There's No Business Like Yolk Business

For roughly 3 of the last 3.5 years of living here, Kevin and I have talked about selling our eggs in an honesty box at the end of the road.  We've always had an abundance of eggs and a sweet little egg box sat unloved and filling with wasp nests next to the bus stop for that entire time.  We'd absent-mindedly mention it to each other, agree that it was a good idea and then nothing would happen...some other more urgent farm task taking precedence. 

A few weeks ago, the dreaded topic of summer pocket money came up. Our implementation of pocket money has been very hit and miss in the last 10 years of parenting.  Never having had a firm stance on the concept, other than Kevin and I firmly agreeing that we didn't want to pay the kids for doing tasks they really should be doing any way, we would implement a plan and then the kid's interests would fizzle out with screens or running around with their friends being far more interesting. 

In the end, it was Georgia who decided that the solution to both problems was the kids starting their own egg business.  Kevin and I contributed labour, fixing up the old hutch and making signs, while the kids would be responsible for gathering and sorting the eggs and making sure the hutch was always stocked. They would pay us the first £7 a month for feed (roughly the cost of feeding the laying hens and ducks in a month) and they could keep the rest.

For two days, the eggs sat. Georgie would check every morning and every evening to see if someone, anyone had bought her eggs - with big tears when she was convinced that no one wanted her eggs.  She even wanted to miss school and camp out at the bottom of the road, calling out to passers by, letting them know that she was selling eggs. As I was on the verge of giving my neighbour who has chickens £1 to take a half dozen and someone bought 2 cartons.  Since then, we've done a steady business and we actually make it to the bus stop early enough to check on any overnight purchases before Jim arrives. 

And so, the kids are in the egg business. They've decided that they want to get a proper logo stamp for our cartons and have grand plans for selling all sorts of lemonade, flowers, veg and crafts over the summer.  We are even off to pick up some green egg laying hens today to add to their production line. The only problem now is convincing Georgia that she probably isn't going to get the brothers to agree to spend the profits on a horse...