Sanibel Birds

Great Egret and Sanibel Lighthouse



Snowy Egret at Sunset



Strutting Great Egret



Fish Crows


Fish Crows lunching on Palmetto berries



Stair-stepping Brown Pelicans


Immature Yellow-Crowned Night Heron



Fishing Buddies (Great White Egret)

Marianne at Northveiw Diary introduced me to this bit of whimsy. We are to take the first sentence of the first post of each of the past 12 months and line 'em up thusly. It's a hoot. And just maybe I do have too much time on my hands :)

Some say the world will end in fire.
Not playful, nor baleful . . .
I found this gem in the most unlikely place
No lights in the neighbors' windows yet.
One couldn't help but to see the beauty despite the damage
I wonder if the little bee,
It's been a long ten years
When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it."
Deep summer
The tarp on the garden moves like a stranded sea creature.
Too much time on my hands .

Fairy-loving Birds

>

Too much time on my hands :)

Tricks the Autumn Wind Plays

                                        Tricks The Autumn Wind Plays

The plastic tarp on the garden

moves like a stranded sea creature.

It breathes and flaps in the wind.

Its rock-tethered arms,

tremble to be released into this breeze

that teases it with freedom,

and memories of watery depths,

and now, the dream of flight,

having tasted air.

         

                               
                                              Catherine Wilson

Deep Summer

"Seeing"

From Annie Dillard's "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek":

When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it.”

It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, in the forests of fall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it.

I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.

The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.

I have since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam.

--Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Memorial Day 2011

Between the Storms

What I saw on my computer screen.


What it looked like from my front stoop.









I've only cowered in the basement once, so far. Nothing materialized except some water seeping under the basement wall. It rainith. A lot. we have managed to duck out between the storms. Everything is green, moist, singing, blooming . . . in such a rush.

Nooooo! Not the Daffodils!

Who'd a thunk it?


P.S. After 2 weeks it's good to be outside. One nasty virus. Felled us both. Whew.

God Bless America

It's been a long ten years. So much is owed to the brave men who killed the man responsible for the 9/11 strikes on America.

"U.S. forces were led to the fortress-like three-story building after more than four years tracking one of bin Laden's most trusted couriers, whom U.S. officials said was identified by men captured after the September 11, 2001 attacks."

That man who identified the courier was water-boarded at Gitmo.
Update: There is disagreement about where this person was interrogated. It may have been in an over-seas facility. None of this is pretty. But neither were the deaths of 3 thousand innocent Americans.

These Things I know

My dear friend, Anne, was cleaning bookshelves and came across this poem. She shared it with me. I love it.

These Things I Know:

I have planted a garden,
so I know what faith is.

I have seen birch trees
swaying in the breeze, so
I know what grace is.

I have seen a morning without
clouds, after showers,
so I know what beauty is.

I have read a book beside
a wood fire,
so I know what contentment is.

I have seen the miracle of
the sunset, so I know what
grandeur is.

And because I have perceived
all these things, I know
what wealth is.



- Capper's Weekly - unattributed

I know you could add your own list of 'wealth-making' experiences.

Done With Ice

(you might have to click to read)

Couldn't stand looking at that ice in my previous post. We're nowhere near magnolia blooms, yet - but - hope SPRINGs eternal ;-)

Ice Would Suffice . . .

One couldn't help but to see the beauty despite the damage.


Yes, that's the electric meter.



Yes, that's the power line under that huge hunk of tree. Luckily it's not alive.
(The power line, that is.)



Oh yes. We've had enough ice to suffice for a very, very long time ;-D





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