The chickens are finally earning their keep around here.  


We got our first brown egg last week -- a broken one.  The next 3, also broken (one of them was even a double-yolker!).  Add some oyster shell to their feed, and put some extra wood shavings in their nest boxes, and..... 

 Voila!!  Our first edible egg!

Another reason shake hands with your neighbor

I've been battling a cold for the last week.  Now it is just a lingering, annoying cough, that always seems to strike at the wrong time.  Earlier today, I was at Customer Service at the store when a serious coughing fit came on.  I'm literally handing the woman money and trying so hard not to cough that my eyes are watering.  She looked genuinely worried.  I could barely choke out "thank you". 

I hurried to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall, coughing the whole time.  I was in there about 2 minutes, coughing... waiting... coughing.. thinking to myself I'm going to have to bag the trip and go home.  Then I hear someone outside the door say "Goodness!  Do you need a cough drop?"

Slightly embarassed, and still coughing, I leave the stall, and try to say something that sounds similar to "yes, pelase".  I see the woman with the voice digging in her purse.  She looks up, and I am pleasantly surprised to see that she is my neighbor, Deb, from 2 doors down.  She took 1 cough drop (the best kind apparently, and you can only order them online, she says), and gave me the rest of the package, saying I need it more than her.

I don't know if it's something about the small town, but I run into people I know in Fremont County more than I ever have out of it.  Today I was grateful that the woman who saved my day turned out to be my neighbor :)