Know where your food comes from

I'm hoping to do some baking this weekend for the Sisters of Providence bake sale next Saturday at the Earth Day festival at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, so I stopped and bought two dozen brown eggs from a family on S.R. 246 today.

I've seen the "brown eggs" sign in the yard many times, but never stopped until today. I'm so glad I did.

Mr. Horton was in the yard when I stopped. As I was getting out of my car I asked, "How much are your eggs?"

He said, "$14 a dozen."

I said, "Are you serious?!"

He said, "No. They're $2 a dozen. We have some chicks that are hatching right now, do you wanna see 'em?"

I said, "Sure, can I bring my camera?"

And as you can see by the pictures it was really cool. There are three or four different breeds of chicks hatching there in the first two photos.

When I asked about the small, speckled eggs on the table behind us he told me they were Quayle eggs. (That's the third photo.) Which led us over to the Quayle chicks in a cage similar to the one my 4-H rabbits were in when I was a kid. The bigger Quayle were 16 days old and the smaller ones were only several days old.

By that time, Ms. Reed had placed my eggs on my car and was working in the backyard. I gave her my money and during the few minutes the three of us continued to talk I told her what I was going to do with the eggs. She said she used to work out at Saint Mary's and that her daughter went to Woods Day Care/Pre-school there as a child. Small world.

"We'll have to try to make it out there next weekend," she said genuinely.

I hope they do.