A jumbo egg, a kiwi & Peter Pan

I was going to call this post 'Open Weekend #3' but yet again it was a flop, pouring with rain and no viewings. So passing swiftly on, I will talk about more interesting things. 

Bit of an eclectic mix today. I'm actually a bit behind with posting this, as this was last weekend. So instead of catching up with my crochet tonight I'm madly blogging!

We have seven chickens at the moment, and being winter it is a quiet time egg wise, with generally only one or two eggs a day. So imagine my surprise when I went out and checked the nest boxes and found this ginormous one....

I rushed inside cradling my poultry treasure, with visions of it being a Guiness World record. I popped it on the scales and it came in at 125g. That vision was soon well and truly stomped on when I discovered this on the Guiness world record web page :

'The heaviest egg reported to have been laid by a hen is one of 454 g (16 oz), with a double yolk and double shell, laid by a White Leghorn at Vineland, New Jersey, USA, on 25 February 1956.'

Oh well, never mind. I was still proud of my little chook. Her egg was that big I struggled to perch it on my egg stand....

I remembered I had found another huge egg before, and when I looked back through my photos I discovered strangely that it was exactly a year ago in July 2014....

I went back to shut the chickens away early on in the evening, and was excited to hear a kiwi calling....

It shouldn't be much of a surprise, seeing as we live in a kiwi zone (this sign below is fixed on our fence, to remind people to be aware on the roads at night) but this is the first time I have actually heard one. If you want to hear one, listen to this. 

I've never seen one, but OH has, driving home late one night. They are the unofficial national emblem of New Zealand. Apparently New Zealanders have been called 'Kiwis' since the nickname was bestowed by Australian soldiers in the First World War. There are five species of kiwi, our local one is the Northland brown kiwi, but unfortunately all species are endangered. There are only about 70,000 kiwis left in NZ, with 2% of the population  being lost every year - that's 27 a week :-(  

I suppose they have a few design faults that don't really help - they can't fly, they have poor eyesight and they have no sternum (breastbone). Dogs are attracted to the strong kiwi smell, and even though they may not mean to kill, having no breastbone means that kiwi often do die. 

The last thing I wanted to mention was a trip to the theatre this week. It was arranged by Big Girl's school, and buying tickets in bulk meant my ticket only cost $10 rather than $25!

It was a production of Peter Pan, all the cast were local people, and it was fun to spot who's who. A big surprise was that Peter Pan was played by Zoe's best friend from her last school. What is it with girls playing the part of boys in plays? 

Can you spot Tick-Tock the croc, approaching stage right....

Right, that's it, all done. But I've still got this weekend to tell you about. I can see how this blogging lark takes over!

Xxxx