PEEP ! // elspeth

Well, the spinach and lettuce and radishes made it through the weird and wacky and occasionally snowy season that around here we call spring. One baby chick did not, but six are still full of vim and vigor and peeping. We buried Pasty Butt—so named for the affliction that killed her—next to Fisher out behind the shed, an arrangement that I doubt he finds particularly fitting. Two lousy days ! I can hear him grumbling. I gave fourteen years ! Apologies, top dog, but a pet cemetery is a pet cemetery. Besides, we thought you might like some company.

At any rate, no new cases of pasty butt and/or latent rooster development forthcoming, we'll be adding six ladies to our egg laying flock this summer. We're down to five birds, who give plenty of eggs in the summer, but over the winter we were averaging a measly egg or two each day. This time I selected two breeds especially known for winter production: New Hampshire Reds and Wyandottes, and to round things out Black Australorps and Barred Rocks. Pasty Butt was to be our mother-hopeful—she was a brahma, known to go broody—but alas, she didn't have the strength.

In the meantime egg production is way up now that the weather has warmed up, and we're finding friends and a variety of in-house ways to conquer five eggs a day. This looks like hard boiled eggs, French toast, breakfast-for-dinner, and most importantly, quiche. The overwintered kale has finally made it's comeback, which means the quiche we're making is Anna's kale, butternut squash, and cheddar version. 

And while it's still technically "winter" food, there's finally light at the end of the tunnel. Today it was a whopping 76 degrees out. The asparagus popped up Sunday, the sugar snap peas are two inches higher today than they were Monday, and at one point this afternoon I actually contemplated finding a cool body of water to find relief from the heat. Yew !