Please. Please don't eat the zinnias.

                    First. Check to make sure nobody's home . . . 

          Just to make sure . . . take another look around . . . 

                     Take time to smell the flowers . . . 

                                   Then.    EAT THEM.

THE MARTIN HOUSE

PLEASE SEE THE POEM - BELOW.

                                     The Martin House

Here by the pond the mosquitoes need quelling.

A high-rise birdhouse is the requisite dwelling.

But try as I might the squatters come flying

And now there is mayhem – it’s all very trying.

 

There’s indignant chatter instead of song,

from the martin-less house above my lawn.

The starling struts through the sparrows’ parlor,

ignoring their pleas, ignoring their holler.

A piece of their bedding he holds in his beak.

His head’s cocked askew to measure their pique.

On to the front porch he pushes his way

and spits out their mattress in order to say:

“Birds of a feather may all get along,

but my elegant black trumps your dowdy brown.

Pack up your eggs and pack up your straw!

I’m soon moving in with my elegant frau.”

I could force a truce in this feathery fray

by removing the roost to stow it away.

But I’ve taken a pass on the martins’ sagacity.

(They stay well away from such rapacity.)

No, I’ll go on from season to season,

watching this skirmish for no purposeful reason,

except to muse at these feathered pairs,

squabbling over what isn’t theirs.

Catherine Wilson

The Taming of the Shark

Once upon a time . . .

A nice man went for a wade . . .

He bent to peer beneath the sparkling waves . .   and . .

A BIG SHARK jumped him!!!

The battle ensued!

Right out of the water it came !!

It was fierce, and it grabbed the man's arm with its dorsal fin !!

"Oh no, ya don't!"  shouted the man.

It got nasty!

                                     But the man got the shark on its back!

And he shook him good and said: "Y'er com'n with me!"

And he hauled him up the steps to take him to fish school were he might learn some good manners.

Ruh - roh.

The shark didn't want to go.

He pleaded his case.

(As he showed some very SHARP TEETH)

And he promised to be a good shark . . .

so the nice man took the wily shark back to the water.

Don't you love a good fish (er . . 'shark') story with a happy ending?

(You can meet this intrepid pair at the USFWS headquarter's parking lot on Morris Island, Cape Cod. And while you're there check out the Monomoy Island Ferry which will transport you to areas where you'll see the natural delights (Seals!) along the shores at the elbow of the Cape.)

PS:  And now the rest of the story.  Ed was checking the shark for leaks.   That required submerging different quadrants and waiting for tell-tale bubbles.  A very gentle encounter.

Serendipity

I had a stack of pictures I'd taken over past decades.
Put them in an album.
Cloud and sky pictures together..
Sat down in the front window to enjoy them.
Sun came through the antique window my brother gave me.
All but one of these rainbows came from the window prisms.

The only real rainbow is the faint arc low on the eastern Colorado horizon.

I love serendipity.

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After a long winter, signs of Spring . . .

Something starts to whisper during March.

  When drawers and closets and pantries become 'interesting' . . .

Theres no disputing it, when the mallards show up for the 4th year.

   It was a little shadowy at first . . .

               But, at last,  there it is  . . streaming through the windows . .

                              Happy Easter!    Happy Us!   We made it.
                 Wishing you and yours Light, Smiles, Laughter and Love.



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They Were "Us" . . .

These color photos of the '30's and 40's (clickable) just emerged from the Library of Congress.

Haunting.  Haunting.  Why should color from the past - make it so much more real?

The anonymous people, our ancestors, battlefields -  were always 'then' . . . the 'past' . . .  a strange 'before now' time . . that peered from black and white photographs.  And now this.

Why does it affect me, so?   Perhaps because the same sun that colors our lives, now falls on their faces, on their shining hair, on the fields they plow.  It is a world of blood, sweat and tears.  No longer just a black and white recording of others in a strange other time.

It's unsettling to see these wraiths as no different from me.  After all, they lived so long ago . .  . in that less nuanced world .  . that static two-dimensional world where ghostly images drift.  And they are probably gone - vanished into that gauzy black and white world.  Surely different laws reigned over their lives, than do mine.  But no,  I am now disabused of the notion that  I am more 'now' than they could ever have been.

Truly.  I am moved and amazed at the difference that throwing the palette of common daily life across the past, makes in my perception.

Thank you, Laura.  You should have seen it in color.  Click for a very poignant song.



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This Is More Like It !

Hubby made it upstairs with his new knee.   It was the siren call of his flight simulator that got him to the top of those steep steps.  I thought I heard him calling.  Raced to the bottom of the stairs.  "There's a bird outside my window with a red head," says he.

"Groan." says I.  Plod up the stairs to see what I know will be a Cardinal, a House Finch, a Red-bellied Woodpecker . . .

But waaaait . . . something's wrong with this bird.   A leucistic finch?  No.  There's more than one.
Holy Kamoly.  Grab the smelling salts!  My first White-winged Crossbills - Evah !

Thank you dear hubby.

AND.   In googling images of Crossbills . . . ended up on this unbelievable Flicker River of Indiana bird photography.   It goes forever . . . just like the perfect dream should . . . during the heart of January.

It's the Indiana Audubon Society's Bird Gallery and Archive
(That's a clickable link)

Update:  Did want to mention that after failing to get a pix of them in the tree limbs .. . they dropped into my birdbath . . whence . . . voila ! ^

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A Poem Born of Fatigue

Do not read this if you're feeling tired or blue.   The title and sense of the poem have been in my head for a few years.  The fatigue of the last days . . . settled onto the page.  Life is good,  just a little tough sometimes . . . and surely, too short.


                                  Falling Away

Some things don't change.

Mid January.

The sunlight finds a path
through the clouds 

that blanket the horizon.

The patterns it creates on the walls,

falling through winter branches,

are familiar.

It's the sun.  
Pushing back the covers.

Stretching its broad back

to start the year over again.

In this house, for years,

I've watched the seasons

blur one into another.

Buckling soil above greening shoots,

rhapsodic bloom,  resultant seeds, 

endless lawns,

leaf-drop.

Mid January.

I sit watching patterns.

Timeless.

Only I, have changed.

Only the family pictures,

on the sun-drenched sill,

mark time . .

falling away.



























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Just a new knee, but prayers please . .UPDATE :)

MADE IT THROUGH SURGERY IN AN HOUR.   ON ORAL AND VENOUS PAIN MEDICATIONS AND A NERVE BLOCK AND CRACKING US UP AND STILL TAKING CHARGE.

My best friend.  He's getting a new knee Thursday morning.