Eggs
Abi Carter at Cat's Cradle (March 13, 2025)
Thursday night Erin and Oliver joined me at Cat’s Cradle Back Room for Abi Carter, winner of Season 22 of American Idol (we three watched this season from start to finish and enjoyed Carter’s beautiful voice). After the show, Erin bought t-shirts and Oliver got Abi’s autograph, telling her he’d just come from playing alto saxophone in the pit orchestra for the Carrboro High School Jag Theatre performance of Something Rotten!
“That’s sick,” she replied.
“Guess who just got on TikTok with a celebrity?” Oliver posted to our family chat on the way home.
I had no idea what Something Rotten! was about. I went to the show last night and laughed throughout at all the wordplay on Shakespeare—Omelette: The Musical (“It’s Eggs!”)—and references to American stagecraft. What a fun show, and the Carrboro kids rocked it. Oliver had solos from underneath, and we were so proud of him.
Eggs—egg prices!—have been in the news as a reference to the state of the economy (and ability of certain politicians to tell the truth). They are a punch line on t.v. and in my Bluesky stream, and the high schoolers last night worked it into the performance. Touché.
At home, our three hens are now laying their eggs in the same small coop but in a different part of our four acres. I’ve spent the last month creating a large fenced run for the chickens, gathering dead juniper trees from around our land to use as posts and hauling hundreds of rocks and small boulders to line the yard as protection from burrowing creatures. My friend Sid came by one Saturday to help with the wire fencing, and I’m spreading wood chips to connect the chick yard to the walking path I’m creating through the woods.
My project was inspired by the DIY instructions in Hentopia: Create a Hassle-Free Habitat for Happy Chickens; 21 Innovative Projects by Frank Hyman. Frank and his wife, Chris, wanted backyard hens and helped lead a successful effort to legalize them in nearby Durham in 2009. I’ve had Hentopia since our previous chicken coop up at the old brick house, and I paged through the book over the winter as I started planning the project. We’ve let the hens range the land but the hawks and owls and foxes and coyote other critters means we’re often running outside to protect them. My goal was to make a space where the hens could move about but be protected and safe. Soon as we add a top screen to the new run, we’ll have achieved the goal.
I also ordered three more Barred Rock pullets from Sunrise Oak Farm (between Durham and Hillsborough); these new chickens are in the garage for the moment but soon will join the hens. I paid $40 per bird back in January, but now the price is up to $54. Eggs!
Home. About. Archive. Contact. RSS.
© Anton Zuiker