Cake and pie.

Chocolate fudge cake, to be exact.... and strawberry rhubarb pie. I baked the cake (very rich... don't think I'd use that recipe again).... and the pie came from Royer's in Round Top. The vanilla ice cream came from BlueBell (the only ice cream you're allowed to serve here in the Hill Country). Anticipating the desserts, I had just a banana for dinner. No sense in piling on the calories at dinner-time when I knew I would have a little piece of both the cake and the pie. "Just a sliver..." as my Aunt Dolly would say.

We invited J & J over for dessert, and B & G.... we wanted to include J & G but they're still trying to settle in and settle down after their move from Pennsylvania. Been there, done that.... any sort of move is intense... but moving from one state to another brings a stress all its own.

When I went outside to lock up the coop tonight, only three hens were in there.... Prissy was missing. I walked all around the back courtyard looking for her... not a sign of that black-feathered bird. As I called out to Prissy, Scarlett came running out of the coop and plopped herself by my feet so I could pick her up. Which I did.... and carried her back into the coop (which is what she wanted in the first place-- Scarlett is back to her "pick me up and carry me to the coop like a princess" routine).

I closed the door to the coop but didn't lock it... went back into the house and told my husband and everyone else that we had a missing chicken........ all three men went outside to look for her.... not a sign, not a feather. B told me that if you don't find any feathers, that means a fox got the chicken-- "They break the neck and just carry them off." Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but that's the nature of the coop.

Except for another gray hair which I'm sure popped right out of my head, I didn't get upset. No more tears for missing or dead chickens. Am I getting that used to the predatory animals out here that can catch a hen in ten seconds flat?

My husband and J & G came back to the house..... not a sign of Prissy. Oh well. "Now there are three," I thought..... and Prissy hasn't been laying eggs since April, so it is what is it. Or was.

Back out we went, into the driveway to say goodbye to our friends and lock up the coop....... and there she was..... Prissy standing in front of the closed gate of the coop, looking up at me as if to say "Well, who closed the door? Can't you see I need to get in there?!"

I opened the gate and in she went. Audrey was at the very top of the ladder, which is where Prissy usually sleeps, but she lost her place because she was so late getting into the coop. Scarlett walked over to my feet but didn't plop her feathered-self down (one princess promenade per night is enough for her, I guess). And PittyPat looked down at Prissy from the second rung of the ladder, probably thinking "Jeez.... I thought we'd got rid of you!" (Prissy is constantly picking and pecking at poor little PittyPat.)

Score one for the hens.... we still have four. I can't believe I kept so calm when Prissy was 'missing.' Had this happened last year, I would have been in tears. City girl. No doubt about it. "It's only a chicken." That's what I kept saying as I walked back towards the house. "Only a chicken. Only a chicken. Only a chicken."

And so it is. Just a chicken. Besides that, I've lost my good friend Fran.... it still hurts.... I still think of her.... her birthday is in a few days.... I know she wasn't ready to leave this world. With all of that, how could I possibly cry over a lost or missing chicken?