It’s 21 degrees right now and I’m happy to be inside where it’s warm and dry. Meanwhile, these House Finches are busy outside my window with the task of staying alive, somehow almost making it look like fun.
Party on, Garth.
out my window
Doe a deer a female deer
I woke this morning to snow that fell for hours before abruptly stopping when the sun came out. Zippy was out shoveling and came in to let me know we had a visitor in the yard. By the time I got to the window, the doe was strolling up the street past the spot where a huge pickup had slid sideways earlier in the day. (You can see the exposed groundcover where the truck went up over the sidewalk).
Hooves are superior to Michelins.
Perfection of the whole
Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Year-end image + plea for monthly donation to Sunrise Movement
In this part of the world, we’re in the final hours of 2018 which has been a shit-year in so many ways for the planet and its inhabitants. I don’t have any profound insights to offer. I would, however, like to share this photo I just took from my dining room window.
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark. ~ Rabindranath Tagore
It’s not a great picture, but it makes me happy. There’s much going on here (falling snow, flight, eating, turf battles, perching, etc) and I wanted to include this image because birds never, ever fail to brighten my day. I’m hoping they’ll do the same for you. Either way, it feels right to include feathered friends as I say goodbye to a difficult year.
The one other consistently bright spot for me this year has been the Sunrise Movement. No one is fighting harder and more effectively in the face of climate change than these young people with their action plan, aka the Green New Deal, that includes massive job creation. PLEASE consider pledging a monthly donation (mine is $5 per month) to this incredible organization that’s given me more hope than I thought possible.
I wish you and yours a Happy New Year! Here’s to continuing the good fight in 2019!
Friday Haiku
Sun behind the hills
the loneliest time of day
please hurry on back
Existing in the here and now
When I saw this photo I took yesterday, I interpreted it as a scrub jay looking ahead. But as I view it today, I’m reminded that birds don’t get caught up in regrets and what-ifs the way humans do. This wise jay is probably merely existing in the moment.
I’m trying to do the same.
Berry sad
The sun’s gone down and these cranberries remain on the deck rail where I placed them earlier today in hopes of luring birds. No such luck. My offering was refused. Or ignored. Possibly overlooked.
Whatever the case, I hope my feathered friends feasted elsewhere.
Where’d everyone go?
I wanted to express my magpie love today and went in search of a fun fact about this member of the corvid family. Guess what you call a group of magpies? A parliament.
However, my research didn’t reveal what the parliamentary procedure is for one magpie reuniting with the rest of the gang.
Portrait of dignity
“Animals don’t behave like men,’ he said. ‘If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill, they kill. But they don’t sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures’ lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.” ~
Friday Haiku
Looked closer and found
brave blooms in midst of the drab
guess I’ll try the same
Friday Haiku
sunflower shadows
blooming no more, still lovely
patio painting
Sunday Confessional: I missed what was right in front of me
As I crouched next to my writing room window to photograph a Red-tailed Hawk on the wire, I was so intent on focusing the shot on the bird rather than the branches and power lines that I didn’t see what else was going on: another hawk had arrived.
It wasn’t until I’d downloaded the photos that I saw those legs in the upper right-hand corner of the image. Maybe there’s such a thing as being too intent on one’s goal.
Friday Haiku
Brisk weather bathing
splash fast splash often get out
no need for towel
Friday Haiku
Agility test
failure’s not an option here
Strength and persistence
Thankful Thursday
When you rise in the morning,
give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength.
Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
~ Tecumseh
Friday Haiku
Today’s yoga view
now must loosen my muscles
with guidance of rocks.
Deerly Beloved
As the nervousness and anxiety mounts regarding the outcome of tomorrow’s votes, I turn to my default emotional-health tool: nature.
This deer showed up in our front yard just over a year ago and today I’m grateful for its grace, beauty, and calming demeanor.
Breathe, Tracy. Breathe . . .
Friday Haiku
Still life with squirrel
rare moment of inaction
in a life of GO!
An unruly bouquet from me to you
It’s a whole new week and there’s much to be done. I’m gonna try to smile along the way and I hope you do, too.
Let’s do this.
Be as a bird
Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
~ Victor Hugo
Wordless Wednesday: today’s view
The complexity of things
The complexity of things – the things within things – just seems to be endless.
I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.
~ Alice Munro
I spy with my little eye
I’m grateful this Hairy Woodpecker’s tap-tap-tap alerted me to his presence. I took this photo last week when it was sunny and warm, but today is rainy and cold. A hard freeze is in the forecast. I hope all my feathered friends stay warm and dry.
October in bloom
When I think of October, I picture pumpkins and dried cornstalks. A nip in the air. Ghosts, goblins, and headstones. When I think of October, I do not think of clematis in bloom.
And yet, here we are.
Wordless Wednesday: Black-billed Magpie edition
