Dinosaur eggs

November 27, 2024 omelette with eggs from our girls and homegrown veg

We talk a lot about our chickens - Deanna, Beverly, Bennie and Florie - and about how they’re assholes and tiny dinosaurs and honestly I was not prepared when we first got chickens, to deal with how much they resemble Jim Carrey’s dinosaur impersonation. They are excellent creatures and I am desperately fond of them, which is hilarious because I am scared of birds. Not birds specifically, more that I am scared of the flapping. Which is even funnier because I too flap in situations of distress or excitement.

As you can imagine, when you have chickens that are so free range you have to go and rescue them at night from the next field over, you have to deal a lot with the flapping.

Picture, if you will, a nervous new chicken not knowing where to go to bed. It’s dark and I’m stressed about her getting eaten if she doesn’t go to bed, and she’s stressed because her eyesight is enormously reduced in the dark. We go round in circles, the Benny Hill theme may as well be playing in the background as I chase her - every time I get a few fingertips on her, she flaps, then I flap and jerk back, and we start over. It’s hilarious looking back on but utterly infuriating at the time.

It’s funny because recently, instead of going into her coop to bed, Bennie has been falling back into old habits, flying up on top of the pen and perching there to sleep, which leads to me having to lift her into bed. I’m convinced she just likes being lifted and given some strokes.

I think there is something important (if you want a fulfilling life) about doing things you are bad at, scared of, or strongly dislike. I am really bad at running, despite doing it for years, and yet I love it. It is violently humbling and honestly I never seem to get much better at it, but I try to make sure I run at least once a week because I hold this value of doing things one is bad at so dearly.

So despite being terrified of birds, and knowing they would flap and that I would have to lift and handle them, we got a small flock of chickens, and I am delighted we did - they are each entirely their own character, they share their eggs with us, and watching them run about outside makes my heart lighter, knowing the reality of the life they previously had, and could have remained in, albeit not for a long time.

So we are incredibly thankful to the girls because they enabled us to have our first meal of food entirely produced on our land. While this dish was no Michelin star, I maintain it is one of the best I have ever consumed, an enormous leap after months of hard dirty work.

(aj)