I am so happy to have our hens laying again. I’ve so missed their eggs, even though we found a farm less than 10 miles away to get good eggs from. They use the same layer feed that we are now using [we get it from them].
So now that “their” eggs are gone we are using “our” eggs again. Why is it that all our hens give us deep orange yolks … but that farms eggs weren’t like that. Our eggs were like that before, always they are deeper orange than any other eggs we can get. So it doesn’t matter why, really, just is so nice to get the eggs out, make a sunny side up and it be glowingly orange. To crack eggs into a bowl and make scrambled eggs in butter, and have the scrambled eggs so very yellow, bright orange yellow. So fluffy, so mild, so tasty.
I only like our eggs. I know that seems snobby. It’s not. Good is good. Not good is not good. One must distinguish true good over true bad. So it’s not snobby. It’s true that our hens give us nicer eggs somehow and that makes them palatable to me. I like eggs that are mild and delicate yet textured firm as well. I like eggs that have big orange yolks and sit high in the whites. Mmmm, mmmmm, mmmmm.
Everyone needs some hens in their backyard. Everyone should experience this. Everyone. Too bad that’s not going to happen. See, everyone doesn’t have their own backyard. Lots of people don’t have even 10 square feet of backyard.
Farmers live off of the fat of the land. Live high as hogs. Not with money, but with food. We taste that in the smidgen of the way we can, with the layers in our backyard. It’s a taste of heaven.
Silly, isn’t it, in the “old days” it was “normal” for people to have layers in their backyard, pecking the ground, laying eggs, have a hen for dinner, or a rooster, just by going out and catching one.
That was how it was. Then industrialization came to being, and the market days dwindled. Not everyone had hens in their backyards, so farmers markets existed. There were big cities before industrialization, but not like the big city that came after.
So the difference in this is that a large majority of people in the old days lived in little villages, rural areas, on farms, farm-ettes, has at least a little garden and hens, cow too.
What they had, we taste just a little of, and consider it a taste of heaven.
Knowing how most laying hens live should be enough to turn many folks around. But it goes to this sad truth: even farmers don’t care. They are the ones with those huge expensive concrete hen houses.
This is the Matrix we live in. We are so intelligent, advanced, and know so very little. 🙁
6 responses to “Eggs and Industrialization”
Too true, too true, as Glimfeather would say (I wonder how owl eggs would taste? ;-))
Our seven hens are giving us lots and lots of lovely brown eggs right now. I would like to get 3 Auracanas this spring, so we can have some green eggs, too. Have you ever tried the chicken tractor (portable cage), Marysue?
Please let me know if you have any websites to recommend that talk about agrarianism (I’m reading Howard King’s essays, thanks!) Did you see that Rick Saenz now has a section at the Draught Horse Press website devoted to agrarianism?
Mike has been wanting chickens forever but we just can’t until we have a large enough yard that they can on the other side of the garden from the house. I don’t want the mess near the house.
If we ever do get out to that land I’ll be sure and ask you what kind of hens to get first and for practical advice. All I know about raising chickens came from a book.
Kelly, feel free to ask stuff whenever!
Carmon, we use movable pens, not “chicken tractors” per se, as Andy Lee describes. Our hens are out on the grass and moved around every couple of days (not always that soon though)
We don’t have a “lawn” it’s a weedy/grass backyard. In any case, it’s not any worse for wear, having hens rotating on it, just some spots that over winter will need to wait for a Spring flush of growth. We get a greener backyard –and if we really managed it better, we’d have a nicer backyard overall.
Websites:
My own site that I’ve been transferring the Howard King articles to:
Agrarianlife.com
It’ll have the rest of the series eventually. Also it is going to be a Group Blog on living the agrarian life, once I get it all squared away better.
It’ll be also for aggragating links and be a clearinghouse for where to get info, books, articles, and I hope will be a place to generate lots of good articles through the group blog.
Not to cut this short, but to do just that 😉 I’ve got to get the dog outside and do some things. I’ll be back with more …
Chad Degenhart‘s blog – he’s pro Agrarian
Scott Terry is ” Devoted to subduing the earth and replenishing it, bringing every thought captive to Christ, and restoring our republic.” according to his site.
The Agrarian Foundation.
That’s just a few pro agrarian folks and sites out there.
I have to spend more time on it, and have been meaning to do so for a year now. :veryshocked:
I have church website work to do as well. So somehow I’ll get more stuff crunched out ASAP.
My site won’t be redundant, http://www.agrarianlife.com/wp
Or isn’t intended to be. It should have the personality of Christians that are pro-agrarian and how they live it, and what they struggle with, and how to get started and the heart of a true Biblical Agrarian thorougly standing out in full view. It won’t cozy up to cultural agrarians, it will be fully theologically postmil and invite such people to be part of the group blogging. It will have comments open, and allow anyone to participate but absolute ban meanies from posting comments … and hopefully have a healthy fleshing out of ideas and hoping to help others get to the place of accepting Christianity and agrarianism and tied-together. I could keep writing, but why? 🙂
Marysue, thanks for the info. I am thinking about a section on my site which has agrarian info., too. I think, like Prairie Muffins, the concept is very misunderstood. One idea I have is to list books (including fiction), music and movies which reflect an agrarian lifestyle.
There is a movie called Songcatcher which had an interestingn premise but lots of bad elements, including same-s*x relationships. It’s based on a book by Sharyn McCrumb, but the book description doesn’t sound like the movie follows the plot too closely. Do you know anything about the book by any chance? It is set in the Appalachians (and I *do* know how that word is pronounced…not bad for a Californian!)
Hi, I have just stumbled upoon your blog and i must say i found it to be a very interesting read. I think you got the nail on the head when you talk about industrialisation for eggs.
We have several hens and in my opinion the eggs that they lay taste far better than any store bought eggs, I don’t think it’s snobby either, as you said whats good is good, and whats not good is not good.