Day 2200 Haul

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My haul for the day, not bad, considering I still haven’t removed my egg-eating troublemaker. Throughout the day, I checked the nesting box, quickly removing any fresh eggs before she could get to them. At one point she was laying right next to another hen, so I pushed her out of the way to save the egg she had just laid, replacing it with a mustard-filled egg.

Yup, I hollowed out an egg and filled it with mustard because, according to the internet, this will dissuade her from eating eggs once she tastes the mustard. I came inside eagerly waiting to see how my experiment would turn out, envisioning mustard all over the fresh pine shavings. But to my dismay, when I went out to check, my mustard-filled egg was gone… completely gone! That darn chicken must like mustard!? Maybe I should have used spicy brown mustard instead of plain yellow. I’ll give that a go next, but this is getting crazy. I can’t be checking the nesting box every hour, so my girls need to behave… or else!

In between dealing with troublesome hens, I set out to clean my house...ugh. My guest rooms needed fresh sheets, and one of them had become a catch-all for anything and everything Tim and I didn’t want to deal with, so a mountain of clothing needed attention. I opened the upstairs windows, turned on some Motown funk, and got to work, making more progress than I had anticipated possible. Once I finished, feeling a great sense of accomplishment, I decided dinner out was in order. I texted my son and daughter-in-law, and we all met up for a wonderful impromptu dinner together.

A nice ending to what had started as a very sad day. My daughter called first thing in the morning to say she was heading to the vet with her dog. The dog had been her family pet for over ten years and had been showing signs of failing health this year. Sadly, she had to put her down. It’s heartbreaking for her and my son-in-law, but for my grandsons it’s their first big loss, one of those pains that stays with you for a lifetime.

Sometimes a day holds both the ordinary and the heavy: stubborn chickens, piles of laundry, laughter over dinner, and the quiet sadness of saying goodbye. Life has a way of packing it all into a single day, reminding us to hold the good moments close when they come...and be ready for whatever life brings. 

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ~  Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien