One Potato, Two Potato, Egg!

The last of the raised beds is cleared and tilled, and ready for new stuff... like basil, peppers, carrots. Hidden in the weeds, beneath the untilled soil, we found three potatoes. Have you ever grown potatoes? The first time I did was a total accident. I tossed a bunch of gone-to-sprout spuds into our compost, and later (probably months!) I turned the compost and found loads and loads of potatoes! Firm, fresh, organic, gorgeous, dirty potatoes! Harvesting potatoes is fun. Or am I just easily amused? I spent a summer in Mexico sorting, cleaning, bagging and weighing potatoes on my Abuelos' ranch, and that summer we ate potatoes about every way you can imagine. As much time as we spent immersed in that spud summer, I hadn't actually seen them come out of the ground. I would love to have that for a memory... it must have been acres and acres of land to fill the rooms at Ojo de Agua with mountains of papas! It doesn't take acres of land to get some papas growing on your own rancho. Even a barrel will yield a nice crop!

I like digging up potatoes, and I love finding eggs! 'No kidding,' you might be thinking... I know, I do post about eggs, finding eggs, comparing eggs, pretty often, but every single day, every single time I find an egg, I wish I had my camera with me, and I consider posting about the discovery on social media... it's more efficient than actually calling all of my friends! Anyone here at the Bird House can confirm it; I will hold my hand out and share my find, express deep admiration for the hen, point out the colors, the flecks, the shape, the size. If it's especially fresh, I hand it over and say, "Feel it. It's so warm," and my voice glows with emotion. Would you believe Kamen laid an egg this week? I thought she'd laid her last in January, when she was the only hen laying in the dark of winter. Now she is more than four years old, and we don't much expect any eggs from her. It was an adorable, pale and pointed egg, small, too. I found it, like the blue one above, in the goats' hay feeder. Tasha and Ada don't get quite as excited as I do about finding a pretty egg, or dirty potatoes. They love pine needles, head scratches, and sprinting across the lawn.