"It was a blessing in diguise."  "The Lord works in mysterious ways." How many times have we heard those words? Usually after we have been through something unpleasant. Have you ever stopped to think, though, about things that really were blessings in disguise? Usually it isn't until much later that we can see this. I thought of one of those instances this morning. A minor and shallow occurance to be sure, but at the time it sent my little world spinning.

I have always kept hens. To me there is something soothing in spending time with chickens. Just watching them peck and scratch is somehow therapeutic. My husband has often found me in the henhouse after we have had a "disagreement". So my hens are perilously close to being pets to me. The hens I keep have always been Bantams. I am a small person so I like small animals. Bantys, ponies, Jerseys, I find them less intimidating than their full size counterparts.  Being so small and consisting mostly of feathers, my little hens never layed through the winter. The eggs would trickle to a stop soon after freezing weather arrived. We would be stuck with pale, flavorless store eggs until spring. Enter my blessing in disguise:

Late last spring one of my husbands hunting dogs got into the yard, early one morning while everyone was still asleep. To make a long story not quite so long, there was a chicken massacre. I opened the curtains that morning to look out on small lifeless bodies strewn between the house and the barn. I was not happy. The few hens that were left were not happy. Egg production came to screetching halt. I really could not afford to replace the hens that I lost and was depressed by the whole experience. A week or so later a dear neighbor offered me several young pullets from her flock. They were a mix of Aracauna, Barred Rock, and Rhode Island Red, all full sized chickens but I was desperate. I gratefully accepted.  They have grown into beautiful hens but had not started laying before freezing weather hit. I figured we were stuck with store bought eggs until spring. And then 2 weeks ago my children came in with one egg. I thought, "Wow". The next day it was 2 eggs, and so on and so on, until now we are getting 6 eggs a day. One of the hens even lays green eggs! So now instead of a styrofoam carton of pale store eggs, I have a bowl full of fresh, tasty, green and brown eggs from my BIG hens. The moral of the story is: if the dog hadn't killed my hens, my neighbor would not have given me her full sized pullets, and I would not have fresh eggs in the dead of winter with a foot of snow on the ground. God is good. It was indeed a blessing in disguise.