This was also a big complaint I had when I first started in with fresh eggs a few years ago. People told me all kinds of ways to fix the problem but I really didn't find anything that worked well. Some said put some baking soda in the boiling water, etc. Like others have said, holding the eggs for a week or two is the best way I've found to get a good peel. Some of my eggs are that old or older if I don't get them sold or given away in a timely manner. They still taste better than store bought, LOL. Lori

Yes, as Dunwaukin said, you will just have to be patient! Hens "go broody" when nature tells them to... not according to any schedule. Some breeds of chickens go broody more often than others. If your rooster is doing his job then most of the eggs should be fertile. You can increase your chances of chicks by making sure that the eggs you give the broody hen come from several hens instead of just the one setting.

Gosh, Allison! I would have thought your cost psf would have been double that. Your house has always been one of my favorites. :o) Aggie...we just moved in 3 weeks ago. Our original intention was to go with a GC, but we ended up doing it ourselves. We bought our property on 10-31-06. We went to tons of open houses and toured new homes. We got familiar with the builders of the homes that we felt were doing quality work and spoke to them about the costs to build a home like XXX for us. That gave us a pretty good idea of what the $$$ would be. Then we started looking for plans. I couldn't find anything that was exactly what we wanted, so I did my own on the computer. When we were happy with the design I took it to a residential designer who drew up the plans for me. I researched and picked out every single faucet, light fixture, door knob, drawer pull and any other thing that I could think of...right down to the lumber & housewrap. LOL I made lists of those things on Excel spreadsheets (catagorized for each room). Then I looked online for better prices. I had nearly all of the items purchased before we broke ground on 3-28-08. Pre-purchasing worked well for us and saved us a TON of $$$. We enjoyed researching everything so much that DH & I decided to GC the build ourselves. I can't begin to tell you how many subs we interviewed. We were here every day that the house was being built and I can honestly say that every single person who has worked on our house has treated it like their own. If you're planning to use a GC, I'd nail that down first. I've heard from others that some GCs like to use certain plumbing or lighting places and won't use owner provided materials because of warranty/liability issues. Our house doesn't have all the bells & whistles, but it is exactly what we wanted. BTW...the GCs that we spoke to estimated it would be $95-110 PSF to build a house like this, but we came in at just under $64 PSF. The house is 4240 HSF with 6380 SF under roof. Please pardon all the yard decor. LOL This was taken move-in day. :o)

Ideally colors should be chosen first, and lighting chosen to highlight the colors, and render them accurately. Neutral white light, aka natural daylight tones, is always the best choice for homes. More important than the light color, is the ability of its source to render colors correctly to the eye. Look for a very high CRI index, as that will tell you how accurately items lit by it will look true to life color. The CRI is not related to the Kelvin color temperature of lighting.