after two thousand three hundred and four days we fixed an egregious oversight and finally carved some jack o’ lanterns with odin.
for whatever reason, every year my grand plans to carve some stupendously awesome and complicated designs never seem to materialize, so this year we decided to go back to basics which, of course, was just fine by odin.
we been patiently waiting and waiting and waiting for our first egg from The Girls over the past couple of weeks. we knew the day was coming soon since it’s been about 24 weeks since we brought The Girls home which is about the age they should start laying. in anticipation of getting eggs, we’ve even prepared the nesting boxes with golf balls to give them and idea of where they’re supposed to lay.
each morning odin has been running out to check the boxes, only to come back empty handed.
but tonight, while odin was getting ready for bed, when i went out shut them in to the coop, imagine my eggcitement when i spied a single, tiny little egg in the coop!
odin literally leapt for joy when i came in house and handed him the egg ( and almost dropped it! ).
now we’re all wondering which hen laid the egg. amusingly, whomever it was, moved all the straw and the golf balls out of the nesting boxes and built herself a nice nest in the middle of the coop 🙂
a hen will start laying “pullet eggs”, which are dimunitive versions of what you’ll find cartoned on the shelves of your favorite grocery store or food coop. on the left of this photo you can see the pullet egg compared to a “regular brown” medium egg. after 6 weeks or so the hens will start laying full-sized eggs.
“foodies” claim pullet eggs are super tasty and can be used to make, for instance, a extra-creamy and delicious “yolk flan”.
i love me some flan, so i suspect we’ll try to whip up ba batch in the upcoming weeks!
well, what do you expect? it is 10.10.10 which in binary translates to 42 which according to the “the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” is the The Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
odin continues to be The Chicken Whisperer. none of The Girls would ever jump into hammock with anyone but him. he holds special powers over The Girls which may or may not be related to his plan to win friends & influence chickens.
postscript: this is my submission to heather champ’s “10/10/10, A most auspicious day” project.
odin tests my resolve to not be a helicopter parent at a local park ( known colloquially as “the dragon park” because of the dragon woodwork on the park fencing ) by excitedly showing me how he can ride the “zip line” while doing a crazy gymnast flip move which involves pulling his legs up and over and switching his hands on the handle. all while moving laterally 6 feet off the ground.
oh, how to weigh odin’s sense of self-satisfaction gained from completing daring physical feats against the odds of a trip to the emergency room for a broken arm?
garrison keillor host of a prairie home companion – a radio show that is on almost every weekend in our house – came to town to support our new local, community radio station, wdrt by giving an giving an interview at an ice cream social at a local lutheran church.
we’re big fans of garrison and thought it’d be fun to go and hear him speak, enjoy some pie and maybe – just maybe – get a picture of him and odin together.
the interviewer attempted to ask seemingly straighforward questions about garrison’s thoughts on the importance of community radio ( he’s apparently a big supporter of community radio efforts ) and he managed to weave in laugh-out-loud stories that occasionally involved fart jokes which made the whole thing bearable for a 6 year old who knew a helping of pie and ice cream was to follow.
alas, it turned out that we didn’t get the chance to meet garrison as the place was packed and he had to leave quickly to go off to another event in town; but while we didn’t get a picture of him and odin together, i’m pretty sure this is first picture of garrison ever taken by a 6 year old boy named odin 🙂
somwhere along the way odin seems to have developed quite an ability to handle a telephoto lens in low-light conditions.
nope, it’s not every day that you find yourself standing in a church with garrison keillor leading a rousing rendition of “how great thou art”.
it’s fun to imagine him incorporating the experience in an upcoming segment of news from lake wobegon.
would it be wrong to run up and tackle a cherished radio personality to say “hi!” and see if he’d pose for a shot with odin?
yes, i suppose it would.
hey, it’s the the pie city ramblers, playing some fine tunes as folks made their to the pie and ice cream.
aaaaaaaaand, finally, the moment odin was really waiting for ( with all due respect to garrison ) – enjoying a nice slice of pie! we didn’t find any Bebop-A-Reebop Rhubarb Pie ( an imaginary sponsor of garrison’s radio show ), but we inhaled excellent slices of pumpkin pie.
thanks garrison and wdrt for putting together a fun and memorable afternoon.
while nobody is ever going to accuse us of being helicopter parents we’ve been fairly cautious when it comes to letting odin ride around on his bike without supervision and up until today he’s been happy to be limited to riding up and down the block on his own.
but today he wanted to go to a friends house down the street and absolutely insisted that he was old enough to ride alone and he didn’t need us to tag along.
after some thought, it sure didn’t seem like an unreasonable request. it’s a straight shot down our quiet street with sidewalks all the way and just one intersection. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!! ( just kidding. sort-of. )
and so, we watched as odin rode away to his friend’s house all by himself for the very first time, setting off into a brave new world of independence.
postscript: i’m glad i didn’t search the internet for advice on what age kids should be allowed to ride their bikes by themselves before letting his head out. yeesh, folks seem consumed with fear. how sad.
having finally finished the nesting boxes for The Girls, it’s time to prepare the boxes for the day when The Girls start laying eggs.
so we laid down some comfy straw and thought we’d try the ol’ golf ball trick to let them know where to lay the eggs so they don’t get used to laying them in random places around the coop.
supposedly, placing anything vaguely egg-shaped in a nest box will give them the idea that the boxes are “the place” to lay their eggs, too.
we should see if the trick works sometime in the next few weeks!