Good girl, Dottie!

Some of you may recall my loopy chicken girl, Dottie:

She is a White-Crested Black Polish hen with a crazy head of feathers and an extremely unusual personality.

Dottie is what is known as an ornamental breed, one that is better known for her high strung behavior and beautiful feathers than for her egg-laying abilities. To illustrate this point, Dottie stopped laying last September. What this means is that, while all my other hens continued to lay, there were no eggs from Dottie in October. There were no eggs from her in November. There were no eggs in December. You get where I'm going with this, right? No eggs.

What a surprise it was then, when, one month ago today on January 20th, I found a small, white egg in the coop nest box. Of my ten laying hens, she is the only one who lays white eggs, so there was no confusion who the egg bearer was. Dottie had decided to lay again! (Modeling hands courtesy of Marcee, a.k.a. frugalmom):

I'm not sure whether she laid in honor of Inauguration Day:

or Marcee's visit to Oregon:

but lay she did and this little gal has been laying ever since. Every other day since January 20th, I have gotten a beautiful, white egg (weighing somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 ounces, for those interested):

We had long ago accepted Dottie's sporadic egg-laying and, instead, decided to appreciate:
...her unusual personality:

...her curiosity:

...her talkative nature:

...and how proud she holds her head, even after a rainstorm:

Despite her breed being considered ornamental and, therefore, more fragile, she has surprised me with her hardiness and resilience. (Two traits I think every farm girl should have!):

And now she has surprised me again, giving me enough eggs to fill a farm truck:

What are we doing with all the Dottie eggs, you ask?:

Why, we're making scrambled eggs, of course!:

Go Dot!:

(My baby Dot, ten months ago):