While Ryan is out of town visiting Emma in Rexburg, I am in charge of feeding the animals and watering Ryan's seedlings. Elinore (mama sheep) needs extra calories as the pasture grass isn't growing yet and she has two babies she is nursing. My feeding instructions are a scoop and a half of grain pellets and a "half of a flake" of alfalfa hay. Our one hay bale is wrapped up in a tarp near the pasture, so I figured my first order of business was to grab the hay. I grabbed the tarp with my left hand and began to lift the tarp and reached my right hand in for the hay. My hand did not feel the usual pokey straw as much as something warm and kind of.... fluffy? It did not feel menacing as much as surprising, so I didn't drop and run. I did pull my hand back and carefully lifted the tarp higher. One beady little eye peeked back at me. A beady, chicken eye.
Whew, I can handle a chicken.
My mind had already conjured various scenarios, and this wasn't too bad.
As I wiggled my hand around in the hay trying to find where my next flake would separate, the hen got fed up with me and scampered. That's when I saw the nice, circular nest and two warm eggs.
Girl, you shouldn't feel broody when we don't even have a rooster around to make those eggs viable. So I only felt a little bad stealing her eggs and bringing them back inside with me.