Eggstra, Eggstra! Read All About It!

 Eggs.  So similar, yet with such potential to go in entirely different directions.  Here are our stories.

Easter Eggs
by Marilyn Moore

 The egg is a frequent symbol for Easter, signifying new life, new birth, life waiting inside a sealed shell.  As such, eggs are decorated in many countries and many cultures around the world.  Some are truly hard-boiled eggs, dipped in dye on the kitchen table, and then perhaps hidden for an Easter egg hunt on Easter morning.  One always hopes all the eggs are found, before their odor outweighs their beauty….

 Some are amazing works of art, with elaborate stencils and designs painted on the egg or created during the dyeing process.  A quick Wikipedia search led me down many paths, awestruck by the beauty of the traditional Easter eggs in Hungary and the Ukraine.  Some are not actual eggs, but egg shapes, of wood, or stone, or porcelain, meant to be displayed or given as gifts.  None of my kitchen table efforts would merit a place in their baskets….

 

Many years ago, in my “crafts and needlework” stage of life, I created eggs of the decorator style.  I did a lot of counted cross stitch work, and that’s what these eggs are.  It took an inordinate amount of time and patience…and a good pattern.  I’m not a designer, but I can implement a plan.  I’m particularly fond of the egg with pansies, because pansies are such a traditional early spring flower, and pansies are a smiling flower.  They have, as Xiaoqian says, happy faces.  And I especially like the egg with strawberries, because the color is bright and cheerful, and because Dave’s favorite fruit is strawberries.  

The symbolism of the egg for Easter, the spring colors, the sense of accomplishment of having made something that adds a little touch of beauty….all of that lives in this basket, and I rejoice in seeing it again every spring. 

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Simply Perfect: Eggs and My Anna 
by Mary Kay Roth

I'm completely captivated by their beauty and simple perfection.

Untouched by any holiday dye, they are perfect ovals in shades of mint green and shy blue, copper rust and linen white. 

Inside they are even lovelier with rich, vibrant yolks that promise less cholesterol and saturated fats – more omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins.  

This is my moment to officially apologize to my daughter, Anna.   

When she first started talking about raising backyard chickens, I thought she was nuts.  

They are messy, I said. Smelly.  Labor-intensive. Subject to consumption by her crazy dog, Max. 

Today Anna generously shares the most delicious eggs I’ve ever eaten, whether scrambling them, smashing them into egg salad or whipping them into quiche.  

It all began almost a year ago when the chicks first arrived, strangely enough  by postal delivery.  My daughter and granddaughters gently raised them, bestowing names as wide-ranging as their colors. Snapdragon.  Progresso. Sky. Jigwin. Beach Boy. And a few more. 

We love them all, housed in a snug, well-built, fox-proofed coop – but also free to roam the backyard during recess time as Max valiantly attempts to herd the flock – with his obstinate wards meandering in and out and under his legs. 

Their lives follow the cycle of light.  Each day at sunrise, they are wide awake and lined up for breakfast. Each sunset they’re ready for bed. 

Yet each has their own unique personality. A few will let you hold and stroke them. One gal loves to hop into neighboring yards. Another pecks anyone who comes near her precious eggs. 

Nonetheless, my granddaughters, Scout and Everlyn, collect the eggs daily, cooing and assuring them all will be well. 

Someday Anna’s sweet flock will stop laying eggs.  At that point, many raisers of chickens determine to serve up their fowl for dinner. 

Rest assured, these chicks will never end up on any table platter. They are loved too dearly. 

So, on this glorious Easter day, I repent all my chicken-raising reservations and salute Anna’s backyard wonders. Long may they live and lay.

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The Egg and Us
By JoAnne Young

We all start our journeys from the miraculous egg. 

Females begin life with more than a million of them buried inside, fighting for space and life and competing for their potential. Even so, the number declines each year until about 400,000 remain by a woman’s late teens, and 25,000 by age 37, dropping sharply after that. 

Those tiny containers of female genetic particulars have a slight chance of becoming a unique human, when combined with a male’s genetic matter swimming frantically at them in sperm. 

We as women are able, mostly, to protect those precious potential children as long as we are carrying them. Once a month, some process selects one to take its chances at joining with a male counterpart to form and bring another human into the world. Through chemistry and some sort of existential magic, an egg can be pretty choosy about who she lets in and who she turns away. She knows chemical compatibility when she sees it. 

All this is to say, those of us who get into this world have made it through some pretty foreboding barriers and difficult expeditions to emerge triumphant. We’re special. But the battle doesn’t end at birth. It rages on. Daily. 

Knowing this, it is especially maddening when our little eggs, those lives we as mothers and grandmothers have worked so hard to protect are threatened for no rational reason. Such was the case this Easter week, the season of the egg, when a young man brought guns to the Florida State University campus, killed two people and wounded six others. 

My grandson, Kylan, a student there, was not near the shots fired that day, but he easily could have been. The experience is chilling for him and for all of us who love him. It is without a doubt that he has lost a bit of the innocence a 20-year-old continues to hold onto. 

We can try to protect those tiny eggs, and the children and young adults who grow from them. That is the best we can do, but we all know there’s no guarantees. It is just a matter of luck that today I can say, “I love you, Ky,” and he can still hear me.

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From Chicken Coop to Palatial Playhouse 

By Mary Reiman 

The closest building to our farm house was the chicken house (otherwise known as the chicken coop). But we never saw any chickens. The coop had been empty for several years by the time I was born. No feeders, waterers, nesting boxes, or bedding. Well, perhaps there was a little leftover straw!

In my eyes, it was a big welcoming open space with doors and windows. A perfect playhouse. My sister and I used crates to make cupboards and a stove, put up homemade curtains, and had the baby buggy for Tommy, the cat. Everything we needed for our vacation home!

As the story goes...

When mom and dad moved to the farm where dad grew up, mom inherited the chickens and
their home, the coop. Soon after that move, she informed dad that there would be no more chickens. The chickens needed to leave, or she would be leaving.

We never learned the history of her feelings about chickens. She never told us why she bore a grudge against them.

Here’s a photo of her as a child (probably 1925), amongst the chickens in the front yard of the house where she was born. I’m guessing there’s more to that story since there is no way she wanted to have anything to do with any chickens when she met them again, all those years later. 

Fortunately, my dad was smart enough to say, OK, and the chickens were never seen again. I’m guessing that’s one of the many reasons they had such a happy marriage. They both knew when to say yes, and when to say no. And all the eggs we ate throughout the years, and eggs mom lovingly hid around the house for us to find on Easter morning, came from the neighbors’ chickens, not ours. 

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My Scramble To Understand Road Rage
By Penny Costello

My egg story has nothing to do with Easter.  This is a story of life lessons learned, and the acquired ability to laugh at our “not the best” moments.

In the early 1990’s, I lived in Minneapolis, as a festival, event, and production manager of conferences, outdoor festivals, and concerts. A dear friend of mine was the manager of two different historical re-enactment festivals each year, set in the French Fur Trade era of the late 1700s to early 1800s. It was a lot of fun to be a part of his crew, bringing history to life, educating 20^th century school kids. It was probably the closest thing to time travel that I’ll ever experience in my lifetime.

I had been camping in a tepee at the White Oak Rendezvous in Deer River, Minnesota for about a week, and when the festival ended, I packed up my Ford Ranger pick-up, which had a topper, and embarked on the journey back from the early 1800s to 1990s life in the Twin Cities. Accompanying me on this journey was a much beloved Labrador Retriever-Australian Shepherd mix named Darby who belonged to my friend Jane, with whom I had lived  for a time before life took us in different directions.

About an hour or so into the journey, I came upon two cars, both driven by young men, who were driving side by side down the highway, matching their speed, and not allowing for any cars to pass them. I followed them for awhile, and as I did, I began to get irritated, and eventually downright irate. I flashed my lights at the car in the left lane, then I honked my horn, in hopes they would make room for me to pass. Instead, they maintained their matched speed, looked at each other laughing, and egging each other on.

As my irritation reached a boiling point, my eyes landed on the bag of food I had packed from my camp kitchen, and right on the top of the bag  was a carton of eggs. At this point, I was able to get close enough to the car in the right lane, while the car in the left lane still blocked my ability to pass. So, I grabbed an egg out of the carton, rolled down the passenger side window, and lobbed the egg at the car.

Being as amped up as I was, the first egg hit the top of the passenger door frame and broke inside my truck. At this point, Darby decided it would be best to exit the scene, and she jumped through the rear slider window into the back of the truck. It was like she was letting me know, “You’re on your own on this one, Pal. ”

So, I grabbed a second egg, lobbed it out the window, and hit the left hind quarter panel of the guy’s car with a wonderful SPLAT! The look on his face was one of surprise, and some fear as he tried to figure out what the heck just happened. He slowed down enough for me to pull up beside him, and as he looked at me, I lobbed a second egg at his window and SPLAT! right where his face was. He slowed down even more, and I finally passed him and made my way down the road in smug jubilation.

As I continued down the road, Darby stayed in the back. I replayed the look on his face at that eggstatic moment of contact, and had a good chuckle about the whole thing, And then I passed a Sheriff’s vehicle on the right shoulder. And then I watched in the rearview mirror as he pulled out on the road behind me. And then I saw the red lights come on, and I pulled over. My smug self-satisfaction dissipated immediately.

As he approached my vehicle, I pulled out my license and registration and presented it when he asked for it.

“We got a report,” he said, “that someone in this vehicle was throwing eggs at another vehicle. I looked straight ahead and said nothing. He looked past me at the bag of groceries on the floor on the passenger side, with the egg carton right on top.

“Mind if I take a look at that egg carton?” he asked very politely.

With nothing left to lose at that point, I spilled my story.

“Officer, they were HARRASSING me!” I explained how the two cars had matched speed, not allowing anyone to pass, how they looked at each other, laughing and taunting me, and how, after a time, it was all just too much to take. And then I said, “I lost my temper. I’m sorry.” When all was said and done, he gave me a warning ticket for destruction of property and sent me on my way. I remain to this day grateful for his good humor and eggceptional understanding, as well as my own ill-gotten understanding of road rage, the ever-present possibility that it can happen to the best of us. A word to the wise: when bringing those groceries home, it may be better to put them in the trunk or the back seat. Safe travels!

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