and we're off.... again.

This week has been so frustrating.  Too much to do in too little time.  We finally cleaned out our storage unit, which means we're buried in boxes again.  If I work on my thesis, I want to scream when I have to wade through boxes to get to the washer and dryer; if I work on clearing out boxes, I can practically hear the ticking of the time-bomb that is my thesis not getting done.  I'm about to tear my hair out.  And that's not to mention all the other things I've had to do this week.

We did have one scare this week-- one of the chickens disappeared for several hours.  We just assumed that it had joined the Circle of Life (there are plenty of chicken predators in our area).  I was feeling really down about it, because I was the one that had let them out to free range and then gone back up to the house to work on other stuff.  But then when Dean went down to check on them about nine that night, there was the missing hen.  I guess we'll never know what happened, but since there has been an injured hawk hanging around the last few days, I wonder if there was a botched attempt by the hawk to carry one of them off.

Hmmm.  Can I take a moment to post a picture of said hawk?  He will let us walk right up to him, which is how we know he's not feeling well, so I have some great pictures.

OK, I just made an executive decision that made the next few hours considerably less hectic, so here is our "friend" the hawk who is convalescing in the field in front of our house:

and here is a Montana traffic jam:  (just kidding, even for us this is unusual, the little town just to the northeast of us was having "Heritage Days."  But we did have to sit and wait several minutes for them to go by.)

Anyway.  No matter how much stuff is done or not done, we're flying to Southern California tomorrow afternoon for Dean's big extended family reunion.  They do it every year, but we haven't been in four of five years now.  It will be fun, and I will try to just ignore all the things that aren't getting done and enjoy it.