Jon’s dog Susie is having a rough time. She’s had a lump on her throat for a while now, but in the past week or so it has suddenly grown much bigger. Jon took her to the vet yesterday and she was so freaked out they couldn’t get much of an x-ray, for fear the stress would kill her right then: she was breathing really heavy on the examination table, frothing at the mouth. Jon scheduled an exploratory surgery for tomorrow afternoon, but we don’t have much hope of them being able to fix the problem.

I love visiting my parents in the spring because they live on a farm and there are always baby animals there this time of year. This time around, they have some chucklings and some kittens. First, the chucklings: a hen kept trying to set on some unfertilized eggs (we have no roosters) in the usual egg-laying spot, preventing the other hens from laying any eggs. My mom got tired of this and stuck the chicken inside an old cage. She then went around the property gathering an assortment of duck eggs that our lazy ducks weren’t caring for, and stuck them under the hen.