I've been absent. Busy hosting family over last weekend and chasing my chickens around the house. And over the fence, and through the vineyard and back into the yard and over the fence and all the while avoiding Lavonne who was chasing me for chasing the hens and it was like one of those old dueling matches with swords--

Me running backwards yelling at hens to retreat! Fighting off Lavonne with my wooden rake, all while he flew at me baring his talons and screeching, using his finely sharpened beak to attack me and kill me. Thank god Jesus was working for Roy and Beth that day, he would have seen me lying in my own pool of blood, face down in the dirt of the vineyard while chickens finished what was left of me.

Or, he would have taken one of them home for dinner.

No matter, at least I would have been found.

But thank god it didn't come to that. It almost did. I rounded up all the poultry and locked them up and now they are angry.

But I am safe and that is really all that matters.