Happiness in a shell

Today, something happened that made me absurdly, horrendously, ridiculously, crazily happy.

I bought some eggs.
These aren't just any eggs. First of all, they are a gorgeous light green color. Perfect for Spring!! And Easter - no dying necessary! And... Wednesday night with no dinner plans!

Secondly, these eggs were laid ...today. Hours ago, actually. Practically in my backyard.

The one (and only) great thing about small town living for me happens to be the little dilapidated farm house around the corner from my place. There's a little wooden sign in front of a gravel driveway announcing "Farm Fresh Eggs For Sale". For less than what a dozen eggs at the grocery costs, I got 2 dozen hot off the hen eggs, 12 brown and 12 special little green beauties. A few even still had a few downy feathers clinging to them.

Knowing where your food comes from is becoming more and more of an issue today, with huge agro-companies pushing through whatever legislation they want through the FDA, recalls of huge food product lines across the country, and the chemicals that are out there... (Sorry. That was was more political soap boxy than I was planning.) My point is, the shorter distance my food travels to me, the more I know about it - who's growing it, what their farming practices are, how processed it is. And it literally doesn't get any closer than this.

My neighbor, a lovely elderly woman who keeps a cow and 150 (!!) chickens, showed me around her little operation. Her farmhouse is something straight out of a movie - old, rambling, painted white, of course, with red barns out back and about 20 some cats chasing mice through the rafters. She took me out to the coop with her while she "let the hens out to get a little sun", since it was one of the first over 60's days of the spring. The majority of her flock are the large and beautiful orange and red feathered birds that lay the brown eggs - I didn't catch their breed name. The green eggs, however, came from three little Araucuna hens. These were much smaller, sandy colored, and had just the smallest tufts for a tail. As feathers floated slowly in the air, my neighbor recounted how she'd been selling eggs since she'd retired, and that she gets about a 5 gallon bucket's worth or eggs PER DAY!! (Now, that's a huge omelet!) She also gave me the sage advice that there was "nothing in this world better tasting than a still-warm egg from the chicken coop fried up right when you bring it inside." If you're a foodie like me, it literally doesn't get any better than this.

Now I'm off to find some egg recipes. :)