Green Eggs and Sam

Someone once asked me to name the foremost thing that I like best about living in the country. Without hesitation I said it was the ability to raise most of our own food. What a joy to fix a meal that contains almost all, if not all, of meats and produce raised right here on our ranch.

There is nothing like sitting down at breakfast and savoring the flavor of farm fresh chicken eggs. We have a variety of different breeds of chickens that free range our property by day. Among them is one specific breed I am rather fond of: Araucana. These chickens lay eggs that range in color from pale blue to a nice rich green.


I think it's great fun finding a green or blue egg mixed in with the standard brown ones that the other breeds of chickens on our ranch lay. It's even more fun to see the expression on the faces of children who, for the most part, delight in seeing naturally colored green eggs.

Because we have an abundance of eggs at the end of each day, we either give away or sell the excess to local folks who are not lucky enough to raise their own chickens. Often times we donate the overflow to the local food bank. No egg is wasted.

Which brings me to Green Eggs and Sam:

Not to long ago while I was in one of our local grocery stores I happened to pull my shopping cart along side a young mother with several children in tow. I was waiting patiently for her to make her selection of eggs so I could reach in and grab a pound of unsalted cooking butter.

Without provocation she turned to me and said "I can't believe the price of a dozen eggs can you?" Before I could answer she added "I really try to feed the kids good food, but the cost of eggs is making it difficult to give them a good nutritional breakfast."

I smiled, reached into my purse and handed her one of our business cards and said "Well, maybe we can help each other out. We live on a ranch about 4 miles from here and we always have more eggs than we know what to do with. I'd be happy to share some with you."

She hesitated and I could tell that a bit of pride was holding her back so I added "Really, you'd be doing me a favor. I hate to waste food. We get several dozen eggs every day and we simply can't use that many."

She said she would take some but only if she could pay for them. I told her that generally we just gave them away but if she felt better she could pay me $1.00 per dozen, which I added, was the standard price when we did sell them. She brightened and said she'd stop by in a day or so.

A few days later an unfamiliar vehicle slowly crept up our drive. It was pouring rain and the wipers on the car were going at full speed. Before long a young boy of about 8 climbed out of one of the rear doors and ran up to the door.

When I opened it he handed me our business card and said "Mom said you could sell us some eggs. She wants to know if you have some."

I told him I did and asked him to come in while I got them out of the refrigerator. "No ma'am" he said "I can't go into strangers houses. We don't know if you are a bad person or not." Then he turned and pointed to the car and added "And don't you worry, my mom is watching." I smiled and told him he was right and that he should remain on the porch."

Noting he had 3 one dollar bills clutched in his hand I quickly grabbed 3 cartons of eggs from the refrigerator and returned to the half drowned little boy on my porch. In his presence I carefully opened each carton to inspect for broken or cracked eggs. The nice assortment of green and brown eggs looked fine to me so I started to set them in a shopping bag.

The boy suddenly had a horrified look on his face "Stop!" he said firmly "I can't take those eggs!" When I asked why he said "Well, my mom won't like it if you sell her eggs that aint' ripe yet."

I asked him what he meant by eggs that were not ripe yet. He beamed and said "Sometimes you have to really watch what people sell you so you don't come home with stuff that isn't ripe is what I mean."

I tried to assure him the eggs were fine, but he reached down into the bag, pulled out a carton, opened it and said "Look here!" he pointed at a green Araucana egg and spouted "Do it look ripe to you? It's green as it can be lady, don't you have more ripe ones in there?"

I nearly laughed out loud, but I could see the little guy was dead serious. When I couldn't convince him that the eggs really were ripe and that different types of chickens laid different colored eggs I gave in and got several more cartons of eggs from the refrigerator and substituted brown eggs for the green Araucana ones.

When I finished he thrust $3.00 toward me and said "Lady if you want to keep selling your eggs to people you'd best not try that one again."


When I closed the door I burst out laughing.

Much later when the weather cleared and I was able to talk to his mother I told her the story. She laughed and said that since their dad left them Sam felt he was responsible for the family's well being. Apparently right after her newest baby was born, she sent Sam into a store to buy a bunch of bananas while she stayed in the car outside. When Sam returned with green bananas she tried to explain the difference between green ones and ripe ones. Obviously, he took the lesson seriously.

No green eggs for Sam!