Mr. Moon got home safely from his travels and he got a car for a customer and so it's a good day.
I mean, it was already but that makes it better. Any time my husband gets home safely is a good day, no matter what else happens. He spends a lot of time on the road and of course that scares me.
But.
He is fine.

I opened the door to Ms. Flopsy's nursery cage this afternoon and next thing I know she's scratching around in the coop with the three babies dancing around her. Now this scares me. Anything could get in there and grab those tiny puff balls. We haven't even let the teenaged chickens out into the main coop yet because some of them are still small enough to get through the wire.
Not Curly Sue. That girl (I feel sure she's a hen) is a BIG girl (and she could be a rooster) and she looks like her daddy did when he was her age. The bantys vary in size from almost as big as she is to still-tiny but I know they're bored with that cage. I give them plenty to eat and fresh water and greens from the garden but they want to get out and scratch, as chickens do. I'm not a member of PETA or anything but it does make me sad to think of chickens in factory farms who never get to go out and scratch in the dirt, not once, not ever in their entire hormonally-shortened life. I love seeing my chickens scratch around the yard and making little dirt-baths and fluffing their feathers to get all the sifty dirt up into their bodies which must feel good to them. You can practically hear them sigh with the relief of it. The other day one of the hens was calling and calling for Elvis. She'd gotten separated from the flock and I finally went and hunted him down and he was under my office where it was cool, just hanging with some of his ladies and I said, "Elvis, don't you hear that hen yellin' for you?" and he looked at me like, "Gott DAMN! Can't a man get some rest around here?"
And then, as if he'd understood what I was saying came out and crowed and then went and found her and led her back to the others.
They're so funny, these birds we live with.

Hank's coming out this weekend to take over the chicken chores and Mr. Moon and I are going to take off for a small journey. We are not sure where. Just somewhere where, quite frankly, I will not be in charge of cleaning, cooking, or any other such mundane activity. Not that I don't love my mundane activities- you know I do- but every now and then a girl's gotta go be crazy and stay in a hotel room and use towels she doesn't wash and sheets, the same, and let all that mundane stuff space get filled up with other activities of the more romantic kind. Let her hair down. Be wild and crazy. Or at least, silly.
I am looking forward to that quite a lot.

I hope this is what we do. I seem to be breaking out with some poison ivy and why I thought I could avoid that shit when I spent all that time pulling it on Saturday is beyond me. I did wear gloves and washed up very well after but poison ivy is some strong and toxic stuff and if my hands and arms turn into purulent patches of itchy agony, I will not feel like going anywhere but will be walking around like a zombie on Benedryl and that is not the way to have fun on a road trip. No. It is not. Right now I feel sort of itchy all over my entire body but I am hoping that is merely my hypochondria and not anything based in reality.

Well, here are two more pictures of my boys from today.

 Owen being a monkey on the swing. "I am not a monkey," he told me. "I Owen." Yes, yes, he is Owen. Can you dig the slippers? He chose them himself to wear outside.

Gibson talking with his hands. He's such a goof sometimes, especially in the morning. If he hears and sees his mama, he breaks into huge smiles and he also smiles at shadows on the wall and flirts with them too and he cracks me up. He is wearing his new John Deere onesie that his Boppy got him for one dollar on the clearance rack at the tractor store. Lily says that they drove by there the other day and Owen said, "They have tractors!" and Lily and Jason said that yes, they did, and then Owen said, "I need tractor."

He is is grandfather's grandson.

He told me today that he is a big boy and I agreed that he is but I pointed out that he will be an even bigger boy when he learns to use the potty and doesn't need diapers any more. "Then you can go fishing with Bop on the boat!" I told him.
"No way," he said and he flounced off to go practice his Hai Ya's.

What a rich life I lead.

And now I will go wash the dishes.