“I live in a house with no windows or doors. If I want to leave, I have to break through a wall. What am I?”
When I sat down to write the draft for this post, my mind was blank. Back in the days when I actually had human contact, I didn’t have much trouble writing blog posts — I could talk about something funny I’d seen, or tell somebody else’s great joke, or report on my latest ‘should-have-been-uneventful’ comedy of errors. But comedic opportunities dwindle when your biggest outing is going to the lab for blood tests.
So I looked to the internet for ideas. It’s been years since I encountered riddles; so when I found a page of them, I spent far too much time scratching my head over the clues and giggling at the answers. (And occasionally groaning. Not all riddles are good.)
I was stumped by the one at the top of the page, and I had to peek at the answer to discover that it’s “a baby chick”. Which (by way of a particularly twisty rabbit-hole) led me to discover… chicken earlobes.
I didn’t know chickens had earlobes. I didn’t even think they had ears. I mean, I knew they had earholes; but earlobes? I love learning new and useless facts, so I followed that rabbit-hole a bit farther and discovered that a hen’s feather colour doesn’t affect the colour of the eggs it lays — it’s the colour of her earlobes that matters. Chickens with white earlobes lay white eggs; chickens with red or brown earlobes usually lay brown (or other coloured) eggs. Who knew?
I realize this is not earth-shattering news, but it was a bright spot in my admittedly monotonous daily routine. I’m SO close to finishing Book 16 now! My entire world is focused on those last few chapters, and (dare I say it) I may even write “The End” in a couple of weeks!
But, just in case chicken earlobes aren’t as fascinating to normal people as they were to me, here are some other bright spots from around our place this week:
And just for good measure, here’s a riddle about a bright spot from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: “A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.”
Book 16 progress: I’m on Chapter 46 and Aydan is scrambling to face threats from all directions. Arnie and John have her back as always, but there are some things even they can’t fix…
Answer to the final riddle: “an egg”. Yes, I apparently have chickens on my mind. Does that make me a bird-brain?
P.S. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Author Diane Henders 
Chicken earlobes are new to me too, Diane. At least I now know how eggs appear in different colours!
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Trivia like that always fascinates me. And for some reason, it sticks with me. I’ll forget appointments and names and heaven knows what else; but for the rest of my life I’ll remember that chicken earlobes exist; and that they’re linked to egg colours. Sometimes my brain concerns me… 😉
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The ordinary can be forgettable… the extraordinary not so! 🙂
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So a trivial passing thought that went through my brain just this last week was “why are some eggs white and others are brown?” I was thinking organically fed vs not and then the thought went away. Imagine my surprise when reading your post I would find the answer….true story on just having had that thought.
I am thrilled to hear you are close to completing book 16!! Looking for\ward to it!! Have a great week!
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Thanks, Kirt! Funny that you were just thinking about egg colours — we must have a mind-link or something. Or chickens on the brain, which is a much scarier thought. 😉 You have a great week, too!
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Such beautiful photos of your flowers. Well, the flowers are actually what’s beautiful. 🙂 I guess spring has sprung in your neck of the woods. I love all those colors. Talk about bringing brightness into the days. And, I do find this new fact about the relationship between chicken ear lobes and the color of their eggs fascinating. But, I thought I was a normal person! Congrats on the progress of book #16. You are rocking it!
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I’m sure you’re much more normal than I. 🙂 And thank you for the congratulations! I’ve struggled a bit with writing this year, so it feels good to be going into the homestretch with Book 16.
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Chicken ear lobes? Well there’s something this farm girl did not know. I’m especially intrigued by the colour of the eggs tied to the ear lobes. I wonder what evolutionary wonder created that connection? Congrats on the book progress! The graph must be very satisfying to look at.
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Thanks, Sue! Yes, I’m happy to be finally nearing the end of Book 16. It’s been a weird writing year and a bit of a struggle sometimes. Almost there… 🙂
I grew up on a farm, too, and I had no idea chickens even had earlobes. I learn something new every day!
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The things you learn about chickens and never wanted to know.
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There’s not much about chickens that I truly do want to know, but earlobe thing tickled my funnybone. 🙂
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The coloured chicken ear lobes has me thinking…
My mind could solve both of those riddles – and how I wish that it was more amenable to solving the day to day conundrums which lead me to scratch my (very boring) earlobes. Mind you the first one doesn’t have to be a baby chick. I am thinking alligators, turtles, spiders…
Loving your garden shots. As I plan for spring on this side of the world I have already put in an order to top up my supplies of all of those beauties. As always blood sweat and tears will fertilise the ground. I do hope it is enough and that they bloom beautifully.
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Based on the photos you post on your blog, I’m going to guess that your spring garden will be beautiful! Ours, too, will be fertilized with BS&T; and also manure. (I’d like to note that the manure is from neighbouring horse farms, not from my very *ahem* fertile brain. 😉
I never even thought of alligators et. al. when I read that riddle’s answer. But I didn’t think of eggs in the first place, so I guess that’s no surprise. I think I need to find some more riddles and practice — they’re a great way to think ‘outside the box’ (or the eggshell, as the case may be).
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There will be other fertiliser used here too. Dynamic Lifter is a favourite – which is entirely appropriate to this post because it is predominantly chicken sh*t. And pongs to high heaven when spread generously.
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Yep, there are few smells worse than a chicken barn. And who wouldn’t want that lovely aroma in their back yard? But at least the plants will be happy… 🙂
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Himself spread 40 kilos of the stuff one year – and than happily went to work leaving me to marinate in the smell.
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Nice to know about chickens. Your flowers are lovely. So far we have had only snowdrops. Last year we had crocuses and daffodils already. No Dr Seuss books were banned by anyone. The Foundation that owns them decided to stop printing 6 titles, five of which no one ever heard of.
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Aha! Thanks for the clarification. It seems the internet has created a large kerfuffle over a normal business operation — publishers take books out of print all the time, for all kinds of reasons. But I guess if it provokes discussion about the underlying attitudes in the books, it’s not a bad thing…?
Sounds like a late spring in the Ukraine. Have you had an unseasonably cold winter?
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Just a cold February and March. Starting to warm up but we are later than usual
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I love riddles! Though I admit I’m not very good at them. Case in point: my reaction to your first riddle was “Alien”! Egg is a much less gruesome answer. Though if you think about it, any “birth” could be considered a correct answer. Eewww…..sometimes the inside of my head is a little scary. LOL!
I also love flowers, and since there isn’t anything gruesome I can make of that at the moment that’s where I’m letting my brain play today. Hopefully it won’t find the Venus Fly traps over in the corner. Or the flower that smells like death when it finally blooms… okay I’m going back to bed and starting this day over tomorrow.
Wishing everyone rivers of green beer! (Or green eggs to that Random Guy 😉). LOL!
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“Alien”! LOL! And eewww. You have a truly creative, if slightly twisted (in a good way) mind. 😉
I promise there are no carnivorous flowers here, or alien pods. As far as I know, anyway. Isn’t that how those movies always start? Now I’m creeping myself out, so I think it’s time to go and drink a river of green beer. It won’t keep the aliens away, but at least by the time they show up, I’ll be past caring. 🙂
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Chickens are descendants of dinosaurs. Be careful if you turn your back to them! Just sayin’.
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I’ve never trusted a chicken in my life, and I’m not about to start now. There’s something evil in those beady little eyes…
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Concur. Raised on a farm. Chickens—especially ROOSTERS—are not to be trusted!!
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We get fresh eggs from a friend. She clearly has an odd collection of chicken breeds. We’ve gotten green eggs! Pale green, to be sure, but still green. Also pale blue. And varied shades of brown. It’s such a shame that Dr. Seuss has been cancelled by worthless shitbags. I could burst into a veritable torrent of childlike—or childish—rhymes!
But, no! I fear it is not to be!
Such giddiness has been outlawed, you see!
To partake in such fun
risks attack with a gun!
Naw. I can’t finish this. If I did, the PC Police would come knocking. That wouldn’t bother me at all, but ammo is so scarce and expensive these days. 😁
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I was disturbed about the book-banning, too. As time goes on there will always be books that depict attitudes and situations that were accepted when the books were written, but those attitudes and situations are no longer considered acceptable. I haven’t read the books in question (and I guess now I can’t), so I can’t judge how offensive (or not) they might be. But even if they are offensive, wouldn’t it be better if parents read them with their kids and discussed how things have changed since the books were written, and how it’s everyone’s responsibility to keep changing things for the better? Just my two cents’ worth…
Our neighbours supply us with colourful eggs, too — it’s always fun to open the carton! But I never knew it had anything to do with chicken earlobes. 😉
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And so it begins. Someone will introduce a fetching line of earrings for the avant-garde laying hen at the Winnipeg Ag Exposition. Next, another enterprising designer will display a new and stunning array of above-the-spur anklets for the aspiring cock-of-the-walk rooster at the Crabtree, Louisiana, Goat Roping and Bees Wax Jamboree. Then all hell’s gonna break loose.
But I’d still rather put up with this sort of nonsense than book banning.
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Ooooh, now you’ve done it! Right at this very moment, some internet-scraping bot is feeding trend data to somebody’s marketing director: “Chicken jewellery! OMG! Do it, do it! There’s money to be made!”
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If the riddle had been, “…and I have to leave through a tunnel,” I would have thought the answer was El Chapo. 😁 (It seems like we finally have a prison that can keep him contained for more than a year! Either that or someone from Mexico hasn’t tunneled that far yet.)
Your flowers are looking great! Our landscape in my area is still Basic Winter Drab, and the only thing my better half spotted were some crocuses peeking out. The weeds seem to be greening up, though. I want to start on a landscaping project in the backyard one of these days, once the ground dries out. Too much muck at the moment.
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With our gravel-pit substrate, muck is never a problem for us. We have the opposite problem: Trying to keep some moisture in the summer. Fortunately, lots of our neighbours have horse farms, so we’ve been amending with manure and our flowers and veggies are looking much happier. It’s all “work-in-progress”!
I had to look up El Chapo. Yikes! No tunnels. 🙂
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