by 
Joyce kept two black hens from the first batch of chickens she raised when that flock had gotten too old to lay. The two were pets, more or less, and while one died some time ago, she thinks one of the black hens she has now is the other from the first flock. That hen has always wanted to sit on a clutch of eggs but was never allowed to since the eggs were needed for human consumption. For a while now the egg production generally from the current flock has been light and spotty. It appears Joyce will allow the current flock to live out their lives and not replace them with a new flock.
Kind-hearted person that she is, Joyce finally left the one hen that has been so keen to sit on eggs a few so the hen would finally get what she wanted, figuring all the chickens were to old to produce fertile eggs. The eggs weren’t from that hen. Joyce could tell by their color that one of the gold chickens laid them but that old black hen didn’t care. Last week Joyce discovered that one of the eggs had hatched and the old hen was happily raising her chick, guarding it jealously from the other chickens.
It will be interesting to see if it survives and prospers. Is it a hen or a rooster? Either way, if it lives, Joyce will have a pet chicken perhaps for years.
We’ve finally gotten some rain, 1.57 accumulated over the weekend. It was much needed.
We attended a couple of Rebecca’s volleyball games recently. She gets most of her serves over the net and now and then returns a volley. I think she is a little bit ahead of the average for her team. Abigail should be starting club volleyball soon but is going to rest a bothersome knee for six weeks. It caused discomfort throughout the Tascocsa JV season but she played through it. It seems to be use-related and her doctor, having relented and let her finish the season, now is adamant about her resting it while she avoids inflammation-causing things like sugar and white flour. You know, anything that tastes good. She’s not happy about that, especially with Thanksgiving coming up.