We’ve had backyard chickens in Seattle for more than a decade now.  I kind of like to think that we had city chickens before having city chickens was a thing.  (Now everyone has chickens here; you have to get backyard goats to have any urban farming cred.  J says we’re not getting goats.)  I’m sure Seattle has a home and garden tour somewhere, but I’m also sure that it’s nowhere near as popular as the city’s annual Chicken Coop Tour.

At the moment we have just three hens: Ducky, Feather, and Feather.  Lately one of the Feathers has been acting upon a likely-well-intentioned but completely misguided plan to hatch a nestfull of eggs, except that we kept taking her eggs away and, ahem, with no rooster in flock the eggs had exactly zero chance of hatching anyway.

Feather was petulant about the situation and hunkered down in one of the nesting boxes for weeks.  She would not be stirred, unless I would let her into the garden to eat my tomatoes, in which case she happily abandoned her maternal duties and left the nest for hours at a time.  Luckily Feather has abandoned her dreams of motherhood and we are getting a few eggs again (broody hens don’t lay).

Let us celebrate with a frittata.

You made a big batch of caramelized onions and froze some, right?  If not, just throw a few thinly-sliced onions in your pan over high heat and cook them until they have softened and sweetened and proceed from there.  I also like this recipe with a few leeks in place of the onions. Continue reading →