It's Not Easter

Yet, I'm on a daily egg hunt. Once summertime truly started, our laying hens decided the nesting boxes weren't cutting it. My egg count went from 6-8 eggs a day to 4...if I'm lucky... I've spent a few hours hunting for their hiding places. The most luck I'd have would be to find empty, crushed eggshells here and there. We figured the crows or the dogs were getting to the eggs, hence the random shell pieces everywhere. Until today. I got lucky after investigating a chicken chattering away in the weeds by the holding pen. The darn bird kept returning to the same spot despite my trompsing through the waist-high grass looking for a hidden nest. A lucky stumble showed a hidden chicken calmly perched on a small grass clump amidst a particularly tall weed patch. Now, out of all the places to lay eggs on our farm, the feathered fiends decided to make a nest in the middle of a rather large thistle patch. So, now I'm trying to figure out what to do. I don't really want them laying eggs there because it's not easily accessible to me, other animals have been getting the eggs before I do, and the cows are spooking when a chicken unexpectedly pokes it's head out of the weeds and begins clucking during chores. On the other hand, now that we know where the eggs are, it means less egg hunting for me. Guess I'll have to figure out what's worse.