Don’t panic, all of us are fine, but one of our hens died. One of the white ones. Wyatt found her when I sent him out to collect the eggs and let them out to range the acerage, and poor kid, it was pretty traumatic for him. She was just lying there next to the water dispenser and had been dead probably for at least ten hours. The rest of them seemed to not even notice as they went about their little chicken lives doing what they do, but it put a pause in the humans. We had a funeral of sorts, tears were shed, words spoken, children comforted, and adults (me, anyway) went off to examine what we could have/should have done to prevent it and/or what we might have done to cause it, as is this human’s way.

That happened on Sunday–that dreaded day before we randomly rob ourselves of an hour by turning the hands of any clocks you might still have in your house. We have three of them, plus the microwave, stove, and my husband’s bedside digital clock. I resent having to do that.

So, I woke up Monday still feeling out of sorts about the hen (Princess Fluffy Butt, aka Big Girl, aks Whitney), and I took on a clean-up and rearrange project in the guest bedroom that is still sitting there in chaos. And I have work to do for Global Underwater Explorers, and the kitchen is a mess, and I’ve not slept well for three nights, so I’m surly.

One thing happened, though. I was looking for something good to come from all this miserable, upsetting stuff going on right now, and came up with this: I never gave a single thought (well, almost never) to what it meant to live in a country that guaranteed me freedom. For better or worse, and sure sometimes it’s worse, we can say what we want to say, dress how we want to dress, watch and listen to what we want to watch and listen to, love who we want (or not), and on and on. I’ve never lived anywhere without all those freedoms I took for granted. Now that they seem to be gradually being threatened, I’m understanding how much it means.

I hope it’s not too late, like it is for Princess.