How Long Can This Go On?

This weekend we are having a party for Jordan's 9th birthday. Jordan and I are going to make her cake. We found this fun recipe that uses Pepsi cola as the liquid and sugar. (Jordan's grandma works for Pepsi.) Jordan is pretty excited - soda cake!

But making our own cake brings up a problem. Cakes need eggs. You may be thinking, if you have read my blog before, you have chickens so you must have eggs. Actually, right now I have 3 eggs in the fridge. 3! And we haven't gotten a single egg from the chickens for 5 days. 5 days!

Before we got chickens, I did my due diligence and read a few books about chickens. I learned that chickens molt in the fall, sometimes loosing nearly all their feathers. When they molt, they don't lay. For the past two weeks our chickens have been molting.

How long can molting keep going?!

I'm getting anxious here. I was eating an egg every day at breakfast. I really, really miss my over-easy, fried egg with fresh sea salt and cracked pepper over a buttered piece of whole wheat, seedy toast. I almost broke down and had an egg this morning. But then I won't have enough eggs for the cake.

I was telling this to a coworker, who had asked how my chickens are doing. After I finished ranting she said "Why don't you just go buy some?" Ok, true - I could go buy some eggs. I could even go to the corner produce market and buy local, farm-fresh eggs. But I won't. I just won't! I have my own chickens!!

After tomorrow, if the chickens don't lay, we will have no eggs. Which means, not only that I can't have a fried egg over buttered toast, but we can't make muffins (a lunch staple at our house), we can't make pancakes Sunday. So maybe I will run down to the produce market and pick up a dozen. Maybe.