HARD BOILED EGGS

The eggs were routinely collected in the mornings and again about 3-4 o’clock in the afternoon. Wire baskets-later with a protective rubber coating on the wires were used, each holding about 4-6 dozen eggs. Before they were weighed and packed they had to be washed. This was easy enough...a basket would be suspended in a bath of heated water containing a special detergent and gently agitated from below. One of my chores was to collect the eggs in each of the five coops and take them into our cellar and wash them. Not very difficult, however on one occasion I inadvertedly set the temperature gauge too high (I don’t know why or how that happened) and while the first basket was being washed I noticed a change in the sound of the eggs as they gently bumped against one another in the bath. It was heavier and “clunkier”, and I knew imediately what I had accomplished. I also knew, correctly, that my father was not going to be pleased.

As was often the case, my mother came to my rescue. She called all the neighbors who routinely bought “cracked eggs” from us and quickly sold off all the hardboiled eggs.

I HATE ROOSTERS

I hate roosters...I’ll admit they have an almost regal bearing about them, as they strut about the yard or the coop...but I still hate them. Roosters are mean, vicious, and worst than that, they are cowards. Every year we would place several roosters in with the hens in the breeding coop, and the eggs from there would be sent to the hatchery. I learned very quickly about those devious, miserable cowards the first time I went in to collect the eggs. They would stand back and stare at me, unmoving, as long as I was facing them and staring back. But as soon as I turned my back they would attack...comming at me feet first with those large spurs, intent on doing some real damage. I would turn quickly and kick at them as violently as I could without droping the basket of eggs I was carrying. I never told my father about that...I don’t think he would have approved. I had another way of geting revenge...Whenever I found an egg without a shell (the egg is held intact by the thin membraned that is found just beneath the shell in a normal egg.) I would take careful aim at the closest of those awful creatures and let it go. If I was really pissed I would throw a good egg. I never told my father that either.

I'm not sure of the connection, but the ram we had to "service" the sheep behaved in the same way, turn your back and he would charge with his head down, honing in on your butt, turn around and he would stop.