our chickens work!

after much squawking and anticipation, jonathan went out to the coop saturday morning to find this in the laying box:

i was one proud lady and tore through the house squealing with delight while trying to tug on my boots to run out and see it for myself. jackie o is the one responsible for this and she lays a beautiful--albeit a tad small--brown egg.

she had been acting a little funny recently: squatting down submissively if i moved my hand to pet her, squawking (and sometimes gobbling) a lot and very loudly, and isolating herself from the other ladies. she also didn't seem to mind jonathan and i as much and took to exploring the backyard--presumably looking for a better option for her eggs than the laying box we've had up for a while.
we weighed the egg (thanks mama and papa!). a perfectly small one. and then slow poached them (by this time we had TWO eggs) for our brussel sprout and bacon salad (more on that later).

jackie's eggs are a bit smaller and has a lighter hue than the grocery store eggs we buy. for now we keep them in the fridge w the other eggs. but once we start getting more--when the other hens decide to do their job--we'll be keeping them in an egg crate in the pantry. no need to refrigerate them since they are so fresh!