Mar 29, 2024 4 min read

On the kitchen counter next to the blender is the chicken bowl. Not of chicken but for chicken.

It’s where I put the strawberry hulls, the apple cores and the leftover bits of kale and lettuce – the things that would otherwise end up in the garbage disposal or, if I were really that organized, a compost bin.

Every few days I transfer my gatherings to a Baggie and stow it in the fridge, to await my next visit to see the chickens.

“The girls,” I call them, the laying hens that live in the coop at the back of the wooded property of my friend, whom I’ve nicknamed Log Cabin Guy in honor of the house he built on the land 40 years ago. He built the coop more recently, after his beloved dog passed away. He said he needed something new to take care of, so he built the coop and filled it with five hens.

Every few weeks when I visit, I take the bag of food. As we walk across the yard toward the coop, the chickens see us coming and line up along the screened wall and start carrying on, jockeying for position. We open the door and toss the food in and chaos ensues.

And then I walk around the back of the coop to open the trap door to the two little rooms where the hens do their laying, and see what’s there – usually three but sometimes four or even five brown eggs. I reach in to gather them. Sometimes they’re warm, but usually not because they were laid hours before and Log Cabin Guy left them in there for me because he knew I was coming.

Chickens lay eggs for two to three years, and then go through “henopause,” laying fewer and fewer until they stop altogether. My friend’s hens are going on two years, and they’re still laying, but not as consistently. Some days there will be five eggs behind that door. Lately, there might be just one or two.

These chickens could live for another eight years, and so the question becomes, what to do with the chickens? Some people butcher and eat the birds, but Log Cabin Guy said he could never do that.

“I guess they are my pets,” he said. Chopping off their heads would be out of the question.

His plan is to add some younger hens to his flock, but that can be tricky. Research recommends sneaking the newbies in while the others are sleeping on their roosts. Maybe a second coop is in order? I even suggested bringing in a rooster while the girls are still fertile, to get some baby chicks that way.

“Never,” he said. “Roosters are mean.”

Last weekend, I opened the trap door to find three enormous eggs, one of which was almost pink, maybe the result of the beet trimmings I’d taken to feed them. It was nice of that hen to give me an Easter egg.

Sometimes when I have breakfast there, Log Cabin Guy will cook the first egg of the day. The yolk is always deep reddish orange, and it makes a delicious omelet. It’s kind of sad to think we’ll be getting fewer of those eggs now. The girls are getting older.

Like all of us, I guess. I look forward to visits when I’ll open that little door to find eggs. Maybe two or maybe five. Maybe even a pastel-colored one. I’ll gently retrieve them and then I’ll close the door until next time.

“Good work, girls,” I say as they line up along the screen, squawking as I go by.