Okay - I don't know if I should feel like a selfish ogre, or if I'm justified in feeling the way I do right now.
Let me break this down:
1. I have a bunch of chickens and sometimes, on a good day, they lay a bunch of eggs.
2. Lay pellets in my area are 15$ a bag.
3. Every week day I go out to my pens and spend at least an hour to an hour and a half doling out feed/water/hay to a bunch of chickens (and goats, and horses, and pigs and geese).
4. Every weekend I spend at least 5-6 hours a day working, building, feeding and trying to keep up with everything.
5. I have neighbors on both side of me.
6. One set of neighbors is younger, (J and G) and they have a sweet 4 year old and are ALWAYS helping me out. They are the ones who offered me the use of their pasture if I'd pay for fencing. We shared the labor. He has offered to help us butcher the pigs. They give us deer meat. They are GOOD neighbors. I give them eggs fairly regularly.
7. On the other side of me are a couple of folks around my age - T and M. The gal and I were very good friends for many years, but she has a new husband now and when he "hit" on me I started staying far, far away from them.
8. These neighbors and I share trash pick up. I pay them half of the bill and carry my trash allllll the way over to their drive.
9. One night when my computer guru son lived here he was surfing the net and found out that these neighbors were 'stealing' our internet. (my bad - it's now password protected)
10. Last summer "M" asked me if he could go pick okra and tomatoes out of my garden. I let him...it was supposed to be a one time event - I'm not sure it was....
But - things have calmed down and they're trying to be friendly again, so I'm being friendly too. A few weeks ago I gave him some eggs over the fence. The next week, he asked me if I had any more eggs. I gave him a dozen. Yesterday he asked me for more. I told him I'd get him some, but then I started thinking about it and decided NOT to take him any free eggs.
AM I BEING SELFISH? I like to have good nighbors. I enjoy the younger neighbors so much, and our relationship is very good.
The relationship with these "other" neighbors has NO give and take... Well - maybe it does - it's one sided...I GIVE and they TAKE!
I'm not feeling very Christian right now - but dang - I pay for all the feed and I do all the work and I share eggs with lots of folks like my "good" neighbors and co-workers and family. These guys are just free-loaders and I KNOW they store a LOT of food and don't share anything with anyone else.
Should I just give in and give them some more eggs????