If you read that title and started to back away, don't fret: animal welfare isn't synonymous with PETA or extremism. It's about the ethical treatment of animals — raising, feeding, caring and, in certain cases, killing them in ways that prevent (or minimize, if unavoidable) their suffering and maintain their natural needs and environment. That's my extended definition/interpretation, anyway, via my readings and class discussions in my Environmental Ethics course.

Through this Plenty Magazine article about hens, eggs, nutrition and welfare, I got to this (A) Brief Guide to Egg Carton Labels and Their Relevance to Animal Welfare. The facts are striking. Mind that this is an American site so some labels we see in Canada aren't listed, and others listed aren't seen in Canada. I guess. I've seen "free run" and thought it to be different from "free range," and perhaps it isn't, but no answers are provided on that page.

Yesterday, we had several good meals put together with some effort. It felt very good to have something hearty. Breakfast was toast with jam — mine included butter and a decadent soft-boiled (local) egg. At lunch, he made excellent fried eggs that we had with toast. Mine was an "egg McMuffin without the Mc or the muffin," as in, with cheddar and salami. In the absence of tomatoes, I put lettuce in. Yum.

There's a blogging tag meme going around called "Five Things You May Not Know About Me". My mother posted an open invitation, so I'll just go ahead and do it. I haven't talked too much about details of myself on here in the 5 months or so I've been blogging, but here goes.

1. From age 9 to 11 I worked on a story called The Secret of the Hollow Tree, which was 54 hand-written pages.

2. An obsession with a band I won't name got me simultaneously interested in web design and in becoming a musician... the latter of which didn't work out. :)

3. At 13, I started a website before getting my parents' permission (how naughty of me!), and 8 years later, it's my career.

4. I'm a pack-rat that loves IKEA organization products.

5. My old bedroom looks like outer space at night thanks to hundreds or thousands of glow-in-the-dark stars I collected from age 7 onward. (Some of them came with me when I moved out!)

Now I'm supposed to tag 5 people, so I'm going to have to search my list to find 5 people, and then I'll report back here...