That's EGGSACTLY What I've Been Saying

The Pony is doing a science experiment that requires heating some eggs to a temperature of 150 degrees. That means that I put them in the oven for ten or fifteen minutes. Everybody knows you can't microwave an egg in its shell. Everybody except one of the #1 son's teachers, who put an egg in its shell in her microwave. The egg LOOKED just fine, according to #1. It still looked fine as the teacher started peeling off the shell. Then, when she was almost done, KAPLOOEY! The thing exploded all over the place. Let the record show that she was NOT a science teacher.

So...we are not using our very own personal chicken eggs for this project. Home-grown chicken eggs have a much thinner shell than commercial eggs. I did a trial run tonight. I put an egg in the oven at 150 for ten minutes. The Pony reported that while it felt slightly warm, he thought it could go for fifteen minutes for the real experiment. I told him to go get rid of the warm egg. He put on his Adidas slides and slid across the hard shell of the sleet/snow/frozen rain on the back porch. Down down down he flung that egg. I could not see it from where I was standing on the dry decking, but The Pony reported that the heating must have ruptured the yolk membrane, because the smashing explosion shot yellow goop in all directions across the snow.

While this chicken-fruit bomb was being detonated, Juno was around the kitchen-nook hump on the other side of the back porch by the laundry room, gobbling grease bread, garlic cheese breadsticks, and half a foot-long sub roll from all three dog dishes. You snooze, you lose at this canine cafe.

Farmer H came in from feeding the goats, and asked if we gave Ann, the black shepherd, an egg. "No. But The Pony threw one off the back porch just now." Farmer H declared that she must have picked it up, because she was carrying one in her mouth and rolling it across the snow in the front yard.

SCREEEEEEECH! That's the sound of a phonograph needle on an LP. There's no way Ann could have been carrying that Pony egg. It was in smithereens. And furthermore, Farmer H elaborated that it was a GREEN egg. Not storebought. He asked The Pony if he had dropped one out of the basket when collecting a few minutes earlier. Nope.

Now I could gloat. "See? It's NOT my dog eating your eggs. So there!"

"It is TOO your dog."

"Nope. Juno is my dog."

"Well...Ann is your dog, too. Tank is my dog."

"Stop blaming Juno for all your missing eggs. Just because she has a glossy coat. I told you all along that I see Ann with the eggs, and Juno follows her around and licks the empty shells."

Finally. My doggie has been vindicated. I thought it was obvious enough when Tank was found INSIDE the chicken house every evening, and only one egg was being collected. Farmer H swore that Tank the beagle was not big enough to get eggs out of the nesting boxes. Huh! These wacky chickens don't lay in the nesting boxes.

Farmer H decreed that The Pony should leave no stone unturned in gathering eggs in the future. Short of following the hens from sunup 'til sundown, I don't think this mission will be a success.