It’s been a while since I last made a post, but I am currently in the middle of writing several different entries at the same time. Unfortunately, I’m just having a little trouble with the format and flow of them – which is making it seem like I’ve taken a blogging hiatus. Hopefully, I can get some more time invested into writing so that I can finish up these drafts that seem to be accumulating. Right now, I have 13 drafts that I’d like to finish and publish, but they don’t quite feel complete just yet. Interestingly enough, sometimes it feels like my drafts are accumulating faster than my actual blog posts.

In other news, today was a very eventful day. For some reason, the new chicken I bought a few weeks ago (Ruth), has been incredibly loud in the mornings. It’s normal for roosters to make a racket, but every now and again, a noisy hen comes into play – and I guess I lucked out on this nuisance. Regrettably, I’ve been woken up early in the mornings, due to the clucking and chattering in the coop she’s been making. It actually worries me at times, because if I can hear her with the windows and everything shut, in my bedroom, upstairs, who else can hear her? The other three chickens that I raised since they were chicks, rarely make noise, so I’ve been contemplating returning Ruth if she continues on this rotten streak. This racket has been going on for a little while now, but for some reason she has gotten louder over the course of the past week, so two nights ago I decided to cover the front of their coop (which acts like a window) to make it appear darker in the mornings. Chickens often fall asleep when it becomes dark, or when they’re placed in a dark location, so I crossed my fingers in hopes that it would keep her quiet. The first night, I wasn’t awakened by any noise, but this morning there was one chain of clucking that woke me up, but then it stopped. I really hope that this helps to quiet her down because if I were one of my neighbors, I wouldn’t much appreciate being woken up by a boisterous chicken.

Anyway, aside from the entire chicken fiasco, I spent most of my day relaxing and spending a couple hours at gym during the mid afternoon. Later on, the entire Kagi family (with the exception of Kara) had me over for a belated birthday dinner, since Pat was out of town on my actual birthday. Although Kessa and Ryan took me out to Saburo’s for my big day, Pat and Robin wanted to throw me an ‘official’ birthday get together tonight, with a birthday ‘cake’ and of course, the good ol’ birthday sing-along jamboree that could only be made special by the added sound effects of the Kagi clan. Surprisingly, Robin out-did herself by preparing a feast for us all with steelhead salmon, wild rice, home made cole slaw, vegan corn bread, and some brownies made from dark ghirardelli chocolate (as my preferred birthday ‘cake’). She definitely went above and beyond, and it felt great being able to spend time with those that I love and care about. Afterwards, we played some card games with Colton, and some continued on with some more games once Colton was put to bed. Lots of laughs were had tonight, and it truly made for an exceptional birthday. This only makes me truly excited for the holiday season, now that Kessa and Ryan are back in town. We’ve definitely missed them, and surely with their assistance, we can plan an equally extravagant birthday bash for Robin, as well.