Tuesday, May 04, 2010
like Easter every day (minus the slightly-Christianized paganism)
It's spring. Serious, get-down-to-business, ludicrously over-the-top SPRING, complete with exuberant lilacs, carefully-planted garden beds, and plenty of sneezing. Notably, the grass this year (thank you, El Niño) is incredibly tall -- from across the way it doesn't look waist-deep, but by golly if it isn't! We have a new gate on our yard, too, which keeps our dogs in more securely, and our neighbors' dogs seem to have learned their boundaries a bit better, so -- finally I come to the point -- we've been letting the chickens roam around at will all day long (as opposed to only when we are outside directly supervising them like, um, mother hens), which they love. They also love finding tiny little hiding places in the long, tall grass, especially among leaning stacks of pallets or wildly unpruned grapevines, to make cunning little nests. Do you have any idea how tiny a hen's nest can be? Very tiny. Girls: it's cute and all, but please, we need your eggs. They are why you are here, happily clucking and preening and eating little bugs instead of reclining at ease in our freezer. So when we finish weed-eating and all of your sweet little hiding places are laid bare, please remember that, in a roundabout way, it's for your own good.
