Dana, you should "blow" a couple eggs, and leave them in the basket. :lol:

Blowing eggs, is putting a small hole in each end and blowing the egg out of the shell. This leaves an empty shell for decorating at Easter.

Actually, they came out perfect, just like Joy of Cooking said they should.

I do prefer starting with cold water, bringing to a boil with my magic egg timer in with the eggs, but I didn't want to stand and stare at the thing until it was the right amount of blue.

A friend of mine's daughter wants to keep chickens, but I don't think the township will let her. They already have bees, a bunch of rabbits, a guinea pig, and a macaw.

:lol:

I'll see how well we get on in the next few months - at present I think it would creep her out a bit :)
ETA - have just looked up Araucana and found a place that supplies them. I may subtly court Mrs G all through the Spring term so that a present becomes a natural consequence of friendship...
Mum said if she had her time again she'd have kept chickens. They look after them at a number of housesits and she loves them.
They would be wrong for this neighbourhood though - too noisy for our packed-together houses and gardens.

If you didn't keep any roosters, you'd find that a few hens really don't make any noise other than soft clucking...

Griff we really live on top of eachother here. And Mum is hyper-sensitive to noise-making. She even considers windchimes anti-social.

When I win the lottery she can have them.
She's getting a bungalow in a respectable part of town (all one level will be increasingly necessary with Dad's knees). And a gardener, so they have a bit of space witout the worry.

That's right, and you don't need a roo at all. Hens will lay eggs whether or not there's a guy around.

Oh, come on! You know you wanna! :D

That is a pretty low threshold. :)

Depends on the wind, and the chimes. Our chimes are over 2 feet long, and the wind can get up to 50mph gusting to 90 in a bad winter. That's why we keep the windchimes indoors :cool:!

Let's put it this way - I got black looks all day when I had a cold.
Reason? I kept Mum up all night.
That would be the coughing and excessive nose blowing then.
She had to go downstairs and wrap herself in a duvet, and she could STILL hear me.

On the flip side, imagine her pain at living with two people with poor hearing, and having a Dad who is partially deaf. No wonder she lives life of the verge of a scream...

renassiance man.

You've outdone yourself there Sundae.

Maybe you should consider weather sealing.