The Ruins Project

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The Ruins Project
The Ruins Project
Living and Dying

Living and Dying

The Egg Ladies

Rachel Sager's avatar
Rachel Sager
Jan 03, 2024
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The Ruins Project
The Ruins Project
Living and Dying
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My first dream job came to me at the age of four.

We lived in a little white house, just down an old country road from The Egg Lady.

That was the title she was given and the only name I knew her by. Looking back now, I can see with the light of a lifetime of illumination, that she was probably a lot like me.

She raised chickens and sold eggs to her community. Right from her front door.
There was something deeply fascinating about this arrangement, so I announced with great confidence that I wanted to be an egg lady.

I did not, until almost forty years later, understand the details that go into the making of an egg lady.

Eggs are for eating. For baking fancy cakes and whipping up quick breakfasts. They are self-contained, hand-held miracles that appear daily when you raise chickens.

But eggs, if you look at them from a hen’s perspective, are future children. How the details of this work may be a mystery to you, but today is not the day to go to chicken school. Today, I want to talk to …

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