yeah, i don't have my own eggs or butter, but at home (in england) my mother has always kept eggs in an egg-rack thing on the counter (in a nice cool shady spot, not in full sunlight where they'd no doubt hard boil themselves on the one warm day a year that we get in england, lol), and butter in a ceramic butterdish, also on the counter.
in her house they go through about a dozen eggs in a week, if not more, and they come either from a small farm just up the road, or a dude down the road who has bantoms (which lay very cool blue eggs, lol) - i've never known any of her eggs to go bad this way, even after a few weeks, but i guess if they were there for 3 months or something, they might.
her ceramic butterdish (with a lid) does a really good job of keeping the butter just at a firm but spreadable consistancy. if you keep your butter in the fridge, how on earth do you spread it on bread without either waiting for an hour for the butter to warm up and loose its brick-like consistancy, overmicrowaving it and melting it yuckily, or ending up with a slice of bread that looks like its had very bad plastic surgery? i guess that in the week long british summer, butter in a butterdish will separate though, so i suppose it'd need to go in the fridge, a cool dark cupboard, or a bowl of cold water, or something, then.
