October 13, 2012
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Egging on
Normanly I like to write with my tongue firmly inserted in my cheek - it is more difficult to speak that way, but writing is not so difficult. I fear today's chatter will be on the less silly side (until the end when I eggspecially have egg on my face - or at least my arm and my dog's face.) So Ladles & Gelly-mints let me get started on a cereal note:
Egg puns just CRACK me up!
(OK, NOW I'll be serious)
a rainbow of eggs - I gather these beauties daily -
well, not THESE eggs, but ones very much like them.
After the events of the day - which I shall relay in a bit - I was reminded of an old tip I learned as a child. Since I have chickens and lots of eggs I thought I'd pass this tip on. It surprised me to learn that not a lot of people had heard how to tell if an egg is fresh. So without further ado (and what is an ado anyway?) my tip:
If you put an egg in water and it sinks to the bottom it is fresh. If it floats on the top it is rotten.
***warning, do not throw your eggs in the deep pond unless you only want to gather the bad ones back***
I looked this up as my knowledge was unsure as to why, but I found out it is because as an egg decomposes water vapor and gasses are released through the porous shell and the air cell increases. The larger the air cell, the more the egg floats.
The egg on the right is older than the egg on the left. It is tipped up higher.
If your egg is lying flat on the bottom, it is very fresh. If it is touching the bottom but is tipped up, it is less so, but still not rotten. The latter eggs are great for hard boiling as the older eggs are easy to peel after being boiled.
NOW for my 'event' today.
(actually it was yesterday if you want to be technical)
In the gathering of eggs, my husband found one outside of the hen house on the ground. Since the birds are young, this is fairly normal, the younger girls haven't cleaved to the nesting box readily so I didn't think much of it. When I went to wash it, it literally exploded with a loud pop. Shell pieces hit me hard in the arm! The yolk was definitely on me!
The smell was incredibly horrible and I ran out into the back yard with what I could gather of the mess and threw it into the woods. Of course, this was the best time for company to show up and I greeted my guest by running out the door and laughing at the situation (because what ELSE could I do?) yelling over my shoulder, "Nice to meet you, I've a bad egg to deal with. Hahaha!"
Upon entering the kitchen with guest in tow, I opened the windows and started to scrub the mess up. I passed the visitor off to my husband, since it was his thing any way and got to work. Now, they say that the 'rotten egg' smell is added into the gas line to let you detect a gas leak. Let me tell you, that gas scent is not the 'real' rotten egg smell. What I had a whiff of was much stronger - to the point of my eyes tearing up. It smelled like a skunk had hit me dead on; not the after smell, but the sharp smell. Then the 'lesser' smell was more like really rotten potatoes or onions, which is gagging.
Meanwhile I sent my daughter out to bring the dogs in as it was their supper time. While she knew about the rotten egg, she didn't know I'd thrown it in the woods and (you know where this is going, right?!) didn't stop the dog from going into the wood to roll around in the fresh smell.
Now the smell in the kitchen was REALLY bad with the smelly dog, so out the dog went again until I could bathe her. It took a long time for the smell to dissipate and then I had to deal with it again to wash up the dog.
One very contrite, but clean dog.
Omelette you make your own conclusions for this story. Did you know there are two ways to spell omelet? I didn't Any egg puns are welcome in the comments.
Comments (7)
OMG, I almost peed myself laughing so hard. I wish I could've been there with VIDEO of all this unfolding egg mess. Better you than me.
I did not know about how to tell a fresh egg from a bad egg. Now I'm going to have to go check my eggs.
Your pup is very cute... and now ultra clean smelling, too.
Thanks for the egg tales and have a super weekend.
That's hilarious. I have ducks, and fortunately no explosions have happened to me yet... although we have four layers and don't get through eggs nearly quickly enough, so I'm acquainted with a bad egg smell (nothing quite like what you described here, however).
@ShadesOfAnnie -
! Winnie the dog is the mother of the dancing
It's a good thing you didn't pee yourself, I would have had to feel bad
about that as well
dandelion puppy I use as a profile pic. She was very unhappy about the getting clean part - maybe even enough to not go looking for rotten eggs again.
@randaness - We had ducks a few years ago, fun! This isn't my first rotten egg, but it certainly the first one to self destruct so violently. Usually when they float I take them into the backyard and practice throwing them at the trees. I have no idea why this one was so strong, but I'm glad it's gone now!
Usually rotten eggs are saved up to throw at bad politicians........
I do know about the rotten egg smell it is the sulfur that does it.
When we first started out with chickens they laid some eggs with fragile egg shells. That's why we added egg shells and vinegar to their diet.
Glad to having you read my blogs. I suppose you also like humor in blogs.
Ewwwww at the bad egg and must have smelled ripe. Good to know abouthow to tell if an egg is good or not.
That is a cute little dog.
@PPhilip - Normally I save my rotten eggs for bad politicians as well I was just lucky this time. This eggs shell wasn't fragile at all - just under a great deal of pressure. We, too, give ground up egg & oyster shells to our birds for extra calcium. As for humor, I try. I may not succeed much, but I try.
@Grannys_Place - She knows she is cute and is not afraid to use it!
Oh, I can only imagine! I thought it was bad enough cleaning up eggs that had been hard-boiled and left on a shelf for at least a year. Uncooked must be half-lethal.
My little dog finds that sort of thing irresistible as well. She's a good girl, but I just can't train her out of that.
I hope you were able to get rid of all the odor and now just have a funny anecdote!
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