"Hey Shay!  Have you given Christmas any eggs yet?" my mother asks me of her BFF.  The keyword here is "given".  She thinks I will be giving away all my extra eggs.  She has zero idea that we got chickens in order to sell eggs, as they aren't a sustainable food on their own (the cost to keep chickens far outweighs our need for eggs).  Even though I told her so, she still thinks that it's a stupid idea and we should just share.  She keeps promising eggs to everyone she talks to.  Sigh.  

The thing is, this is a trigger for me, to have her make plans for MY life and MY stuff.  But then I step back and remind myself: she isn't in charge anymore.  I am.  And no matter what she says or how many people she's said it to, it doesn't matter.  I have the ability now to tell her no and to tell her friends no, too.  I am just glad she only has two friends left, and one of those friends she never sees in real life.  If we lived in our old neighborhood, I would have had like 20 neighbors at my door with empty cartons, asking for free eggs, because mother would have told them all to come get some.  But I don't live that life anymore.  

We sell our eggs at $4 a dozen.  We have brown, blue, light green, and olive.  We also are getting into the black walnut business, so we'll see how that goes.  We have like 10lbs of them right now, I think?  It's hard work, but it's rad to see just how much of these little suckers you can use to make different things.  My mother thinks it's all stupid.  But she's old, crochety, rude, and has dementia and NPD.  So what do I care what she thinks?  I just don't anymore.  

I finally feel like I am learning to live my life without being a) under her thumb and b) under her watchful eye and c) controlled by her anymore.  

But I am going to make it very clear that to anyone she offers free eggs to, I don't give them away.  And Christmas doesn't deserve free eggs.  For so many reasons.  I will give her one dozen, but that's it.  After that, she pays like everyone else.  And I'm only giving her a free one because I've known her for so long.  

I did get an offer from a reseller to resell ALL our eggs every single week, but he wants prices so low that I'd make almost nothing on them.  If I had more chickens it would be worth it.  But I only have 15.  Let's just hope the people around here start buying as more of our girls start laying.  Right now, we're up to 9 a day.  

Having chickens is fun.  It's work, but it's been really fun so far.  Except when their coop flooded.  That sucked.  Also, I think as they die I will not replace them as they are delicate and about a billion things can go wrong with them at any given time.  I don't think they're worth the time, effort, and money considering all they give us are eggs that we don't get a ton of money for.  But I do love our girls.  And one special Rhode Island Red has claimed me as her person and is my little BFF and gets jealous and pecks other birds when I pet them LOL  Her name is LuAnn.  Her sister Peggy (aka Pants Pecker) is mean and hurty.  And I cannot wear shorts or open-toed shoes in their pen because of her.  

Okay, enough about chickens.  That's all for now.