an egg is...

My boy is quite the tracker. Seriously, he is always the first one to spot hidden wildlife, find a new set of tracks,  nab the perfect shell, or find a small lost something in a large field. He loves gathering wild edibles and bringing them home to make tea or something. He is constantly coming home with little treasures like these.

So we were romping in a field after a long day at the farm where we do a homeschool program on Mondays, and he comes running back to  me with this.

"It was just sitting there, in the tall grass. I swear I didn't take it out of a nest. Can we bring it home and hatch it and have a pet? Can we mom? Can we?"

I reminded him of one of our favorite spring books, An Egg Is Quiet and said he needed to leave eggs in the wild alone so they can become new animals for the world.  I told him we would go find one of the farmers and ask her what the "right" thing to do is. I was smug and sure that the farmer would say to put it right back where he found it and by the way don't go touching eggs in the wild again.

She examined the egg, declared it was a Canadian goose egg, said it was freshly laid that day, and then shocked me with her suggestion. "That's good, fresh food. Take it home and eat it!" She really could not have made that boy any happier. "I hunted my own breakfast!", he chirped all the way home. And indeed he had the largest plate of scrambled eggs you ever saw the next morning. I couldn't bring myself to try it. But my boy assures me that an egg is... delicious!