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The one-a-day plan

By PAT WICK

© Another Day in the Country

Miss Clucky, the only hen who survived the Chicken Holocaust this spring, is back into production. The very day I moved her and her teen-ager chicks into the chicken house, she started laying again. To my surprise, this little golden hen with the black bars on her feathers lays green eggs.

Ever since, Miss Clucky lays one egg a day — faithfully — except on Saturday. She evidently is following my mother's example and declaring that her day of rest!

In the glory days of my chicken enterprise we were getting 16-18 eggs a day from my 18 hens. We had a plethora of eggs. We had so many eggs that we gave them away — even sold them at the Barbershop Gallery. After all, these lovely organic eggs of every imaginable hue were a genuine art piece.

Every day when I went out to gather eggs, I gloried in the miracle of — not only eggs — but colored eggs. A delight to gather, wonderful to eat and such an abundance.

Then the abundance began to clog up the refrigerators — mine, Mom's, Cousin's Corner — and my sister said, "This is beginning to remind me of the Cucumber Take-over."

Our glory days are behind us, now. We're on the one-a-day plan. You do realize, of course, how long it takes to collect a DOZEN eggs at this speed? Miss Clucky has been laying one egg a day, six days a week, for at least a month and we still haven't managed to collect 12.

They are just too good!

It's probably the healthiest plan to be on the one-a-day plan because it makes me think twice before I use an egg. These are weighty decisions.

"How many eggs do you want for your breakfast?" Tooltime Tim asked me last Sunday as he gallantly agreed to cook.

I had to think about this. "Hmm," I thought. "He was having two — that was Thursday and Friday's eggs — she doesn't lay on Saturday, and I had not yet collected Sunday's egg (she's on the early-afternoon schedule) so that was going to put me one egg in the hole." So I said, "I'll just have one, thank you."

At the moment there are nine green eggs in the refrigerator in their lovely little clear plastic containers. They're like gold — only they are green. Mint green.

Every time I cook I consider the eggs. It takes three eggs to make crepes and one egg to make pancakes — I'll have pancakes. Shall I take deviled eggs to the potluck? Don't think so! That would be a week's worth of eggs.

Miss Clucky's chicks are almost grown. We're still at the stage where we are trying to figure out how many roosters and how many potential hens we have. My mother surveys the eight chicks and says that we have three roosters, five hens — so far! For sure there is one rooster — he's been crowing for several weeks, now. We have at least two or three months before these young girls start to lay.

In the hen house behind my home there are 26 young chicks — all hens, we hope, since that is what we ordered. They are a wild mixture of chickens that are supposed to be color-coordinated in black, white, black and white — but some look brown to me. In the mix, we have feather-footed beauties, my favorite Aracaunas, and some floozy-looking Polish chicks with hats on their heads. These store-bought chicks behave so differently from Miss Clucky's brood — they have no mother and can't quite decide if I'm it!

And so, our chicken saga continues, like a soap opera. I'm looking forward to being off the one-a-day plan. In our future abundance, we'll have omelets, crepes, and soufflés on another day in the country.

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