Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

The Rainy Day dominion has been extended. Six hens have recently been added to our jurisdiction. That's right. Hens. Six of them at €6.50 each. Here's the short version of a long story: The Rainy Day mother's fruit cake is ledge, as our Dublin 4 friends would say. That's "legendary" for those who don't know the dialect. Anyway, fans of the fruitcake can be found in places as diverse as Limerick, Liverpool, Brooklyn, Dublin, Florence and Munich. Among the ingredients that comprise it are eggs. But not any old eggs, of course. No, the only eggs admitted to the mother's fruitcake mix are freshly laid farmyard eggs and they have to be produced by free roaming farmyard hens. As a contribution to the great fruitcake tradition, therefore, the Rainy Day team has decided to fund six hens, which will contribute eggs for the Christmas round of baking.

What kind of hens did we get? As you can see from the photo, they're hybrids. A cross between the very productive Rhode Island Red and the very handsome Leghorn are our hens. The colour? "Foxy red," says the mother. With their distinctive rose combs, Rhode Island Reds are not only impressive birds; they're impressive workers, producing around 260 brown eggs a year. Leghorns, on the other hand, deliver most of the world's white eggs. They're originally from Italy, and have a prima donna streak in their nature. This hybrid thrives in the Irish climate, and the combination of work ethic and creative personality is perfect for where they find themselves now.

And what will happen to the old hens who are delivering fewer eggs as the years go by? "I'll be doing away with them, when the new ones start to lay," says the fruit cake queen. It's produce or perish down on the farm.