This is the time last year we were buying both milk and eggs from the store. This year, Pepper hasn’t dried off yet and has been consistently providing us with a half gallon of milk a day. So we’ve largely avoided having to buy milk this year, and with Peony due to kid any day now having just delivered this evening (!) we will probably not have to buy milk for the foreseeable future. Eggs have been a different story. We deliberately decided to start our chicks in the fall, since it takes them about 18-20 weeks to start laying. And as most hens stop laying regularly during the winter, we figured we’d overlap the time it took for them to mature with the low production season to maximize our egg potential. And oh boy, have we maximized. I bought a family pack of 36 eggs just about 2 weeks ago, when we were only getting about 3 eggs a week. And that’s when the flood gates opened.

It was far from gradual; the egg laying hit hard and fast. It started with one egg one morning from one of our Barred Rocks. We knew it wasn’t from our older Rhode Island Red, because the Barred Rocks lay darker eggs. The next day we had three eggs, and then every day since then we’ve had anywhere from 8-11 eggs a day. I counted 60 eggs from our backyard a few days ago, and we’re barely halfway through the club pack in the fridge. It’s feast or famine around here in all things; we’re either rationing milk or drowning in it. We’re either buying eggs or giving them away for the asking.

I’m hoping to use them (along with my fancy new push-bottom tart pans!) to make and freeze quiches during times of plenty to tide us over when there’s an egg drought. And of course, having watched every season of Great British Baking, I’m going to have to try my hand at a wide variety of custard pies as well. In the meantime…please let us know if you’d like a dozen (or three) eggs.