It's cold and dreary and wet outside. As a matter of fact, it's raining. I'm not sure exactly how that's possible since the temperatures haven't been above freezing for weeks. It's only 23 degrees now. But it's raining. I let the kids bow out of animal chores this morning because we were running a little late and I wasn't sure how the weather was going to affect out commute the 12 miles into town. So, much to their disappointment (not!), I'm doing feeding chores this morning.

The wind starts to pick up and I can feel my hands begin to stick to the metal bucket handles as I push my way through knee deep snow to the coop with chicken and rabbit feed. Dang it. I should have been more careful in making sure my hands were bone dry before coming outside. I feed kitchen scraps and cracked corn to the herd of chickens. Then fill rabbit feeders with a barley/ alfalfa pellet mixture. And suddenly I notice an egg in one of the nesting boxes. The hens haven't been laying all that well since the really cold weather started. Actually, they haven't been laying at all. Between the cold and dark, the eggs have been few and far between. But there, in an otherwise empty nesting box, was a beautiful darkish brown egg. When I picked it up, it was still warm. Ahhhh. The egg warms my cold, wet hands. It feels good when I put my hand into my coat pocket next to the warm egg and it makes me smile.

Isn’t it funny that single brown egg from a little golden hen can warm your whole day?