This catalog of pricey clothes and bed linens came in the mail last week. Look at the image they are using to sell their goods – farmstead eggs! (I don’t know of any large farms raising Americaunas – so I’m confident that these pretty blue eggs came from a small flock.)

I was disappointed that the clothes models weren’t posed in farmyards with chickens. In fact there was nary a hen in sight. Still, I felt just a tad more trendy out in the barn collecting eggs. Perrie lays a blue egg as pretty as the one in this catalog. Edwina’s eggs are speckled. The party girls lay dainty white eggs. The nesting boxes in my barn are filled with eggs as pretty as a picture – even more photogenic than the ones on this catalog cover- and better yet, not only do I have the eggs, but I have my feathered friends, as well.

What’s your worse nightmare? Taking a final exam naked? Zombies?

We food professionals have our own anxieties. A few nights ago I woke up in a sweat- I dreamt that I was in a restaurant kitchen plating pie slices and that I was using canned whip cream.

It’s cold – 20 degrees F. this morning, and a windy 25 this afternoon. But, the hens are winter-hardy. It’s perfectly healthy for them to go outside, and you can see them on Hencam, trying to scratch a morsel out of the frozen earth and pecking at a bit of glittering ice.

What you can’t see are the hens in my new barn. Lulu, Snowball, Alma, Maizie, Edwina, Twinkydink and Buffy live there. They rarely go outside. Why this difference in behavior? Because the new barn is so cozy comfy, sunny and spacious. It has twice the floor space of the old barn and windows on all sides. There’s water and laying hen pellets and roosts and  nesting boxes. In other words, why leave?

The hens in the old barn aren’t overcrowded. They don’t show any signs of stress. They don’t aggressively peck each other; they are healthy and laying eggs. But it’s a bit like living in a dorm room. Nice, but tight. The party girls, the white bantams, like to stay together and have elbow (wing? space) from the other chooks. You’ll see them outside the most.

The girls in the new barn have no reason to go out. Sometimes I think they have it too good in there. I feel like a mom. You kids need to get out in the fresh air I want to say. In answer, I can just imagine the girls whining do we have to?

The worldwide poultry industry is huge. Here is a report on the recent numbers just from the USA:

Exports of U.S. poultry, eggs, and related products surpassed $4 billion for the first time in 2007, according to the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council (USAPEEC). Total worldwide sales last year of all poultry and egg products, including poultry meat, live poultry, table and hatching eggs, processed egg products, and other products such as feathers and down, reached $4.0167 billion, nearly 40 percent over 2006, said USAPEEC, citing year-end data compiled by the Foreign Agricultural Service of USDA.

Meanwhile, here at Little Pond Farm, my 15 hens have laid 87 eggs so far this month. Enough for me to splurge and have Salmon and Asparagus Quiche for dinner, hard-cooked eggs for snacks, French Toast, pudding, and more. Recipes can be found in my Farmstead Egg Cookbook, though all of these recipes are so easy that after you’ve done them once, you can do them again with your eyes closed.

By next month, the girls will be laying so many eggs that I’ll have enough to sell to my neighbors. There’s a need for big farms to supply food to the world, and I’m a realist about the necessity of large-scale agriculture. (I’m not a localvore – I’ll have to blog on that in the future.) But, how delightful it is to have eggs from my backyard hens and to be able to sell them within my community.

Every morning I get a report listing what internet searches have led people to HenCam. A lot of you are looking for information about building coops, some like animal webcams, others are researching chicken breeds.

Then there are the folks who find my hen  house when they’ve actually been trolling for something else. In England, bachelorette parties are called “hen parties.” Personally, I’d rather hang out with my chickens than get silly drunk at a bar, however I doubt that the soon-to-be married are going to watch HenCam instead of have an embarrassing night on the town. (Too bad…)

Yesterday, the person who searched for this found my chickens:

Polish girls in Sussex looking for love.

And how did you find HenCam? Let me know!