More quality time with Lance and Luna

    Rachel worked at the Beez Neez today and since it was her weekend to have the kids I got to spend a little time with them.  I took Lance with me this morning when I drove into Everett to get a haircut from my somewhat eccentric barber. Lance's only objection to the trip was the fact that he was forced to use his sister's booster seat as his seat was down at the bee store. I like my quirky barber for a number of reasons, but the main ones are that he gives a good haircut and he likes to swap honey or pollen for haircuts. Its a good old fashioned barber shop without a lot of frills.  Once my haircut was finished I tried to persuade Lance to get a haircut.  He didn't really need a haircut, but I thought he might enjoy getting a haircut from a real barber as opposed to his mom's stylist. Lance decided to go shy on me and wouldn't even get in the barber chair for a spin. My barber is a serious bowler.  Since he had no other customers waiting he brought out a real bowling ball and a few bowling pins and tried to get Lance to try his hand at barbershop bowling. Lance was just not having any of it.

     After my haircut and a stop by the bee store to pick up Lance's booster seat, I was driving home from the store by my usual route.  Halfway home Lance pipes up from the back seat and ask" Why are you going so slow?"   I looked down at the speedometer and saw that I was doing 30 mph in a 25 mph speed zone.  I told Lance that I was actually going faster than I should and slowed down to 25 mph. I explained briefly about speed limits and pointed out the next few speed limit signs.  So I asked Lance, "Does your momma drive faster than this?"   I think you all know the answer he gave.

    After we got home, Lance assisted me in taking care of our poultry.  Now that he lives at our house he talks about "our" chickens, "our" ducks, "our" goats, etc. He is real clear on that fact that now that he lives here he has accrued an ownership interest in the livestock. For my part, I am very happy to share my ducks, chickens, and goats with Lance.  After the poultry Lance and Luna and I spent some time picking out hazel nuts from among the shells.  We had bought a 25 pound bag of hazel nuts while we were visiting Chris and Sarah from one of their local nut farmers. He ran the nuts through a cracking machine so over 95 per cent of the nuts are already cracked. We did the sorting outside as it was a nice sunny day and I was trying to avoid getting shells on the floor inside. Luna and Lance were enthusiastic nut sorters for about a half an hour. After we finished the first big batch they both opted to go inside and see what Grandma was doing.  I did a few other chores and then sat down to do another batch of nuts. I have a big metal drip  pan that is the equivalent of about three or four large cookie sheets so it holds a pretty good sized pile of nuts.. When I was partway through Luna came back outside and helped me finish them up.

     Later, Linda told me that she had overheard Luna talking to Lance upstairs while they were watching me sort nuts from the upstairs window saying "Grandpa looks all sad and lonely. We should go help him."  Lance chose to stay inside and watch more Ruby and Max. I was very pleased that Luna chose to come back outside and help some more, but I would have preferred a different motivation than pity for her sad and lonely grandpa.