Eggcellent.

I just heard that I got 100 percent on my written egg test. However, let's not count those proverbial chickens, because my practical egg candling test has not yet been graded. My lab partner and I were the very last ones done, and it felt as though we were guessing almost all the time. Yikes!

The s.o. is a genius. For a lot of reasons, actually, but for one in particular right now. You see, we were looking online to find an egg candler, and mostly they are really cheesy. The only ones that looked even halfway acceptable were more than $50. The ones that looked as though they might actually be useful on our brown eggs were several hundred dollars. Horrifying. But the s.o. noticed a resemblance between the very high-end candlers and an old filmstrip projector he had picked up at a thrift store for $15 a couple of years ago. We fired that baby up (500 watts!) and could see through even the darkest egg. Awesome. And, aside from the fact that you don't want to leave it running for long because of the wattage, incredibly cheap.

I wish I had had my filmstrip projector for the practical exam. Talk about an unfair advantage!

So, about the rest of it. We have to cobble together a facility--not in our kitchen--with a separate sink and fridge for egg handling. The s.o. favors building it in a quick, no-fuss manner on the back porch, although it would mean enclosing the porch more fully. I'm not as thrilled with that idea. I think I might like to wait and make it part of the commercial kitchen we hope to build within the next couple of years. We can definitely get by on exempt egg selling* until then.

No predictions right now. We'll see how it pans out.

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* There's an exemption in Georgia wherein you can sell up to 30 dozen a week, ungraded, from your farmstead without having to comply with the normal regs. But the people actually have to show up on your property in person; you can't take the eggs anywhere off your property to sell them. Not to a farmers' market, not to someone's house, not anywhere. That's a little tricky for us because we live out in the boonies and are not "on the way" to anywhere. Still, I think a FRESH EGGS sign in the yard might go a long way.