For those of you not used to following my blogs... you'll find that I'm consistently inconsistent. So if you're looking for the blog writer who posts beautifully crafted posts once a week, you're in the wrong place. I write when I have time and something to say, although not necessarily in that order.
Today around the Queendom, I'm sitting in my office trying to get dry and warm after a few minutes of hunting for eggs in the rain. No, you haven't experienced a time warp. It's not Easter. The villagers (AKA known as chickens, geese, ducks, turkeys and random visiting critters) are currently allowed to roam "free range" while I figure out how to fix the large chicken coop. It collapsed last winter and I lack the skills to fix it myself, so the birds quite literally run the roost around here. I don't like it much -- as trying to find eggs is literally an egg hunt. I knew they'd been laying since mid-September but could only find a few eggs in the nesting boxes of the small coop where too many birds have been "cooped" up. I'd looked in what I thought were obvious spots, but couldn't find the eggs.
Day before yesterday, while looking for something in a shed, I found a large collection of eggs. Fresh eggs. A couple of dozen.
Today, when I went back to the same shed, thinking I'd find more eggs.
Nope. Nope.
Nope.
Kittens. Cute. Fuzzy. Kittens.
Kittens.
Not chickens.
They are ADORABLE.
There are five. I snuggled all of them. They weren't happy about it.
They are barn cats and soldiers of the Queendom. They, by nature, are not friendly. Apparently they think they have a job to do and I shouldn't interfere.
But fuzzy kitties must be snuggled and smooched.
I'm at the top of the food chain around here. So I win.
Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle.
So covered in cat hair, I continued my search. Did I mention it's raining? Like a lot? Keep that in mind. Here's the other thing about me. I'm never dressed appropriately for the adventure that is my life. One would think, since I was doing my chores, I might have my chore clothes on.
Again, I say...
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I was wearing my cute LulaRoe leggings with a long thin black shirt and a wrap...I'll point out the my tennis shoes glow in the dark, so that's working my favor.
It shouldn't have mattered too much today as I didn't have too much work to do outside.
But then I found the next pile of eggs.
Behind what's left of a rock wall.
As in a hole, bigger than a crevice but smaller than anything conveniently accessible.
Now, the other side of the old wall is an old shop. Wouldn't it be nice if the cupboard door in the old shop would pop open and I could simply grab the eggs and close the door and go back in the house?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
But, that is not the way we do things around here.
The roof of this old shop has collapsed on the top of the cupboard. This prevents the door from opening.
Of course it does.
That left me with two options.
1)I could crawl over the rocks and reach down and get the eggs or 2) wait for my daughter to come home from school and she and her small self could get the rocks.
I weighed my options.
In scenario one I would maneuver my not-petite body underneath an old trellis and lay down on the lava rocks and reach down into the hole and grab the eggs. It would be uncomfortable and I would probably hurt myself -- as that is my way.
OR
I'd wait until my sweet daughter got home from volleyball practice. She will be tired and sweaty and hungry. And I will explain to my child that she needs to crawl over rocks and reach down into a hole to grab eggs. And she will look at me with her exquisite green two-days-from-17-year-old eyes and roll them so far back in her head you'd think she was having a seizure. And then she'd begrudgingly do it and roll her eyes some more and disappear into her room for the rest of the day.
Balance those options out.
I went with number one.
Before you think I let my daughter off easy, know these things. It will probably dark or damned near by the time she gets home and who wants to crawl on rocks and stick your hands in holes when it's dark? And also, she'll be leaving for college in a couple of years, so I figured I should start being self sufficient now. She won't always be home to be my crawl-into-small-space go to human.
So.... I grabbed a couple of feed bags thinking I could protect my buttery soft leggings from the rocks and proceeded to crawl around and under and get the eggs.
The feed bags didn't help, for the record.
I'm battered. Cold. Wet.
But 2-dozen eggs the richer for it.
And I'm thanking god my neighbors are a good mile away and couldn't see the spectacle of me crawling around over the rocks in my super cool leggings and glow in the dark shoes.
Omlet anyone?