Can you tell what it is yet?

I can tell what it is but not what it's for. It's a mixing bowl of eggshells left on the kitchen cupboard by our house-sitter. She's out of phone contact for a few days so I can't find out the real explanation for the time being and just have to guess the answer.

So far, the only conclusion I have come to is that they were destined to be snail deterrents. I've heard snails don't like the texture. I've never tried the theory out myself because, relative to the snail and slug population here, we don't eat many eggs. We had a big pile of scrambled eggs for lunch yesterday, though, partly because we had missed a meal or two in the previous 24 hours while packing up and travelling and partly because the eggs had sat in a hot car for a day so I thought it best to use them up. As the eggshells mounted up on the counter, I just thought why not start keeping them? It's really such an easy thing to do. By the time I have veg that need protecting from slugs and snails I will surely have enough shells to be useful. During the summer I have been keeping used coffee grounds (and drying them out) for the same purpose. Why not have several boxes of such items collecting in the shed ready for the spring onslaught?

There's a bigger picture to identify too. What shape will our lives have here? Five months away is long enough to break all the old patterns that belonged here and bring some of our more recent ones back with us. 24 hours after unlocking the door of this strange but familiar house, I'm feeling a great sense of possibility about all of this. Today there are things to do. I'll set about doing them and see what turns up. I can't tell exactly what life here is yet and it's a great feeling.