Six Reasons to Not Try to Get Something Off the Floor Whilst Driving

pictures shares with permission of my cousin Jim, who survived with only a badly broken hip, which is bad enough, but considering what could have been, is a blessing.

I want to see what her breast looks like.

So, I overhear my son say:

"I want to see what her breast looks like."

And of course I dash in there, disguising my dash as a casual saunter of course, and find the two gazing out the window.

"Whatcha doing?" I ask, as I approach the window, scanning the horizon for the object of their curiosity.

"Look at Catherine!" (Catherine is our Polish-Crested chicken) "She's rolling in the dirt and showing us her tummy." Chickadee answers.

"Yeah, I want to see if it looks like what we buy at the store."  Dandy adds.

This puberty thing has me all jumpy I guess.

quotables

Dandy is brushing the back of Chickadee's hair for her:

Dandy: You have such beautiful hair.
Chickadee: Well that's a sweet thing to say.  Thanks.

These are the same kids who can have a quarrel over a pencil. What gives?

Birthday Pictures

We had birthday breakfast, complete with German Chocolate cake. (Check out that foam on the latte in the lower right.) Then Jamie started to unwrap his one and only present. 

 
U2 tickets. He had lusted after them but had talked himself out of it in a gallant effort to be thrifty. I bought them months and months ago and had to wait to give them. Such fun.

Then we packed it up and went to the islands for the day.

Happy Birthday to Jamie . . .

 . . . the nicest husband a girl could ask for.

spelling

Dandy: How do you spell chicken?
Chickadee: H - E - N

DIY Chicken Coop Plans

Check out these excellent free plans for an A-frame chicken ark.

Of course, if you are looking for a more elegant home for your egg machines, you want these plans: 

Mary's Song by Luci Shaw

Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest ...
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigour hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by dove's voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

-- Luci Shaw

iPad: what is really inside

Atheist Day

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Psalm 53:1”