I went out on to the patio to upturn a pan containing some hen food. (Soggy burnt pan–bottom mashed potato, if you must know.) And thought while I was there I would check for eggs, in the dark corner past the downstairs bathroom window. I’d spotted a couple left lying there two days ago. If my magpies hadn’t found them first. Like Town Mouse’s crows.
I stepped over a low wall to get there, carefully balancing so as not to stumble and break the eggs, and turned.
There were more eggs.
Tons of eggs.
A whole carpet of eggs. Absolutely magic.
Close together, laid between the big ivy plant pot and an upturned plastic box, hidden from view for how long ?
Transferring them one by one and very carefully from the safe, soft leaf–mould to a big jam pan, I counted them.
The first two I’d seen, plus thirty–six more.
I’ll have to wash the leaves off them, put them in a big soup pan full of cold water and see which are freshest, (the stalest will float point upwards - gaaas, you know - and the fresh will sink) and then shut myself under the stairs without the light on, and shine a torch towards me through each one to check they are only eggs, and not hen babies (but I think they're just eggs) and then perhaps I should open a stall at the side of the road with a big sign scrawled on cardboard.
Or I could take them to everybody I know and everybody at my mother’s flats and if there are still some over I’ll just have to eat them, at the risk of being bound over for a month, if you get my drift.
I decided, ages ago, that every so often I would dedicate a post to a blogger and/or commenter you might or might not find on my sidebar.
Just because I can.
And because I'm glad of their moral support. One such case is Town Mouse, so this one’s for you !!
Humans 38 - magpies nil.
Humans 38 - magpies nil.
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| my version of Town Mouse in the country |
