This Is Life

Here is my grandson Owen feeding his rooster Elvis a soy crisp. Chickens like soy crisps. So do mules, we discovered today. And goats. And turkeys.
Owen likes them okay, too. He took the rest of the bag home with him when his daddy came to get him. As they were leaving, Owen had the window down and he yelled, "Love you, Mer-Mer!"

Oh my. He is my heart. We had a lot of fun here today. We played with bamboo and he painted and we fed the animals and he held the baby chicks. He wasn't as thrilled about that as I thought he would be. I think they freaked him out a little. He mostly wanted to rearrange the water and food dispensers in the cage and we did have fun taking them a few tasty bugs which I think they are too young to eat yet but which they show interest in anyway. They peck at them.

When I went to get Owen, his baby brother was smushed up in his little seat, about to wake up to eat.

He's my heart, too. He just doesn't know it yet. Owen does. Oh yes. And Gibson will figure it out soon enough. I changed his diaper today. That makes two, I think, that I have changed. He doesn't enjoy the experience. Can't blame him. If he's awake, he wants to eat and that whole diaper changing thing is of no importance to him whatsoever.

I can dig it.

And in other baby news, the littlest chick is still alive and in the nursery box. I tried to take her out and put her in with the big guys but they have a tendency to peck at her and she's not big enough to defend herself although she tries.

Ah my.

I gotta tell you. I'm a little stressed out. It's all sort of...well, I think it's all caught up with me. And with Mr. Moon, too, to tell you the truth.

I'm trying real hard to remember what is important and what isn't. I am trying to do right, be right. I'm trying mostly to remember that I have been given so much and that it's okay to enjoy it, to be in love with all of it without having to fear every second that it is going to be taken away, to let each day be the adventure it is with all of the glory contained in it, just, you know, that plain old glory that seems like too much to believe.

And then go to bed and sleep.

Phew.

Seems like a lot sometimes.

So. Update: Mr. Moon just put the tiny chick in with the others and damned if that little one isn't going after all the others. Mr. Moon's sitting in there saying,"Stop it. Stop being aggressive. Be nice."

It's hysterical. I am thinking the term "banty rooster" is yet another chicken-based term which has deep and true roots. When that chick was born last night I wouldn't have given a plugged nickel betting on his survival. He looked like the last dinosaur born on earth. He looked PATHETIC. And now he's trying to dominate all the other chicks, even the one twice as big as he is, Curly Sue.

It'll all be okay. It'll be great, and it is great and it's time to make supper.

Tomorrow I'm going to go with Lily and Gibson to shop for Lily some new shirts. I'll get to hold that baby. I'm pretty excited about at the prospect.

Maybe one of these days I'll start writing some words worth reading. I sure am looking forward to that. In the meantime, like everything else around here, it is what it is.

And like Popeye, I yam what I yam.

Amen.