Earthquake Causes Chicken to Lay Massive Egg

Seriously, here is the headline: Earthquake causes chicken to lay a giant egg 

Ok, so it is well documented that animals often know things are coming before we do and they behave differently when natural disasters are near. I can recall as a kid when a hurricane was coming, our cats acted nutty well in advance...or maybe that was just the sugar we had fed them or the daytime paranoia they experienced living with kids who would often do things like stick a tube sock over their heads to watch them try to wrestle it off, or push them out into the middle of the pool on a boogie board to see if they'd just jump and swim or wait it out (they always got wet eventually!) 

At any rate, apparently, this couple in the article above thinks an earthquake caused their chicken to lay a gigantic egg. You have to click on that link and check out the size of that egg too...it is rather large. 

And that is the only thing I could find that related chickens to earthquakes....

So we had only been home from the FL madness a few days when we were greeted by the gentle roll of THE EARTH! The kids and I had just come back from the coffee house, caffeinated and ready to get things back in order, when the quake hit. For those of you in FL, if you recall seeing the shuttle go up and then a few minutes later there is that sonic boom and the windows shake and it jolts your house a little, well, it is kind of like that....only, the ground actually moves and you start to feel like maybe you had one too many espressos, (or margaritas), or like you are finally going over the edge into insanity (for those of you not there yet), and it takes you about as long as the tremor to realize what is going on.  

In our case, I had just unloaded all 4 kids and we were headed to the door when the ground started rolling and the kids stopped in their tracks. Seeing that I was not the only one noticing the swaying of our garage walls (phew), I calmly stated, "This is an earthquake. See the car moving back and forth, that's because we are having an earthquake." You know, kind of like we are having a drink of water or a bath or a swim with an alligator....no big deal, right? 

Aidan and Madeline got excited and one of them said, "We have to get inside and go under the table." They headed for the door. At that moment, I started to feel a little like Dory (in Finding Nemo) when they get to the trench and Marlin says "Let's swim over it." Dory says something along the lines of, "...red flags going up. Something tells me we should swim through it, NOT over it."

It occurred to me that perhaps running inside while the ENTIRE HOUSE was swaying back and forth was not the best laid out plan. But by the time I told them we should just stay put, it was over and we headed inside anyway. Liam of course slept through the entire thing and Lily, well, she probably didn't feel it at all since she seems to somersault from one place to the next as it is. 

So, that was the major excitement for the week...you know, outside of our side adventure in Atlanta, the new spider hatchlings layering the kids bathroom and our newest family addition, cousin Montoya...oh wait, no, she's actually just the latest black widow spider who thinks our bathroom windowsill makes for a cozy deadly animal dwelling. It's no wonder Aidan has been asking to go back to school for the last few days. I called to see if they would take me too but apparently they're afraid I might lay a gigantic egg...