It must depend on the chicken or at least the breed. All of my chickens in the past, just laid their eggs, without any special ruckus, although I hear the ruckus from time to time. Seriously, while some hens will cackle over it, most just go on with their business. I hear more ruckus when a mouse or bug runs into the pens. WOW! If someone comes in and lets the door slam hard, they all scream. A roar of thunder--they all scream! If I have to catch a few individuals to medicate, take out for a show, or whater--they all scream! I've actually witnessed 2 times a hen really did lightly strain to pass her egg. No, it was not oversized, just a normal large egg. Both cases were light breed hens. Other times, I've seen either a spooked or otherwise moving hen, pass an egg as casually as defecating. I've walked into the pens to collect eggs and have seen scurrying hens drop their eggs as they run across the floor. I've also had the surprise of eggs dropped on my lap while grooming a hen. A few years ago, I had just cleaned and filled a large, 5-gallon waterer. This kind did have the type of slip cover that turned and locked into place. It had to be slid on, which activated the water valve and the handle was on the inside wall, not the slip cover. After lugging the filled waterer and setting it down, but not in place, a white leghorn hen happened to fly up and land on a crosstimber just over of the top of the freshly-filled waterer. Just as I looked up to see where she went, and before I could move the heavy object, she opened up and was going to dump right into the new water! I just raised my hand to catch it [so it's gross, but I get chicken poop on my hands daily anyway] but instead of poop, I caught a very fresh egg! Nope, no straining--just BANG! and it was out! Well, it's a good thing I caught that one, as a broken egg in the water would not have been good, either.

Yes, I keep catching glimpses of this fish when I'm out feeding the fish twice a day or working on the pond but only brief glimpses. After further examination, I think he's at least 2 inches long. He seems to follow the "school" at least some of the time, swimming lower to the bottom and in the back of the pack. He's very hard to see because he totally blends in with the color of the algae-coated bottom and sides of the pond. He doesn't seem to have a long tail like my 2 comets or the shubbie which is why I was thinking maybe koi but I'm hoping goldfish. I guess I will have to be patient and wait for him to decide to be bold enough to try and feed with the others in order to get a better look at him. There may be others in there but I haven't seen any thus far. I have crystal clear water but plenty of water hyacinth and underwater hiding places so there are probably some more somewhere, unfortunately. My first fish were baby koi from a cull sale. They sold me way more than needed for my 1500-1700 gallon pond and I gave away all but three of the koi to a fellow ponder with a big pond several months ago. If I had it to do again, I would have stuck with goldfish for this pond. I absolutely love my goldfish, even more than the koi. They are tamer and don't wreak havoc on my anacharis like the koi.

January 2011- U.S. Customs Catches Canadian Woman Trying to Smuggle Chocolate Kinder Egg? "When Lind Bird was recently stopped at the U.S. border and selected for a random search of her vehicle, she was surprised to learn that a $2 piece of candy could net her a whopping $300 fine. At issue was a Kinder Surprise egg a chocolate egg that contains a small plastic toy inside." Our daughter and granddaughter are going to Germany this summer and meeting up with our son-in-law who is an officer serving in the U.S. Army and stationed in the Middle East. They lived in Germany for 4-1/2 years and would send us Kinder Eggs safely packed in egg cartons. We absolutely LOVED them!!! I sent her the link to the news story above and warned her not to bring back Kinder eggs. -Grainlady

It takes a long time (or at least mine did) for A. tomentosa to 'volunteer' as my mother-in-law used to say. If you don't want the volunteers, you can either mow over them or pull them up (as Mary suggested), cut them and feed them to your pipevine swallowtail caterpillars elsewhere (I do this), or you can dig them up and baby them in a pot until they get settled, then, either give them to friends or plant them somewhere else in your own garden. My first PVS butterflies from this year's crop emerged this morning, both females. These came from caterpillars I got from Rick in Alabama. It's so windy, I hate to release them today, and tomorrow we're supposed to have big rain, so I'm trying to decide when to release them, a good problem! :) Sherry