Why the picture of eggs?
Well, I spent most of this weekend out in my garden. The sun was shining and spring felt like it was around the corner. In fact, tomorrow is the 1st March and the start of spring.
There are not a lot of flowers at this point in my garden, mainly because I choose to keep chickens and ducks. There is one lone daffodil, just in time for St David’s Day. I also have a few purple crocuses. It seems that the chickens, who wreak havoc with most plants, either don’t like crocuses or don’t like purple!
Back to the eggs.
Early spring is the point that my ducks, usually first, and then my chickens, start to lay again. I can stop buying eggs and in a couple of weeks, I will even be giving them to my neighbours. The eggs taste great and I enjoy the varied sounds the birds make as they roam around the garden with me.
But why are the eggs significant? Why am I writing a blog post about them?
It’s because they nearly didn’t exist. I nearly didn’t keep chickens, despite the fact I had wanted to keep chickens, since I was 11 years old. That year we spent a few days staying at a friend of the family’s home where it was my job to feed the chickens and collect the eggs every day. I loved it. The way the chickens came running when they saw me approach and the way the eggs felt warm in my hand.
As a mother in Somerset, we’ve had a rabbit, then guinea pigs. All notionally for the children. But, whenever I brought up owning chickens my husband wasn’t keen. He pulled a face, showed no interest, and practically said at one point that he didn’t want us to do it. For a couple of years, I let it drift. As you do, when there’s a lot going on, and you have kids, and work, and more important priorities.
Then came the day, when I realised something needed to change and I needed to get chickens. I realise it had been a long-held desire of mine. That it was important to me. And that I really wanted to do it. I also realised that, relative to so many things, it was a pretty small goal. Importantly, I realised that if I reached a point in my life (say somewhere near the end) and I looked back and thought “I never did have chickens”. I would wonder why I hadn’t. Why I hadn’t been able to make that happen for myself. How complicated could it be? How expensive? How much time and energy? How much knowledge would I need to acquire?
Basically, there was a day when it became clear that there was no good reason that I should live my life without ever having owned a couple of chickens.
Put like that to my husband, he was a pushover! Once I got clear myself that it was an important goal for me, and one that was easily obtainable. All further obstacles just fell away.
Sometimes I think we just need to stop waiting for the day when it will all seem right. We need to stop waiting for someone else’s permission or for their enthusiasm to match our own. Sometimes we just need to realise that we really want to do something. That we definitely don’t want to live a life and realise that we never did it. And that we can just do it.
Then we get to start collecting the eggs! And that really feels good.
So, I hope it makes sense now why I’m showing you a picture of the eggs I have collected this weekend from my chickens and ducks.
