Saturday morning I saw something amazing.
We have been trying to get a pair of bluebirds to take up housekeeping in a bluebird house in our backyard. The trouble is, we have been unable to convince the House Sparrows that cloud the local air to give the Blues family a chance.
Every spring I sit mesmerized as, in the space of just a few days, the mass of quarter-inch buds inexorably spread their petals in a real-time slow motion exposition of pink and white four-petaled flowers, each bloom more than two inches across.
The petals will shortly fall off, leaving behind next years buds, and life goes on.
Watching the clouds drift in, and I watch them drift away again. (With apologies, or at least a nod, to Otis Redding.)
A Downy Woodpecker arrived, stopping to check a fence post for bugs, prompting a pair of House Sparrows to break away from the feeder to assume guard positions at the bird house mounted at the top of the post. Unsatisfied, the Downy moved away, and tried to rustle up some grub from nearby tomato stakes.
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First printed in the Gettysburg Times, 6/21/2013)
We have a new hammock, given us for Fathers Day by the Resident Nurse. It is a great place to spend a Friday afternoon, with Grady the Golden lying beneath, making sure I don’t decide to wander without him knowing.
Hammock therapy, the Resident Nurse calls it.
Atop a nearby fence slat, a robin chirps – if that’s what to call what she is sounding. She must be pleased with the worm hanging from her bill; with each chirp she pumps her throat and tail, putting her whole body into her celebration.
Occasionally, a member of the robin colony will pull a worm and just stand there quietly, upright, chest puffed, as though saying to her fellow wormers, “See what I’ve done. I bet you can’t find one as big!” Continue reading Hammock therapy, what the resident nurse ordered