Sarah Todd: Young entrepreneur gets on her bike to crack the egg glut

There's been a bit of a glut – of eggs – since the holidays began as she usually offloads the surplus to other mothers and teachers.

Without those regular customers it's been a job to use them all up. So, she put a sign at the end of the lane and dragged a bale of straw down to be used as the "shop front". Nobody has bought any yet. That's why she's always biking – to check and see if somebody's finally been and put some money in the jar. In future, if there's a sign so obviously written by a child we're going to make a point to stop and buy something. Maybe people just drive too fast nowadays to see signs on

the roadside?

Setting up the stall had been a useful distraction from a bit of bad luck. She had a broody hen in the old stable in the granary. It had a beautiful nesting box but it wouldn't sit on its eggs in there, preferring instead to lay some more in the far corner. They wouldn't have been so far off hatching but rats took them.

There's one more hen still sitting – up in one of the new stables at The Shed. Another has been taken over by a little white Silkie chick that she's been given. It is laughable that we waited so long to get The Shed built for our horses and now it's been all-but taken over by poultry.

Another disappointment had been her pony going lame the day before a show. He reminds us of one of her hens. We've lost count the number of times Orangela has been fastened up ready for The Husband to dispatch her and then she's laid an egg and won a reprieve.

Not that we have such a fate in mind for the old pony. Nothing more than retirement to the orchard, but he strings us along something rotten.

One day he stumbled through the tiniest of jumps, nearly unseating his young rider, and then that night bounced out of his field – clean over a high double strand of electric wire.

One of his other ruses is looking ancient in the field one day and then messing around like a young colt with my mare the next.

A neighbour even knocked on the door to ask if we knew what he was up to. We did, as the children had run inside that morning reporting that he was "jumping on" his equally elderly companion.

It must be summer. To finish on a funny, here's one of the children's – appropriately poultry-related – jokes.

What did the little hen say to the big hen?

Peck on someone your own size!

CW 7/8/10