Eggs-Traordinary!

I had to buy some more eggs. I still have several left from my last dozen, but I wanted to make a quiche and I just couldn't get myself to beat any from the last bunch.  You see, the previous purchase held a surprise. 

One morning I was all set to make breakfast of a scrambled egg rolled up in a soft tortilla. When I broke the egg into the bowl I was going to microwave it in, I discovered that it had two yolks.  I have not seen a double yolker in many years and there was no way I was going to scramble that baby up.  I got out my frying pan and had a fried egg on toast instead. 

As the week wore on I discovered that all the eggs in that carton seem to have double yolks.  A little discussion on Facebook let me know that several other people were experiencing the same thing.  As it turns out, they all bought their eggs from Walmart.  Amazingly, for the first time ever, I had also purchased eggs from Walmart, and those were the double yolkers.

Such a treat!

It does get confusing when you are cooking though.  I was about to make waffles the other day, and my recipe called for 2 egg yolks. I'm pretty sure that the two yolks from one of these eggs would not big enough to fulfil the requirement. But if I used the yolks from two eggs, there would have been 4 and that may have been too much yolk.  Three might have worked, but I'm finding these yolks rather fragile, so decided to just make pancakes instead.  No separated yolks required for that.

Then I wanted to make a quiche, but that required three eggs and I didn't want to waste my beautiful double yolked eggs by scrambling them all up. I gave up and bought a second carton, but I got them at my usual store, instead of Walmart, and they are, as expected, normal, one yolked eggs. 

One has to wonder what's going on here, as a double yolk happens when the egg gets backed up in the chicken's oviduct system, causing two yolks to be encased in the same shell.  It can also happen when ovulation occurs too rapidly. Either way a double yolk is supposedly a rare occurrence, and is believed to happen in only one out of 1,000 eggs.  So how is it that Walmart is selling whole cartons full of them to so many people all of a sudden?  Are their suppliers doing something to the chickens to cause them to lay eggs too often?

Apparently very young hens can produce double yolked eggs too, because their hormone system is not fully developed.  Since flocks of hens would all be roughly the same age, that might account for why so many of these young chickens are laying double yolked eggs all at the same time.

I have read that some hens are even bred to produce eggs with a double yolk, but I'm sure that the producers and the stores would both advertise they are double yolkers and expect to be paid more for these special eggs.  All it says on my carton of large eggs is "Great Value".  Well, I sure can't dispute that!  One double yolked egg would be a treat. A carton full is a bonanza.









 

Family Day, For Whoever Feels Like Family to You

The idea of a close family is often shaped by the media. I grew up watching such things as Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver.  Everything was perfect, or if there was a problem, it was really nothing serious. We all know real families are seldom like those.  More recent TV families have somewhat more realistic problems, but once again, things are usually worked out by the end of the  time allotted for the program each week. Real life families have a much longer time frame for problems to arise and diminish in, but the media has planted false ideas in our heads and not everyone seems to understands that.

We are all born into our first family, though some of us never feel like that's the one we belong in. Children within a family can be so different from one another, that though their parents may love them equally, the kids themselves never quite connect. They may fight as children and then become total strangers once they have grown up and left the nest. Other families are more closely knit and they are the lucky ones, though even those often have problems. No family is as perfect as we would hope. That doesn't mean the members don't love each other.

Many people find others they feel closer to than the ones they grew up with.  There is just something they connect with that draws them together.  In some cases they can form and build their own families with those people. The rest just enjoy one another's company and feel accepted and understood and have what we grew up believing a close family connection would be like.  There are the families you are given, and the families you create.

February 16th is Family Day.  Draw those dear to you close. Let them know you care. Everyone longs to feel some sort of family connection.  This is the day to try to create it.




 

Gifts From Cyber Space

 Cyber friends are wonderful people who you may never meet, but who often go out of their way to do nice things for you.  Over the years I've had them send me a multitude of things, mainly just because they had something they thought I'd like.

I get wonderful cards at Christmas and sometimes even my birthday. I've received everything from specialty tea bags to a camera lens in the mail over the years. I've had people pass me software after they upgraded to a newer version. Last year a lovely lady I had never met in person before, drove well out of her way during a trip to drop off a couple of discs at my place.  She could have saved a lot of time and gas by just mailing them, but it was
so wonderful to meet  her, her hubby and her dogs, even if they couldn't stay for a visit.

Most recently I received a package all the way from Turkey.  It contained a calendar, two bookmarks and two magnets, all of which had cat designs on them. What a treat. The artist is Ayse Saray, and I met her in a photography forum.

People often say that cyber friends are not "real friends" but they are wrong. They are very supportive, encouraging, entertaining and just plain wonderful. If I ask for help, I get it. If I ask for nothing, I get gifts. That's one of the reasons I signed on to the Pay it Forward initiative this year. I want to send out some surprises to a few people myself. I have a list of five names to start with and I'm already thinking of things I could send them. I'm going to have fun with this.  Nobody will know what's coming or when.