was supposed to use was confectioner's sugar, not regular granulated sugar. Needless to say most of that batch of whoopie pies went uneaten. Who knew there was such a big difference between 10x sugar and granulated sugar (besides all the people who have ever baked anything with them before)? 

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was anxious to get my garden started. We planted the seeds, generously watered, and then sat the seed box beside our window and waited for the plants to grow. I'd read the back of the packages that talked about watering the seeds, which we did, and about putting them in a "warm" place. I figured beside a sunny window in a 69-degree house constituted "warm." 

Apparently, I was wrong. Even though most had a germination time of 7-10 days, by the 10th day, nothing had grown. I was about to give up on our seeds and toss the whole thing out. 

And then we got the new chicks. And to keep the chicks warm, we put up a red heat lamp. Figuring that maybe the instructions on the seed packets perhaps knew what they were talking about after all, and that our seed did need more warmth that what we were currently providing them with, I finagled both the chick cage and the seed starter bin together under the heat lamp.

And, voila! The seeds have started to grow. Who knew warmth was such a key ingredient to seed growth (nevermind everyone who has ever read a seed packet and grown seeds themselves)?

Of course, now that the seeds are growing, Cael is anxious to pick them. I've had to remind him several times not to touch them and that it would be many months before we can harvest anything.

"Grrr," he says. "I've been waiting years for this already!"

New Arrivals

Seth has moved from the "they are YOUR chickens" phase to the "hey, chickens are kinda cool" phase, thankfully. So much so that recently he has been suggested that we get new baby chicks. Since our current chickens are heading into their second year, they'll be molting later this year and their egg production will drop during and after the molt. So, I agreed to getting new chickens to keep the eggs a comin'. 

Last week, he took the boys to our farm supply store to pick out some pullets, but that week's shipment was already picked over and they didn't have the breeds he was interested in. He likes the idea of having a variety of egg colors in our basket and wanted to add some darker shades to the mix via breeds such as the Welsummer. So, they came home empty-handed. 

Tonight, I got a text from him that said, "Been busy picking up chicks." And when he arrived home, he had these. 

Which Cael immediately had to hold. 

So, we pulled out all our chicken-raising paraphernalia from the barn and got the new girls (I'm hoping they're all girls) settled in their new home. There are two Barred Rock and two Rhode Island Reds. They will eventually join the three Easter Eggers and three Black Sex-Link older chickens that we already have. 

The red aura is from the red heat lamp we have for them.

Kieran laid down by the coop and let them know they didn't need to be scared.

I was hoping to wait a few more weeks until we picked up new ones because I don't like having them in the kitchen for more than a month and want to be able to transition them outside as soon as possible (when it warms up). Last year, we moved the chickens outside at the end of April--we'll see if I can wait until then to move these girls outside. 

Later, after every chicken and every boy were settled down for the night, Seth pulled out the chicken book that his dad had given us one year to see if he could find some other breeds that lay darker egg colors. He did and then, after looking around on the Internet for places that sold them, decided that we could wait until next year to order the minimum 15 chicks that those mail-order hatcheries required. 

And so the Holler chicken-keeping continues . . . .


(And, just for fun--here's a chicken-related cartoon by my friend Dan . . . . )

The Nesting Boxes

Our chicken coop has evol--been intelligently designed over the past five years that we've had chickens. The most recent change happened over Thanksgiving, when BIL Nate was visiting with us. In one of the back rooms, that we don't allow our chickens in (because it isn't secure), was a set of nesting boxes from when the previous owner kept chickens. Nate has wanted for quite some time to move that set of boxes into the area where our chickens currently reside so that they have more space to nest in. And so this past November, he did just that. 

And then we waited to see if the chickens would enjoy the new nesting arrangement as much as Nate hoped they would. 

Within a few days, they had bravely ventured into the area and now are almost exclusively laying their eggs in there. Interestingly enough, the six chickens seem to be enjoying the variety of spaces offered in which to lay their eggs, resulting in different egg configurations and boxes being used each day. 

 Monday's arrangement

I don't know if one chicken decides which box it will be that day and then the rest fall in line . . .

Or not . . . .

Tuesday

Or if they all decide together which box it will be and then take turns when it's their time to lay . . . .


Wednesday

Or if one chicken is the outcast and, once she's laid her egg, all the rest run to another spot . . . .

Thursday

Or if they send out daily Egg Memos . . . .

 that some miss . . .

or forget about . . . .

Friday

Or if they occasionally have chicken spats that result in various chickens taking sides . . . .

and nesting boxes . . . .

At any rate, they continue to be good layers for us and we have plenty of eggs for ourselves and to give away/sell. Although you might have noticed that we have six chickens and the maximum number of eggs on any given day this week was five. Which means, we have a slacker chicken in our midst. I'm inclined to believe it's one of the Easter Eggers, which are the brownish chickens. Seth disagrees with me and believes that each is doing her fair part in providing us with fresh Holler eggs (see, I told you he has a soft spot in his heart for the chickens). He's probably right. He usually is.