that is how long it took my chickens to lay their first eggs…

let me rewind a bit. about six months ago kristie and i finally realized our (relatively new) dream of owning chickens. we went to the feed store and bought 2 little baby chicks, both rhode island reds and named them claire and camilla. a few days later kristie went back and bought three more, two barred rock (cumin and coriander) and one ameraucana (an impulse buy named constance). we knew that they would take about 6 months to grow to the point of laying eggs, but also read that their egg laying can also be influenced by the weather, so we figured it would be march before we could expect eggs.

low and behold kristie was cleaning the coop yesterday and she found 3 eggs in 2 of the nesting boxes!

here are claire and camilla, our good little producers.

and let me tell you, the eggs were delicious. i have had all kinds of eggs, ones from the grocery store that range from the 99 cents for a dozen to the 4 buck a dozen “organic” variety, all the way to eggs from the farmers market, and let me tell you, they all get blown out of the water by the eggs i had last night.

i cracked the egg into the pan and it just sat there. it didn’t run! not at all…it cooked to bright white and the yolk, it was an amazing velvety rich almost orange color. and the taste, it was a more eggy egg, that is the only way i can describe it. i tried to compare it to something i had tasted before, but couldn’t pull a good association out of my brain….

so i am looking forward to many more delicious egg dishes from here on out. I will let you know how they go.

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yes, it is true, and i am definitely going to celebrate. I think my feelings can be summed up by stealing the words from the Tim McGraw song:

I think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era and the turning of a page
Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

Hey my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun
Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done
Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears
And I’ll do it better in my next thirty years

My next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores
Cry a little less, laugh a little more
Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear
Figure out just what I’m doing here
In my next thirty years

Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers
Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years

My next thirty years will be the best years of my life
Raise a little family and hang out with my wife
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here, In my next thirty years

So yeah, that is pretty much how i feel. i like 30.

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This time i wanted to post something a little more interesting this time. It was a few days ago that i found this on Youtube. It is a feature length movie that is available till the 14th of june. So go watch it NOW!!!!

Time Wasting Score: (but its a sad 5 stars)

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Two words: Dr. Horrible

I may be giving up a little bit of “man cred” with this one but I figure all of the home repair, electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, painting, building, demoing, etc. I have some I can spare. Caveat complete:

Everyone loves music, and movies, and this combines the two into a GREAT little miniseries published exclusively for the web. Most of the cast you won’t recognize, but NPH himself plays the title character! And, because I am me and can’t leave you without at least one bit of trivia, the whole thing was done during the writers strike because of a loophole that barred writers from producing content for TV but not the web. Thank you writer’s strike!

Time Wasting Score:

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Two Words: Weebls Stuff
This site has some of the most catchy, fun cartoon music videos i have ever seen, from titles like Narwhals to the adventures of Magical Trevor, one could easily waste about an hour a day of time.

Narwhals!

Magical Trevor

Time Wasting Score:

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In the coming months I will be bringing you, our readers, interesting little things online that are designed to waste time. I think we all have too much free time and the internet is a remarkable place to waste some of it. So keep your eyes peeled for parts 1 through 101 of my new blog series!

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I thought this was a beautiful illustration of what they are trying to get across. They don’t have do do different versions for people that speak different languages. And since their message is a truly global one, it is possibly the best solution they could have come up with.

Enjoy, and tell a friend. 350.org

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Its been a long time since i have written a post about the end of the world, alas the great volume of amazing creative work going on here at Merlot has kept my idle brain from wandering into the sphere of cataclysm…

However, thanks to a science segment on one of my favorite radio shows i have a new postulation for the end of the world! The bad news, the earth is going to get destroyed by an asteroid whose path will cross ours April 13, 2036. The good news, Bruce Willis has WAY more time to prepare for this one…

So what is the deal with the “Ancient Egyptian Snake” part of the title you ask?? HAHA! That is the BEST PART of this cataclysmic prediction. The name of the asteroid is Apophis. Apophis is a greek translation of the Egyptian god Apep who was one of Ra’s opponents. EVEN BETTER, is the fact that Apophis/Apep was know as “The Uncreator” or if we were to just reverse the word “The Destroyer”! creepy huh?

Ok, enough pondering of the end of the world. Someone call Bruce Willis already…

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I just want to call premature attention to Merlot’s Holiday Card because I am pretty sure everyone else is going to be talking about it and i wanted to make sure as many people as possible are already in the know…

The idea was simple enough. “Traditionally,” the Holidays are thought of as joyous and gleeful, with people enjoying time with friends and family. But most of us have stories of things going wrong, or maybe just pet peeves with this time of year. These probably happen for a number of reasons: we have such high expectations, we reach our limits of frustration, there is an unexpected occurrence, or some other unpredictable situation arises.

SO! In that spirit the team at Merlot has come up with HOLIDAY BOOT CAMP. An emergency guide for the myriad of situations that you may confront at this time of year. Spanning from pre-Thanksgiving to New Years Eve, we hope that this guide will help you avoid/survive this and every coming holiday season, or at the very least have a few laughs!

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In honor of Halloween i wanted to post something a little creepy for everyone to have fun with. Luckily this thing i wanted to post fell into my lap at just the right time! Hopefully everyone can take a little break from their day to see (and rate) some of the creepiest animals out there. Enjoy!

Creepy Animals of the World!

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