Contest: Why did the chicken....lay the egg

this photo from HERE (and the images made me laugh!)

Sometimes thoughts hit me upside my haid and I then want to know the "why's" of something. And this chicken thang hit me upside my haid this morning while I was watching a goose cross the road (why did the goose cross the road? to make Kat start thinking weird shit).

So, I got to thinking about chickens and eggs. Most animals I know of have a certain amount of babies. A robin lays eggs and those baby birds are born and then the robin waits until the next time to have their babies. A horse, cow, human, dog, cat--they have their babies whenever blah blah, etc. But how come a chicken lays eggs every day, or near every day (I know that light has something to do with it and egg people will use artificial light to get them to lay more often - but why do they have the capacity to do this? what in "evolution" causes a chicken to have so danged many eggs - especially if some of them won't even grow baby chicks?--what's the evolutionary purpose? the survival purpose of unfurtilized laid eggs?)

I mean, if us humans weren't eating them, would their be millions of chickens running around, or, would there be all these eggs lying around that chickens have squatted out all over because no one is eating them(except other wild animals slipping 'round)? Wait, but we don't eat the fertilized ones, right? So, gol-dangit, why even lay those eggs? Chickens don't lay them thinking, "Here y'all go, here's some unfertilized eggs for y'all to eat, bawk bawk bawk...y'all don't think nothin' of it, all yallses just crack em open and have at it....bawk, my pleasure...bawk bawk bawk. Y'all enjoy now! Y'all come back soon! bawkity bawk!" I mean, what's the purpose of the chicken having the capability of laying those eggs every day or near every day?

What? Who is laughing? I want to know! Aren't you curious? What other animal lays eggs every danged day? And not just one, but sometimes several of them. Why? why why why does a chicken have so many danged eggs?

The first person to give me a real answer - I mean, one you can verify *laugh* - gets a signed copy of Tender Graces. If you already have a copy, then I'll send you something else -- and if you just don't want a copy of TG and want that something else, then for gawd's sake don't admit that you don't want TG or you might hurt my wittle feewings *laughing* - just say, "I want the other thang...." and we'll just pretend you already have a copy of TG...teehee bawk bawk bawk.

So, anyway....stop laughing at me...!

Before I go --- Don't forget to scroll down to the links below, where there are the Blogging Community (and local community) artisans, for which Angie Ledbetter and I hope you all will do your holiday and non-holiday shopping....and if you are a blogger with artsy kinds of things or books or whatever, leave your link and I'll post it. From time to time I'll be re-posting those links.

Have a great weekend - I'll leave this post up Sat'day and Sunday and see if anyone can answer my question (without laughing at me). Huhn. And if you google "why do chickens lay eggs every day" you'll get all kinds of whatevers that don't answer your question. huhn.

I'll be back Monday with more on the Louisiana Book Festival....and Louisiana food!

PS -- two of the most discussed about posts I have had here are when mothers abandon or give up their children (and are they held to a higher standard than men), and the post from the other day about "when did food become the (my) enemy." I have read all your comments and laughed and cried and stiffed up my back for you in indignation...all things. As for weight and body image for us women, I think we should revolt - yes, we should all contact Hollyweird and magazines and ask to be represented as real women - is this what Dove is doing? oh smart Dove! ha! Maybe More magazine is doing it? I wonder, if we all said, ENOUGH would it matter? Or maybe we have to affect the change only within our own attitudes and our children's attitudes! Our daughters! Our Sons! okay, enough of that - back to the Chickens...

google images from: http://mypersonalizedringtones.com/images/chicken_laying_eggs.jpg

Dream a little dream of... Giant Chickens?

Maybe I was feeling some inner guilt for eating the chicken and dumplings, or as I called them: "Dump-er-lings, since I just dumped stuff in the pot. After all, I am what has been coined by someone somewere as a "Flexitarian;" meaning, I will eat seafood/fish, and sometimes, rarely, I'll eat some kinds of meat and never others. I made my easy pleasy chicken dumplings because Good Man Roger loves them - and since he usually does the cooking, it was a chance for me to doodle-dee-doo around in the kitchen. (And to sweeten the pot, so to speak, he made the recipe even easier, of which is below.)

So, since I ate the chicken in the chicken and dump-er-lings, I dreamed about chickens come to attack the city - or someone's city. There was one HUGE giananticus chicken--big as a seven story building!--and then all that chicken's little mean pecking chickens. They swarmed all over and created havoc unknown to man ever! The giant chicken did that staring in the window thing -it's cold beady empty-headed eye appraising...oh! shudder!

Then I dreamed I was on an episode of Scrubs - the one where they did a musical - and I was dancing around singing, "Boop oop ee doo, boop oop ee doo, boop oop ee doo be doo bee doo oop oop a doooOooOO-Bee Do!" All the while I had a bathtowel wrapped around me - even though I was wearing clothes. Huhn. Really. I did dream that.

Ah well, my good friends - what did you dream last night? Or are you one of those who never remembers their dreams? If anyone else dreamed of giant chickens, well -- ! --!

Oh, and don't forget the contest for the book-give-a-way; look below, or to the right in the column where instructions are -just click on the image.

Now, for my chicken and dump-er-lings. I swear this is the easiest thing. You can also boil your own poor little chicken and make your own stock. You can make your own biscuit dough, too. I used to do all that. Or you can be a lazy-arse cook that I've become and do what I did (and Small Footprints- I bet you'll think of a good vegetarian way to make this!):

(Photo not mine) In olive oil, I sauteed half an onion until soft (I added a pinch of salt too and something I never add, just a pinch of Cavendar's -just to see how it would taste), then added a little garlic, and when that was cooked down, I added just a bit of flour and stirred it around. Then I poured in a box of Emeril's chicken stock; and let that work on coming to a boil. Meanwhile, I threw some flour on a cutting board, opened a can of Grand Biscuits (not the butter ones-they'll melt too much!) and then smashed flat the biscuits and then cut them into strips. When they were all cut up and the stock boiling, I added the biscuit strips to the stock. I had already cut up into bite-sized pieces the chicken from a deli chicken GMR bought (yup, didn't even have to make my own stock, or boil my own chicken, or make my own biscuits - laughing!) - and after the dumplings had began to cook through, and this doesn't take long, I added the cut up chicken. I let that simmer a bit and added salt and lots of pepper (I like lots of pepper in mine). Finally, I added cream (or milk, or whatever - it just makes a nice southern white gravy) and let it cook a bit. We like ours thick and creamy. Then, you eat, and if you are a Flexitarian, you feel kinda gross you're eating chicken and then when you go to bed, you dream about giant chickens and its little chicken helpers running into a city to creat havoc upon the land.

(google images from theinspirationroom.com and ourfamilycookbook.com)