Chickens, Cousins and the Dalai Lama

I have heard the term "summer vacation." You keepa usin' that word! I do no' think it means what you think it means! Our summer has been nutty and wonderful so far.

Last week was the County Fair. Evie entered a metal detector she made from a calculator and an AM radio. We worked the 4H food booths and in the small animal barns. Next year Evie will be old enough to enter a lot more categories and is already planning. Meanwhile, at an adjacent venue, the Dalai Lama was in town again. We saw his motorcade pass by numerous times, heard wonderful chanting and saw hundreds of people flocking to the events. We have heard he is a fun loving fellow and Evie and I got a good chuckle thinking about His Holiness the Dalai Lama whoopin' it up on the wild Fireball ride at the fair while eating cotton candy. It is an honor that he keeps visiting Madison!

Evie's cousins were here this weekend and we had a good ol' time. They were particularly taken with the chickens (who isn't) and the oldest cousin helped extensively with the Mad City Coop Tour on Sunday. Over 120 people came to look at our coop, meet the girls and talk about chickens. Almost all were "chicken wannabes" trying to get more info and ideas. It was a wonderful, hot, exhausting day. We got just as many questions about the mud oven as we did about the chickens.

Scott invented a new outdoor reps organization and is holding a HUGE trade show at the convention center in town this week--we do have a lot of hobbies, don't we!?! Evie and I are gofers this week.