The first song in this week’s uke concert book is “Oh What a Beautiful Morning,” and it fits today perfectly. The air is dry. It is only 73° now, but later the high will reach 80°. The backyard trees and leaves are sunlit. Nothing is moving in the still, still air. The dogs are having their morning naps. Nala is beside me while Henry is upstairs stretched on my bed. I have a few errands today, mainly animal food shopping, and a concert tonight. It is a busy uke week.

When I lived in Ghana, I had chickens. A hen with her eggs was a gift from a friend. The hen was white. Thomas who worked for me put a big piece of a broken pottery bowl on the floor of the toilet room, added straw and put the hens and her eggs on it. I used to check out the eggs when I went to the bathroom. They were entertainment though the hen sometimes objected, and I’d get pecked. I was so excited when the first crack appeared, and I could the chick tapping away at the shell. Five or six chicks finally emerged from the shells, but the hen was an irresponsible mother. Every day she’d leave in the morning and come home in the late afternoon missing a chick or two. All of them disappeared, and I ate the hen for dinner. Later I had more hens, and they were good mothers.

My most amazing animal encounter was on a back dirt road. I was riding my motorcycle going to visit a friend who lived in a remote village. On both sides of the road were tall grasses. As I was riding, I saw in front of me, not a great distance away but far enough, animals using both their hands and feet to move across the road. I stopped to watch. That’s when I realized they were baboons. One stopped, turned and looked up the road at me. I didn’t move. He must have figured I was not a threat so he went on his way. I didn’t know there were baboons in Ghana, monkeys yes but not baboons. I wanted to make sure what I’d seen was real, not imagined, and not some other animal so I did a bit of research. I found out I wasn’t crazy. Ghana has several different primates, and yes, olive baboons are one of them. I had seen what I thought I had seen. I had had an adventure.