Day following eglu arrival

Day following eglu arrival

Called shipper. It appears I have everything. I named off all the run pieces. OK, he asked if the sunshade and sack of green plastic clips were in eglu. They were. So it appears nothing was lost.

I’m still trying Omlet’s phone but it is busy, busy, busy. It was before 8am when I ordered my eglu from Johannes. I think their phone is busy all day long.

Called the shipper. Paul Stephenson, the shipper said they had shipped about 100 eglus. Freezing weather had their power down in Iowa for a week and Omlet was scrambling (ha!) to stock a show in Florida introducing eglus into the US. He said everyone worked extra hard and they made it happen.

Nice guy, Paul Stephenson of Ritchie Industries in Conrad, Iowa. He wasn’t exactly sure what was supposed to ship in a run box and offered to go out to his shipping area to see what was in the boxes his company was shipping. Nice guy. I didn’t have him do that because run pegs have to be ordered separately so they aren’t automatically sent with a run.

Emailed Omlet and got a response over the weekend from Clare. ‘So sorry your run box was damaged. I can assure you no pegs were in that box. They are shipped separately from the UK.’

Eglu arrives

Eglu arrives

Out all day running errands and keeping appointments. Called Camille to confirm I would be home in time for us to immediately go to Colorado College for a talk on the book ‘Winkie’, the teddy bear who was held and charged as a terrorist. She slowly said “I don’t think you will want to leave immediately” I thought for only a second then shouted “The eglu has arrived.” She said “Maaaybeeee.” I hurried home to find two huge brown cardboard boxes blocking the path to my front porch.

The delivery person had brought these boxes through the gate and up the walk. The large square box suspiciously marked ‘Pink Chick’ would not fit between the two heavy planters at the crossing paths at the base of the front porch steps. I eagerly started to open the ‘Pink Chick’ box but realized it would be better if I took the time to go into the house and get a pair of pliers to pull the long copper staples. Camille started opening the tall box that I knew would reveal the run. It was upside down and one set of staples was missing and replaced by wide clear tape sort of half-heartedly closing the seams and flaps. Obviously something had happened to that box. Was anything missing? We checked the contents. Only the four curved run wall, the end wall with gate and the predator barrier for the end wall. I ordered run pegs but they weren’t in the run box.

Oh, surely they were in the ‘Pink Chick’ box. We turned to open it. Staples removed, pull the eglu. Nope, didn’t move. Remove a large packing triangle. Pull the eglu. Nope, didn’t move. Remove another large packing triangle. Wow, this thing is well packed. Pull the eglu. Note, didn’t move. Ok, tilt the box, then pull. Hooray, a hot pink eglu is hatched. Oh, how exciting to twist the handle to open the egg door revealing all the gifts inside” a Glub and a Grub; the waterer and feeder, now stuffed with a rolled up dark green shade cloth, a sack of green plastic snaps, 2 different sized roosts and a packet of information. No need to read that until we are totally stymied. Definitely no run pegs. Next look at the packing slip. No pegs listed so hopefully no pegs lost. I will call and confirm.

We played with all the parts and pieces, opened and closed the eglu door, then realized we were late for the lecture so off we dashed.

It was fun to drive back in that evening. When the car lights swung around and flashed across a hot pink mound in the yard.

Chickens, Yes or No?

CHICKENS, YES/NO?

After much calculating about whether to buy an Eglu from Omlet US http://www.omlet.us/ with 2 Gingers or only the Eglu with no chickens, or to order from the eglu from MyPetChicken http://www.mypetchicken.com/ and get the chicks locally. The locally available chicks I’m thinking will be dual purpose only (eggs, then meat!) When I spoke to the farm store man he talked only about Rhode Island Reds and Leghorns. I really want more colorful chickens with colorful eggs.

Today I spoke to Johannes at Omlet.US. He has that lovely sincere, educated and believable English accent. I explained my timing quandary of being sure the delivered chicks would be the same age as the local chicks. We don’t want anyone ‘pulling rank’ and reinforcing it with pecks for exclamation marks.

All this time I’ve been thinking pullets are teenage hens because that’s what my uncle, the chicken farmer called them. Little did I realize in my summer visits that he raised the ‘pullets’ to sell. There were several hundred of them, but only a few laying hens in the actual mature hen coop. My updated education says pullets are female chickens from hatch to first egg.

In Johannes’ quiet sincerity, he must have thought he was talking to yet another crazed Yank woman. He suggested I get all 3 chicks locally (quick solution)…and he would be glad to put an eglu on hold for me, since they wouldn’t be available for a few more days and that would assure me of getting a nice hot pink one soon. As if a few days really mattered in the early March Colorado, altitude 6150 feet. Do we Yanks exude an attitude of wanting to be the first in line or at least, not left behind? Probably. So I put my hot pink eglu order in and Johannes was kind to offer to take my credit card information just to save me time when my eglu was ready to ship. He would call me when they charged my card.

He may have called but not left a message. A few days later the credit card company called verifying the $675 charge to my card. I punched “1” for “yes, if you confirm this charge.” The credit card person was thinking ‘What the heck is this crazy lady buying now?’