a mystery

I was rooting around* under the apricot trees looking for overripe apricots to feed the chooks. It's like avian chocolate or something. Anyway it's a forest of butterbur under there and I looked up and saw:

an egg. A big brown egg sitting in the butterbur. After a moment of wild excitement that one of our brown chooks had faked her death and was living a new life on the wild side I remembered that we are very, very sure the brown chooks are dead. Foxes don't really do ambiguous. No need to call CSI even...

So where did the brown egg come from? Well, some of our neighbours have chooks too but I can't think of anyone with brown chooks...

I'm trying to work out how old it could be. Would an egg survive under snow? Wouldn't another animal eat it? It's a mystery. But I'm so happy that the escapee/ mystery/ wonder chook spent at least a little time in a really great chooky place to hangout- completely sheltered from prying eyes, lots of soft soil to scratch in and even the odd overripe apricot!

Meanwhile, Victoria can keep the legendary reclusive wild puma legend, I've got the mystery of the brown egg!

*Aussies- not rooting- rooting around. yeah, I know we get all giggly when someone says root but really, it's the perfect word for it. If you don't say root you're left with what? scrabble? hunt?