"They invented hugs to let people know you care about them without saying anything." - Charles Schultz

This morning I mucked out a chicken coop.
This afternoon we went to the opera.
What a wonderful life!

I did other stuff too, including a start on terracing the slope that goes down to the creek so I can add some raised beds for Pam's veggie garden.

The chicken coop was gross, in part because they're chickens and because it always gets worse when we have a lot of rain. Wet straw, wet chicken poop, and tracked in mud makes for a mess.

Egg production had mysteriously dropped but this morning I discovered why. The light I have on a timer came unplugged.
Nature (God) tells most animals to give birth in the spring when the warming weather and the availability of food gives the young the best chance for survival. Because temps are so variable chickens know it's egg laying season (raising young season) based on the hours of sunlight. And because they're stupid they can be tricked into thinking it's spring & summer with a light on a timer. Twelve hours of light and they're laying fools.
That's why an unplugged light lowered egg production.

The opera was three hours long, longer than we expected. We agree it was fun. We also agree it wasn't the best we've attended.
The Barber of Seville (Rossini) is bel canto, which means lots of vocal runs, eighth and sixteenth notes (very fast) that go up and down and all over. Very challenging to sing.
The Barber of Seville is also one of the most popular operas. A log of people know its music even if they can't identify it because it's been used in everything from cartoons to commercials. All the most famous singers have sung arias from this opera. So hearing them done by these artists....
Hey, they were good; don't get me wrong. But their runs sounded more like glissando.
OK, due props: they had a LOT of notes to sing and a LOT of lyrics to get out very, very quickly. Few people can speak words that fast, never mind sing them. And it's a fun story.

We got home after dark and I hustled to get the goats fed while Pam fixed supper. Now we're crashing. I'll have a cup of coffee, a couple of cookies, and call it a day.