Wendy Thomas, journalist and blogger in New Hampshire, is joining us today for the Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook blog tour. Wendy keeps backyard chickens, loves to eat eggs, and writes. She’s also a lovely person. I’m delighted that she’s agreed to take a look at my book and tell you her thoughts on it. Stop by her site and say hello!

Meanwhile, I’ve been out and about myself. On Saturday I was invited to spend a few hours at the Wayland Winter Farmer’s Market. It takes place inside the Russell’s Garden Center greenhouses. (Local plant nurseries are as important to support as indie bookstores. This one is amazing!) I was given a table next to the orchids. Heaven.

I didn’t go alone. I brought Veronica. She took one look at the sun streaming in through the glass, and the pots of herbs across the aisle from us, and she started complaining. After a winter of not seeing green, she wanted some! I bought her a pot of parsley. She ate the plant, then proceeded to dust bathe in the dirt. She was ecstatic. As were the children who watched her antics.

I was supposed to stay for four hours, but after three, Veronica once again became agitated. Daikon radish and greens didn’t mollify her. I decide to pack up and go. As soon as she was tucked in the quiet of the car, Veronica made a nest in the hay.

Two minutes later, out popped an egg! It was a proper Cuckoo Marans dark brown egg. Her first one! I guess that the scent of the orchids and the sunshine and the warmth finally kicked Veronica into laying mode.

In any event, I took her home. No doubt she regaled her flock mates with tales of her fantastic day in the magical greenhouse.

The next day, Beatrix accompanied me to another event at the Concord Bookshop. Beatrix did not need to lay an egg. She was calm and content and regally greeted all.

Almost 50 people turned up. I talked for a bit.

Then I fed them some recipes from my book. Pickled Beets and Eggs. Hard-cooked Eggs with Seasoned Salts, and Orange-Almond Pound Cake.

I’ll be doing similar programs at the Toadstool Bookshop in Milford, NH, and Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA. I don’t know which hen will be coming to those stores. I try to bring a hen that has already laid an egg at home. If you want to meet all of the hens, there’s still space in the Chicken Keeping Workshop at my home. Check the events page for more information about all of my upcoming programs. I hope to see you at one of them!

I am positively gleeful that my good friend, Lauren Scheuer (author of the delightful Once Upon a Flock) is part of my blog tour! When she comes to visit with have a very good time, our dogs play, and we drink a lot of coffee. Which is why I always forget to take photos. But Lauren, always with camera at hand, does take photographs. Go to her blog, Scratch and Peck, to see and to enter a giveaway for The Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook.

Today, Melissa at Tilly’s Nest is helping me to celebrate the release of The Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook. Melissa and I connected over the internet, and since she lives on Cape Cod, we’ve been able to meet several times in person. She’s a creative and positive person, and I’m so happy that she’s on the blog tour. Tilly’s Nest is having a book giveaway. Stop by to enter!

What with the snow and the bitter temperatures, we’re behind in our ready the yard for springtime chores. Although it still looks like the dreary days of winter, the bluebirds don’t seem to care. They’ve returned. We feel like hoteliers who don’t have our rooms ready for guests. Yesterday, Steve bundled up and cleaned out the bluebird houses in our meadow.

Some years, when he’s cleaned out the debris from the previous summer, mice have jumped out. This year he didn’t have to evict anyone, but he did remove the old nest so that the bluebirds could build anew.

Last year’s nest was beautiful. The bluebirds had used chicken feathers!

I recognize these feathers. They are the soft feathers that the Ladies shed when they were maturing pullets, as they grew their own adult coats. They molted them last spring, just as the bluebirds needed feathers for their nests. I wonder what the bluebirds will use this year. There are no soft feathers, but there is a lot of cozy goat fur. We’ll have to wait until next springtime to find out.

The horses are shedding. They are itchy. They roll. Did I mention that it is mud season?

Here Sister is showing off what mud season looks like at a New England stable.

X (the ex-steeplechase horse) has managed to get his entire right side, and all the way up to – and into his ears – muddy!

Mica has gotten his belly and quarters muddy, but has kept his long forelock golden. Still. Really. What a mess.

Libby proves that just because a horse has on a sheet, that there’s no protection against mud season.

Tonka, however, is the exception to the rule. He does not like rolling in mud. He does roll, but only in pristine snow. This is what he looked like today when I led him out of his squishy, squelchy, muddy paddock. This photo was taken before I groomed him.

Even his white markings are white. Amazing. Unheard of.

Thank you, Tonka.