Seven Eggs Waiting in the Straw

When the sun had barely grazed the roof of the corral, Lorena was already inside for the day's first round. The hens waited for her with restless energy — brown ones, white ones, black ones, and a few speckled birds that caught the earliest light as though it belonged to them. The feeders were filled and they all descended at once into that happy, chaotic pecking that laying hens seem to reserve for mornings. In the back, still and composed, the rooster kept watch without eating. At five in the afternoon, before the heat had fully relented, the second round came. Lorena prepared the ration and leaned over the nest before serving: seven eggs in shades of beige and pale brown, nestled into dry straw inside a wooden box in the rustic henhouse. The mother hen was elsewhere, but the nest looked undisturbed, quietly sheltered. According to the day's records, in about twenty days those eggs will have something to say. For now, they rest in peace — while outside, the hens finish the day around the feeders, just as lively as they were in the morning.