We really enjoyed hanging out with Sam and Dave's guitar teacher, Randy, and his wife Krissy on Sat night. We had dinner in the garden and then jammed. Sam decided his favorite song was "City of New Orleans" by Willie Nelson and Arlo Guthrie. In fact, Randy played it so well our neighbor commented the next day that he was driving by and heard the singing and figured it was a CD! It was such a nice evening. On Sunday the neighbor friends were running back and forth between homes checking out the activities all around - water fights and candy at one home, bike jumping and egg washing at ours 🙂

Now for the sadder news...HollyRamona, our most favored hen, is not doing so well. My research and amateur vet instincts tell me she is egg bound. We are doing palliative care (increased calcium intake for muscle contraction, protein for shell formation, warm bath, massaging the vent with petroleum jelly, etc.) because the only other option is surgery and they are not necessarily successful. Ben is helping me give her a warm bath and feeding her some scratch from his hand. She is walking around ok, but slowly and often hunching and puffing her feathers out while pushing. Imagine labor completely stalled for a month. Not fun. We said prayers for her, too. She is a dear, sweet hen. On a happier note we are gathering eggs to incubate so the new peeps pip out on Ben's 4th birthday! He has a whole gang of friends in mind to come over, young and young at heart 🙂 Mom - see the tulips in place of the bushes!? Those tulips are from Randy's wife, Krissy. Isn't that sweet? We planted them right away.