An egg-cellent day (for most of us)

Vindicated! I DID NOT single-handedly wipe out an entire generation of baby chickens! Today's candling revealed that 25 of my 30 incubated eggs are viable. This, despite my not reading the very important instruction manual until two days AFTER installation. This, despite me polluting my poor babies's porous eggs with permanent marker. This, despite my only flipping those little ovarian omelettes half the required number of times per day. Next year, should the Cooperative Extension be silly enough to let me do this again, I will be the most responsible and effective chick mommy ever.

Our illuminating ultrasound was astonishing as our embryonic expert, Chris placed each egg on a kind of lava lamp base. We gazed upon each flickering light of life as a miracle. We celebrated creation. We were grateful for our small and insignificant role in this wonder. Then two of our eggs embarked on a 4th grade classroom tour and only one returned. One of the four classrooms would be forever changed as their world (and my egg) came crashing in on them. "I see an eye," squealed one student as the entire class unanimously took a pledge against poultry. "I'll never eat chicken again," vowed another, shielding her own eyes from the unflinching gaze on the floor. "You're telling me that you'll never eat chicken wings again," a more stout-hearted student challenged. Eggs...heart-breaking...ground-breaking...earth-shattering...eye-opening.