The Travels of our Eggs

I am allergic to chicken eggs. I don’t eat them, but i have always loved chickens and knew i one day wanted to have them. When i did obtain chickens they started producing eggs and i had to figure out what to do with those eggs. Plenty of people ask me why i don’t sell them and i’ll tell you a story to illustrate why. I was giving them away to friends who had been kind to me at the time. A young man i worked with told me that was a stupid thing to do because i could be selling them and making money off of them. He asked me to take the eggs i had been giving to Cindy and two other friends and sell them to him for profit. He asked me what reason i would have not to. I didn’t at the time have a good grasp on the words i was looking for to illustrate my point so i just told him i would think about it. During icepocalypse i lost electricity, a/c, heat, and the well pump. I had no place to shower and i had no source of water to drink. Some people who lived in the center of the larger city nearby had not lost power or water and some of them were offering people to fill up gallon water jugs from their tap and get a quick shower in their bathroom if they brought a towel. I asked this coworker of mine if he would let me fill up a gallon water jug at his house, so i could have drinking water. I didn’t need drinking water. My coworker patty had already given me a place to shower as had my coworker santos, and my friend cindy provided me with water as soon as hers was back online. I just wanted to see what his answer would be. It would help me decide if taking eggs away from my friends to sell to my coworker was a good idea. His answer was a hesitant noise and neck rubbing. He asked, “you mean like come to my house, like where i live?” I nodded. He said, “yeah, i’m not comfortable with that. You’re gonna have to ask someone else.” I saw him the following week and he asked, “when are you gonna sell me some of those yard eggs?” I answered, “i’m not.” He asked, “why not? I’ll pay you. Name your price…within reason.” I answered, “i don’t sell the eggs. I barter with the eggs. I don’t barter in the sense that i offer this for that. I barter in that when someone does me a favor or extends a kindness to me i give them eggs as a thank-you. I also use them to tip pest control or electricians. An egg is a kindness, not a transaction. If you had done me a solid and allowed me to fill my water jug from your tap when you had water and i didn’t, i would have given you a dozen eggs.” The young man looked perplexed. He walked away. We didn’t speak again before he ultimately quit the job because it required him to wake up earlier than he wanted to on a consistent basis and he was in danger of being terminated due to tardy write-ups. I’ve never sold an egg and i don’t plan to.

Part of the magic of giving away eggs is getting to see what people do with them. My friend Cindy uses them to bake desserts for her family and her exercise group. Danny White uses them to make his famous deviled eggs that he sells, my other friend crushes the shells and adds them to her garden soil, Cindy’s grandchildren turn them into very artsy cascarones every Easter, they’ve been used to make marinated eggs, quiches, hardboiled eggs, sunny side up eggs, eggs in a nest (toast is the nest), and occasionally when an egg cracks i’ll go ahead and cook it up for the dogs. I love it when people send me pictures of what they do with the eggs. They have traveled to austin, bandera, comfort, kerrville, and san antonio. They’ve ended up as many things on their travels and im ceaselessly amazed by what people come up with. You know egg whites were used in the developing of photographs and they are often found as an ingredient in your standard flu shot. Eggs are to the refrigerator what peanut butter is to the pantry…versatile.