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On the way to school yesterday, Mason and I saw a guinea walking around in the yard across the street from Ava’s daycare provider. It was in the company of a couple of ducks. Actually, I think the guinea was kinda being the third wheel. One of the ducks would waddle over and try to chase the guinea off. Imagine being chased off by someone who walks like that. It would be humiliating.

Mason kept saying, “Guineas are rare in this world.” I’m never quite sure how to respond to these statements because his notion of “this world” seems to be a mutable idea.

So, I decided to tell him about how we had guineas on our farm when I was young. They were odd ducks. They ate a lot of bugs—in fact, they are praised for their ability to control deer ticks. My mother, Grandma Keim, liked them because they also seemed to control snakes. Their eggs are very hard to break. And, they are loud. Having guineas around is a bit annoying but nobody ever entered our yard without us knowing about it. More than one visitor to our farm was unnerved by these helmeted screaming fowl.