The End of Egg Season

When I enter the chicken coops in the evenings, I sometimes find empty egg boxes. The pullets, deciding to extend their youth, are not laying eggs yet. The older hens say this is the season of hibernation, not productivity. The hens' egg productivity has been dropping for months. As the daylight hours get shorter, they lay fewer eggs. Who, after all, wants chicks in December? A few months ago, we stopped having extra eggs to sell. Now, I've stopped giving the dogs their customary fresh egg every day. Instead, they are getting eggs that I froze when we had a surplus in the spring. They are dogs, and they don't complain. And, I am a human, so I take delight in those eggs when I find one, maybe two, in the nesting boxes. They are gifts on late fall afternoons.