Egg on My Face, Etc.

 

It might be a funny story for future generation giggles.

It was not funny yesterday.

I decided to make hard boiled eggs.

I decided to try another way to make them.

• Step 1:

You bring them to a boil and

• Step 2:

Immediately remove them from the heat and allow to stand precisely 17 minutes.

Yup.  I did Step 1.  I am good at following directions.

And then I left.

I think I thought I had 17 minutes to write thank you notes.

The bad thing is I missed Step 2 – the 17 minute-part where you take the eggs off the stove and allow them to stand.

It must have been about 37 minutes later when I heard a funny noise.   Elsa-the-dog was pacing and trying to tell me something was amiss, but I ignored her and told her everything would be allright.

I was busy concentrating you know – writing lovely thank you notes.  It couldn’t be 17 minutes already.  Could it?

Then there came another noise.

Only this time it was a thunderous BANG!  Like a very loud GUNSHOT in the kitchen!

Was someone being murdered INSIDE my house?

It is still gun hunting season here.

Was there someone actually firing a gun in my house?

I ran/hobbled to the kitchen in time to see – YES – it was an explosion all right –

AN EXPLOSION OF EGGS!

Have you ever seen an egg explode?

It was a first for me too.

Oddly enough, I become very calm and deliberate in a crisis.  If you discount the way I talk to myself and even give myself vocal instructions, you would surely admire my bravery in quickly turning the burner off.  I also thought to put Elsa in the back room to keep her from eating exploded eggs.

Note: There were no more eggs in the pot.  I think most of them were on the ceiling and the pot was burned black.

There was definitely egg on the ceiling,

egg on the floor,

egg across the stove top,

egg under the vent hood,

eggs on the walls,

bits of egg into the next room,

egg EVERYWHERE!

Bill helped me clean up, especially in the upper reaches (like egg on top of the refrigerator).

I am still finding egg or egg shells in unusual places.

Finally my friend Amy came over and under her eagle eye and a tightrope walker’s balance, the last remnants of eggs on the ceiling are gone.

The only thing left is

“egg on my face.”

If you are not familiar with this expression, here is what it means.

From “The Dictionary of Cliches” by James Rogers (Ballatine Books, New York, 1985): “to have egg on your face – To be embarrassed or chagrined at something one has done or the way one did it; to do something ineptly. The expression originated in the United States some 25 years ago, probably from the fact that someone eating an egg sloppily is likely to wind up with some of it on his face and therefore not looking his best. 

 

 

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Hildegard and Esmerelda are Egg Eaters!

Amy and Hildegard

My friend Amy is always doing fascinating things.  She is the one who took up Contra Dancing.  And before that it was Jumpology.  She has taught piano and is a violinist, but is now taking cello lessons.  And she got a trucker’s license in order to drive preschoolers in a school bus.  And she is a marathon runner too.  There is more.

But Amy’s latest endeavor is raising chickens.

She and her sons built the perfect stable safe house for them, better known as a chicken coop.  She then bought four beautiful egg laying chickens and she gave them old fashioned names:

• Penelope
• Gertrude (Gertie)
• Esther, and
• Henrietta

And they all laid beautiful delicious eggs.  But sadly, Henrietta passed away.   They said it was from an inherited disease.  Amy was distraught, but soon went out and purchased two more cluckers:

• Esmerelda and
• Hildegard (Hildegard is now her favorite chicken!  She runs to greet Amy and rides on her shoulder).

Unfortunately, Amy just discovered

that Hildegard and Esmerelda are EGG EATERS!

Oh no!

This is not good.

This is a very bad thing because it teaches all the other chickens to eat eggs too.

It is a nasty habit, egg eating, and very hard to break.  But Amy is determined.

What to do.  What to do.

Amy thinks this blog post may help others of you out there who are raising chickens who turn out to be egg eaters.  After assiduous research and concentrated efforts to watch, wait and trick the ladies, things seem to be paying off.

Try these remedies:

1. Watch, wait and grab newly laid eggs of the “good girls” ASAP.
2. Replace real eggs in the nesting box with golf balls.  The chicken ladies will peck the hard golf balls and this will make their beaks hurt.  This is breaking a habit with negative suggestion…. like pain.
3. Replace real eggs with Mustard Eggs!  Ever hear of that one? To make a mustard egg you blow out a real egg so only the shell is left and then insert mustard.  Chickens HATE mustard and when they peck at such an egg the taste is awful.  More negative psychology.  It would cure me of eating eggs too!

Do you have an egg eater in your family besides of the human variety?

Have you successfully convinced your chickens to stop egg eating?

Please share your remedies.

We are in search of a cure.

 

 

 

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