Last summer we built a chicken coop, and this summer it became home to a few Hamburg chickens and Golden Buffs.  Hamburgs are known for their distinctive, dramatic, black-and-white pattern.  They weigh approximately 5 pounds each, and produce a breathtaking, ivory-colored egg.  Ours are 2 years old, and were delivered to Cleveland this past May from their previous home on my parents’ New Jersey farm.  The Golden Buffs, from a nearby farm in Middlefield, Ohio, are somewhat larger.  They lay a lovely brown egg.  At least that’s what I’ve read.  Just 6 months old, they are still pullets, so we are awaiting their first eggs any day now.

Every morning we go out to greet the girls with the previous day’s scraps from our kitchen bin.  “Feed the birds, tuppence a bag…”  In the summer, the girls raced to pick out strawberry tops first, followed by the soft, seeded centers from the cantaloupes.  Now they are gobbling up all the apple cores, leftover bits of bread crust, and greens.  Then they spend the rest of the day working on the banana peels, radish tops, and squash skins.  Not to mention the grass, bugs and worms.  I toss a handful of crushed oyster shell into one corner of the coop, add some fresh straw all around, and sprinkle some scratch corn for good measure.  They recognize me now, and no longer run for cover as I cross the grass toward the coop.  On the contrary, the bravest among them flap their wings madly and make a jump for the coffee can full of chicken feed that I carry in my hands. 

The girls have recognizably different personalities, and use them to great comic effect.  Dora is our most fearless hen.  She has a necklace of white feathers.  She and Nora complained very loudly to me one morning last week after having inadvertently spent the entire night outdoors in a rainstorm.  They reminded me of disgruntled tourists, soaked through to the skin.  I recently heard a story about a hen who used to take new visitors to see her coop, and pecked at the shoes of those who interrupted her during the tour.

No, they are not being raised for meat.  And no, you don’t need a rooster to get eggs.  You only need a rooster if you want fertilized eggs.  Which we don’t.  In contrast to quiet hens, roosters are very noisy and don’t make for friendly, neighborly relations.

So why am I raising chickens?  For the eggs!  One day late last spring, my daughter and I came back from the Chagrin Falls Farmers Market with a bunch of asparagus that had been picked only hours before.  I found a recipe for Hollandaise sauce, which I had never made before, and whisked together 3 separated egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of water.  [Fry the whites separately and feed them to the first lucky person who enters the kitchen. Or the dog.]  Then I placed the mixture in a double boiler and continued to whisk until the contents turned a smooth, glassy yellow.  It took a little bit more water than the recipe indicated, which made me wonder if our homegrown egg yolks are extra-dense.  I removed the double boiler from the heat and slowly added ½ cup melted butter, a little at a time, continuing to whisk gently, until all the butter was incorporated.  I added salt (1/2 t.) and pepper (1/4 t.), poured half the sauce over the steamed asparagus and shared it around.  Three of us ate it for lunch, and and our taste buds and bellies remained satisfied all afternoon until dinner.  We finished the rest of the hollandaise sauce the next morning on scrambled eggs. Liquid sunshine.