It was a calm evening. I’d just gotten home from work, slipped off my shoes, and wandered out to the chicken run to check on the girls — Moana, Heihei, and of course, Elsa.
That’s when I noticed it.
Elsa, my daughter’s absolute favourite, was puffed up, pacing like she had a secret. Her feathers were fluffed, her eyes darting. She looked... uncomfortable.
My daughter spotted her and gasped.
“Mum, something’s wrong with Elsa!”
Then came my husband, hands on hips, scanning her like a farmyard detective.
“She looks like she’s about to give us her last cluck,” he said, deadly serious.
The concern was real. Elsa isn’t just any hen. She’s royalty around here — sung to, hand-fed, often carried like a baby. So the sight of her looking “off” stirred a mini crisis.
And then... in a quiet, determined squat — Elsa laid her very first egg.
But not just any egg.
A behemoth. A beast. An egg that looked like it could hold another chicken inside.
We stood there in awe.
My daughter: “She laid THAT?! No wonder she looked like she was dying!”
My husband: “We should bronze it. Or submit it to Guinness.”
Moana and Heihei peeked over from the corner, clearly reconsidering their own egg-laying careers.
Elsa just blinked, strutted once, and fluffed her feathers like a queen who’d handled business.
And me? I couldn’t stop laughing.
It reminded me — again — that life on the land, even at the end of a workday, brings surprise, laughter, and a little bit of everyday magic.
Elsa’s fine now. Probably proud.
And that egg? It made one glorious omelette. The kind you remember.
— Another egg-cellent day at The Arcadia Urban Bush Retreat 🐣