My notes about my life seem unimportant in the face of my friend and neighbor Nancy's tragedy. Her second husband is dying of cancer. As we speak, her daughter and his brother are there and Hospice caretakers are coming to the house. Her first husband died slowly and horribly over 10 years or more. She and Jim have only been married about two years. I am so sad for them. I was looking forward to having him as a neighbor for years to come. She has asked me to inquire about a service at the Fellowship, which I am glad to do.

The weather here has been incredibly beautiful lately. It is another sunny, clear morning--a little chilly in the house, but the sun will soon warm it up. Later in the day, it will be too hot to sit on the porch, which we tried to do yesterday for lunch, but had to come in because we were sweating. The chickens are smarter and stay under the porch until it gets cooler. Ray was splitting wood and I was puttering around the garden a little and they began to spend more time in the open. Some neighbors came by and they said they had lost chickens to hawks, so they thought their self-preservation instinct and having a place to hide were good things. I tried to introduce the dogs to them (one at a time, on leashes), but it didn't seem like that will ever be a possibility. I would love them to protect and defend the chickens. Paul has lost most of his to dogs (his own) and Karen F. loses a lot to the neighbor's dog. In both cases, the chickens fly out of the enclosure and are instantly attacked. Paul has now built a fenced area near the house for his dogs and is buying some more chicks from Karen.

Ray and I went to the Farmers' market, Kroger and Democratic HQ in the morning. After supper, we went to the Contra Dance. It was really fun (even though I didn't want to go). We were a little late picking up Muhterem, but they hadn't even started the lesson yet. It was a smaller crowd than usual, at least at first. Louis Wild, who used to call dances for us years ago, called about half the dances--very old square dances, with interesting "figures", like one I remembered: duck for the oyster, dive for the clam...I really liked them. He talked about his family and the history of the dances. One, the Grand March, is descended from a quadrille of the court of Louis XIV.

We didn't get to bed until midnight--gasp! and now we have to hurry to get everything in before going to sing.