63 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-16-20”

  1. Good morning! Great screen shot of some wonderful people! Our peeps! Thank you, AJ, for keeping this band of Wanderers together on this life raft after we got tossed of the big ship!

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  3. Good morning! Tonight will be my last shift on this run. I am ready. We are moving into a new hospital next week. I have been doing lots of prep work in order to get the rooms stocked and supply rooms set up. It is a beautiful facility with lots more room, and hopefully everything works. It will be nice to have hot water come out of the faucets and not be brown due to old pipes.

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  5. Good morning, all. Husband is off on another road trip. This time to take twenty three to meet up with a twenty two, to buy his vehicle. She has burned through a couple of ours, time for her to buy her own. He is selling it because he is upgrading. But not too much. Hopefully, it will be a good car for her. They will be back later today. Nice of son to work with us on getting her some wheels. He is the truck driving son. He is also renting space in another son’s fifth wheel so he has a place to get out of his truck a couple times a month. Other son is also renting space to a friend who stays in the fifth wheel and cares for other son’s dog. The dog he got when other daughter had to get a dog because she wanted one and then found out it did not work with her Navy career…..

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  7. Thanks for taking the screen shot, Kevin. I may have blinked, but that’s my common face for photos. If you’re taking a group photo with me in it, take a couple. 🙂

    I didn’t tell you guys that to get the camera high enough, I stacked it on collector’s items. It’s on a tote with a 36-roll pack of TP on top. Back in February when this virus was coming down (before other people were stocking up) we went to Sam’s Club and bought canned chicken. We didn’t buy TP because we didn’t need any. But after we got home, my husband decided to place a Sam’s Club order and get TP just in case.

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  8. Good morning.

    AJ, I sent you an email to the address listed on the About page.

    The screen shot header with the nine pics reminds me of the opening credits of The Brady Bunch. Anyone watch that TV show back in the 70s?

    My square looks kind of fuzzy. I wonder if that’s because I didn’t have good reception that day, and lost internet service shortly after that?

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  9. Morning! Beautiful people up there!!
    A lovely day in the forest. The air is fresh and moist after last evening’s thunder shower. The ground is wet meaning it is good for planting the bushes and daisy’s I purchased last week….maybe a bit of raking pines needles in the plan for today as well…. 😊

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  11. It’s also like Hollywood Squares.

    I went to bed early (for me), 10 p.m., it was a busy and tiring week.

    I may plant some things in the backyard. But I’ll need a bag or two of that enriched gardening soil.

    My dirt is like dirt. Hard-packed and un-enriched.

    So I may have to do some deep watering to break the various planting spots up first.

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  12. See, I’m already tired just thinking about doing all that.

    It’s jacaranda season out here in LA, our pretty purple trees are blooming everywhere.

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  13. Glad you will be in a new space for working, Rkessler. That is usually a morale booster.

    I had a pleasant mowing experience and only needed one break instead of two. There was a nice breeze. People are looking at the house on the other side of our house today because it is for sale. I am glad for their purposes that I got the yard mowed so it looks nice. Of course I had to mow where the cable was put underground. There is a small narrow streak of grass that is dying but it should pop back up before long. It is not a perfectly manicured area the cable went through. I hope we can put it behind us. Art is enjoying watching television without reception cutting off and on all the time as we have dealt with for years..

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  14. That Donald Trump doesn’t have anything in the world but send me dozens of e-mails asking for money.

    This is trivial, but I was sitting on my back deck and noticed something that occurred to me that none of you can say.
    I can remember the first time I saw jet contrails. I was at Myrtle Beach and noticed that white cloud streaming across the sky. It took me a moment or so to figure it out.
    When I was in the AF, we didn’t fly that high. Typical 9000-16,000 was high for us.
    We had to wear oxygen over 9000 feet even in pressurized planes (if I remember correctly). I think I remember reporting 29,000 once in a B-29.

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  15. I drove through the neighborhood yesterday looking for some flowers to photograph. I found none. I did not.go by the community garden. There would be flowers there.

    I made some cornbread from organic cornbread flour and put half a can of corn kernels in it. It is very good. I found a recipe for some vegan (porcupine) meetballs. It’s been years since I had those meatballs made with rice. My mother made that some when I was a child.

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  17. Janice, we’re between seasons for wildflowers here, and I don’t keep track much of garden flowers between bulbs and sunflowers. (I do know the irises are in bloom.) But for wildflowers, some of the mid-spring wildflowers are still in bloom in large numbers, but most have either finished blooming or there are just a few left. But the late spring flowers are JUST getting started. I’ve seen just one blossom of blue-eyed grass and just this morning I saw a few wild black raspberry blossoms–but for the most part they aren’t blooming yet, so there’s a lull. I’m hardly seeing any butterflies, but as of yesterday the damselflies are out, so the summer insect season has begun. (The spring insect season has been in full force for about six weeks. I’ve already photographed about 60 species!)

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  19. Contrails: I do remember being entranced by them. We went out in the yard in the country with our folks and stared at them and watched for them. Exciting times.

    Here, the contrails are known to be carriers of all sorts of horrible things brought to us by our government. Poisons to keep us under control, mostly. And you have to watch for the black UN helicopters. Most of the proponents, oddly enough, are either Californian or Canadian transplants. I am sure there was a tizzy of excitement when those Ospreys flew by.

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  21. I wake up every morning and pause, trying to remember the day of the week. Then, I list what I need to accomplish for the day–or, better, hope to accomplish. Only then, when I remember what day it is, do I get up and move along.

    Other than that confusion, I’m probably becoming too used to this life. 🙂

    I’ve got marigolds, cucumbers, and pole beans to plant today. I may dig up my five volunteer tomatoes, put them in pots, and place in front with a sign:

    “Free to good home. Propogated on this very street with unknown genus, but possibly cherry or maybe Cherokee. Good luck.”

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  22. Chas, I have been getting lots of Trump emails asking for money. Finally yesterday I went ‘duh’ and realized that I could unsubscribe. So nice. For my political party I put down that they could send me something like two a month, for the rest I just unsubscribed. Ten or so a day was way too many.
    And, no, I have never given them money, but they are sure that I will, just offer me the right incentive.

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  23. My two nieces are graduating from college today, from their family room. My brother just texted me photos of them in cap and gown, sitting in front of the projector–with their ceremonies appearing on the wall.

    It’s sweet and so sad at the same time. I’m proud of them for being such good sports.

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  24. I have no clue how I got onto the Trump email list, but it happened only in the past couple months. Since I’d never opened any of them, I received a computer-generated message asking if I’d like to “unsubscribe” so I hit “yes.”

    Michelle, I just read the Peggy Noonan column you’d linked to the other day, she has some valid points, I think.

    Oh, planting. Right. That’s what I was going to do today …

    Good thing I’m still working full time (so grateful, really) — my weeks are packed. Otherwise, too much downtown time, I can only imagine.

    The young adult next door isn’t doing well with it, that’s for sure. (This is the less-troubled of the 2 boys, in at least their mid-20s now). He plays his music constantly and loudly from the garage — or from the bicycle someone left him. He’s hooked a radio up to that and takes it out numerous times a day just for loud joy rides. I’m hearing a lot of agitation lately again between him and his mom (whose house it is where the boys both live).

    He lost both of his jobs when this lockdown began. His brother fractured his wrist and can’t work, landed in the hospital recently for being suicidal.

    This state of affairs really isn’t very good for anyone.

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  26. Thursday evening I went to my friend’s house near the Bay. We were sitting on her screened front porch (think along the lines of almost another room to the house) a car went by several times then stopped and asked us about an address. She was looking for an AirBnB. She was off and we told her how to get where she was going. She moved to Canada when Trump got elected, but it was too cold. (She had already applied for citizenship). So she is moving to Mexico. She went to Florida to see how she liked it but it was way too crowded and she got robbed at gunpoint at the hotel. She got stuck there because of corona and had to quarantine with a friend. She used to teach risk management on the college level and said the US was woefully unprepared for this situation.
    Anyway, it’s funny how some people automatically think you are in agreement with them. I sat there praying my friend wouldn’t say anything and just let the woman leave. She did and all is well.

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  29. I find it is hard to concentrate for long periods of time. I noticed this during the fires, too. I simply couldn’t read very well.

    Young people need direction and work. Our boarder is supposedly learning computer skills that he can apply when work life begins again. I haven’t asked him about it.

    But, thinking of the young men next door–who are at an age when their self worth grows through working, not through living with their mother–how do you convince them to spend time learning new skills that can translate into a job?

    I asked my husband about this–thinking of those nieces above. What skills could they/should they be applying themselves to learning during this time. Certainly Spanish would be helpful if you want a job in California. Advanced Excel? Photoshop?

    What would you suggest? You can learn almost anything off Youtube or taking classes.

    Sure, for these girls, they’re probably tired of computer learning. But what if it had a definitive value for the future?

    So, any ideas?

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  31. Boys next door — Spanish is their native language, they’re fully bilingual. Both are drawn to the food industry but have drug issues and rehab lurking always in the background (and sometimes the foreground).

    What’s sad is the one (less-troubled, currently) boy was so excited last fall to have landed his “first” full-time job — at the new Shake Shack that opened in Long Beach. He was on top of the world, and also was hanging on to his part-time job at a bakery just across the street from the new restaurant.

    Then this hits. Boom, both jobs let him and others go promptly. I have no idea what his schooling has been like, I presume he’s a high school grad and have no clue about his age. They’ve lived here close to 10 years and he’s always seemed like he was “in his 20s” to me. But maybe he was an older teen when they first moved in, I don’t really know. He has been heavily into music, had some recording equipment at one point, but now envisions owning a restaurant “someday.” But he is flighty, seems immature.

    I’d always recommend a trade of some kind for young men who have nothing else in particular that can bring in a decent living. (Said after having paid so many plumbers, painters, electricians and regular handymen through recent years.) Those jobs make more than mine ever did or will.

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  32. Kim!
    That woman teaches “risk management” at the college level?
    She shouldn’t be teaching it at the kindergarten level.
    I have had zero courses in “risk management” and I can think of three mistakes a smart person wouldn’t make.

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  33. And Michelle, I agree about the difficulty in concentrating during this period. I’ve found it hard to seriously read or concentrate on just about anything on most days.

    It’s a suspended animation type of existence right now, waiting for some kind of “normal” to return (which it won’t). I can only imagine how difficult it is for those who are not working suddenly when that had been the norm for them.

    Back to praying for a vaccine.

    Meanwhile, I used my cute new 6-foot step ladder from Home Depot to replace the motion light bulbs today — the other ones we used after replacing the fixture were too small and too harsh, more like spotlights than floodlights. So I found some bigger, longer ones online that are of a warmer hue, true flood lights. We’ll see how they perform tonight, but I think it’ll look much better and will provide a lot more overall light.

    And now I can return the other smaller bulbs, picked out for me by the Home Depot clerk who assured me they were what I needed.

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  34. Speaking of newspapers: ours has an insert periodically. The brain game for one. I see one is coming out on Mt St Helens anniversary of eruption. They have ads for them and in a little line in the corner, a notice that subscribers can call this number by a certain date to opt out or expect to pay two dollars for the insert. I found that interesting. Today’s paper said I had to call by yesterday to opt out. I am not interested in opting out.

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  35. And now I just watched a video so I can go out to trim my potted Mexican sage.

    If you need a smile, watch for the appearance of her cat mid-way through:

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  37. DJ, that cat is cute. She does transform that plant! I kept thinking that is what I would enjoy doing, but my knees would not tolerate it. They are all stiff now from mowing. I use to take aspirin as a preemptive measure before moving, but I have stopped doing that in case I get Covid (aspirin makes it worse). So now I know how much relief I do get from aspirin.

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  38. Michelle, knowing how difficult it is to find seasonal workers (tax business for example), I would suggest that they research seasonal work and see what appeals and learn appropriate skills. That way they will have markets in which to find work while they look for other work. The plant nursery industry is seasonal. There is work selling and if they know plants more than the next person they may have an edge. There is seasonal work around Christmas. All these type jobs are mostly to supplement, but are better than nothing. When I was young, in high school, I did seasonal work at IRS since the big service center was about two miles from my home. Also, having excellent skills using business machines might land a temp position that leads to a real job.

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  39. Janice, have you verified the idea that aspirin makes Covid worse? It seems to me that avoiding taking medicine for a symptom you do have, in case you ever get something else, might be suffering needlessly.

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  40. Cheryl, you live in a great area to fully utilize your camera and skills. We have parks in our area that would give more photo opportunities, but I would not want to go alone. We use to hike them a lot when Wesley was home. In those parks one can forget being in the city. It’s not just crime I am afraid of, but since I have some trouble with my knees, etc., I would not want to have a medical incident out by myself. I will probably find a lady friend or friends at church to hike with at some point. Thankfully I now have more options there. We actually have a wonderful trail right behind Art’s church, five minutes drive time. It is our county cross country practice area for the school system. I use to hike it and go from there to the track on the other side and do laps there. I would have to be in better shape to do that again. The lovely dogwood photos I took this year were from the parking lot at Art’s church which is at the edge of the cross country trails.

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  41. Thanks, Cheryl, for the thought on the aspirin. Early on they said it caused a much worse case of Covid if people took aspirin, but now it seems for most people it is okay. I will go take some now! Yes! It’s the little things, like my baby aspirins . . . joy♡

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  42. A couple years (3?) ago I bought one of those garden seat/kneelers through amazon. Then the house project launched and it remained unpacked in the shipping box in the garage all that time. Recently I got it out, unpacked it, and now will put it to good use.

    Finally reached my Missouri cousin — last few times I’ve tried calling him the call wouldn’t go through; he’d also tried calling me but on my work line which is disconnected now.

    Anyway, good to catch up, we talked for about an hour. Because he’s about 10 years older than I am, he has some first-hand memories of my parents (he said my mom was a “cute young thing”) and our early years that I don’t have.

    When I got into the car yesterday to cover an “real” in-person assignment, I noticed cob webs on the side-view mirrors. Yeah, not driving much anymore …

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  44. The last couple graphs of that particular article:

    ~ END OF THE CENTURY

    For good and for ill, the global church was shaped irreversibly by these events and others during the twentieth century. By the end of the century in the United States, evangelical denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterian Church in America continued to grow, but the mainline denominations were in a steep decline that continues today. The largest segment of American evangelicalism was represented by tens of thousands of small independent congregations, as well as by megachurches (Protestant churches that have a regular weekly attendance of at least two thousand people). More evangelical congregations were “seeker-sensitive,” focusing their ministry on reaching the unchurched through preaching on hot topics and utilizing contemporary music and mass media. Globally, Pentecostalism continued its advance in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and evangelical churches on those continents even began sending missionaries to post-Christian Europe and America.

    But Pentecostalism was not the only evangelical tradition experiencing growth. Calvinist theology spread its influence in late-twentieth-century American Christianity through the establishment of more Presbyterian and Reformed congregations, the resurgence of Calvinism among Southern Baptists, the founding and expansion of Reformed Theological Seminary, and the teaching ministries of James Montgomery Boice, J.I. Packer, R.C. Sproul, and other evangelical Reformed thinkers. ~

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  48. Hi, Chas.

    So, how many people went back to church this morning for the first time in two months?

    Our church is meeting, with stipulations. The pastor estimated the number in attendance and it was about a third the usual. Half the alphabet is to meet in the morning, the other half in the evening, with the vulnerable encouraged to stay home and livestream continuing. They even had the words of the psalms on the wall rather than using the psalter; every encouragement to avoid having people touch uncleanable surfaces such as psalters, apparently. And the feed wasn’t very good this morning, with numerous times the pastor’s words muted to barely audible, and other times a lag. Once we were (on video) on the last verse of the psalm, with the music leader having cut out but my husband and I singing the last verse anyway, when the pastor ended up on the screen talking–so they’d made up some “lag” time and we were out of sync. But it’s a blessing to have as much as we have!

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  49. No reopening for us yet. The provinc is starting reopening, but not to the point of allowing large gatherings yet.

    I enjoyed the livestream from the city church. The worship and arts pastor preached from John 21, on the restoration of Peter. Since I am still a member of the city church, it is nice to be able to attend remotely. I had been attending my childhood church before this, as I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the atmosphere at the tiny church, but attending a childhood church after two and a half decades means that only the older people know you, and they all only see you as your parents’ child. I was still feeling like I didn’t quite fit anywhere. But the city church I attended completely on my own – I did actually have connections there, but those connections were distant and were not known until I had established myself as an independent person, and they only added to my growing circle of friends I made for myself. So, it is the only church which really sees me as an individual, and not just as an extension of my family.

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  50. Roscuro, when I was in college, my freshman year the church that ended up being my church for 14 years sent a 72-passenger bus to pick up students, and most weeks all or most of the seats were full. (That was noteworthy to me because the 72nd seat to be filled was generally the seat beside me. 😦 One young woman sometimes voluntarily joined me, but even though I looked up at people entering the bus, trying to establish that I was friendly and it was OK to sit by me, most wouldn’t unless there were no other options.) After my freshman year, it settled into a group of 10 or 12 of us who continued to attend. But I was pretty much simply “one of the students.” The fact is, I chose Chicago residency–I was usually the only student who stayed over breaks, and I got involved in the church early on. In four years of college, I returned to Phoenix only twice, for one week each time. My “college” church offered what they called “college student membership” (you could be more or less a member, but you couldn’t vote because you were assumed to be a member of your “home church”), but I said no, I wanted full membership.

    But I was socially backward, and I was one of many, and so I was just one of the college students. One memorable day I realized I had no transportation back to college because all the other students had been invited to lunch at our pastor’s house, but I hadn’t. Finding out what happened, our pastor warmly invited me to come, too, and I did–but it still stung a little. And it also meant that with hours to “kill” before the evening service, I was stuck without plans for the afternoon and no good way to get back to campus to pick up a book or something to fill the time between the lunch and the evening service. (The other students left at that point were all volunteers for the youth group. I’ve never really liked the idea of college-student-run youth groups, nor did I have time in my schedule to volunteer in such a way, so in effect all the other students from my campus who went to my church bonded in a shared activity and I wasn’t in it.) By God’s providence, an elderly couple in the church shared my last name, and they unofficially adopted me and often had me over for meals.

    Most of us stayed in Chicago, and in the church, for several years after graduation–ten in my case, making me one of the last ones to leave–and two even became pastors at the church. Eventually I did become known for myself and not just as a student, but there were a few years there that I was just part of a group, and far from home, and it would have been nice to be welcomed as myself. (My current church has several college students . . . and members know their names. A blessing!)

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  51. A survey was taken during our online church time asking when people would feel comfortable returning to the physical church setting. We could answer June, July, or the fall. I did not answer because I really don’t know. It sounds like they are going to have cushions arranged on the pews at six feet apart. They are trying to decide whether two services are necessary to start up (with an overflow area if needed) or if one service is what they need to start with.

    The graduates were recognized today which included Wesley. A special prayer was said over them. We have 7 but only 6 got included. I think the parents had not mentioned their child’s graduation to the pastor. That was a very nice part of the service. The pastor spoke on a Bible verse that was a turning point for him, “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but He lives in me . . .” I love that verse so it was a particularly meaningful service for me today.

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  52. Cheryl, people at the city church were accustomed to students coming, although they are in the downtown, quite far from the main campus of either college or university, but they befriended and got me involved from the beginning. Within a few weeks of my first attending ten years ago, I had joined the choir at the invitation of a woman who was in the pew in front of me and heard me singing, was involved in providing instrumental music, volunteered with an outreach ministry (which is how I ended up teaching coin to a Pakistani immigrant) and began doing Scripture readings at the personal request of the pastor. I have observed that they similarly involve all the students who come there, and there are quite a few, as the community not only has the community college and public university, but also a Baptist Bible college, a Reformed university, and a non-denominational seminary on the campus of the public university, which first began as a Baptist seminary. Professors from all three attend the church and the seminary and Bible school students often complete internships there.

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  54. Our session met Wednesday night to consider a motion by our pastor for reopening on May 24 (with all of the precautions similar to those mentioned by Cheryl). The motion failed 5-4. So our pastor, who said he was very content with that outcome as this is the order of the church and how decisions are made. He has now written a longer “position paper” arguing his point.

    His sermon also centered on the issues at hand; the decision essentially came down to weighing scripture that could be applied (Rom 13:1-2; Hebrews 13:17 — the call to follow God-ordained leaders and not forsaking the assembly of the saints) and whether one — in this particular situation — outweighed the other.

    All of the questions (practically) in the Q&A afterward centered on the issue, with many apparently not in agreement with not opening.

    A few things stood out to me in our pastor’s message: this is not a case of persecution against the church, we are not in China. There seems to be an over-zealousness on both sides that is cause for concern. Those speaking for the church are of concern and have shown (in our pastor’s mind) a lack of being thoughtful, measured and and careful in their remarks.

    “It’s the zealots on either side that concern me.”

    “These are not easy, iron-clad decisions, not everything is black and white.”

    So we will see. I’m fine with the elders’ call, personally; our county is still showing high numbers both in cases and deaths; when those figures start to actually go in the other direction, I think folks like me will feel much more comfortable about the return to in-person services.

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  55. I see such an important lesson in recognizing it is not the building that makes the church. My church (God’s people in this community), has been more active during this time than before. It has shown more ways we can be disciples. It has been a very blessed and sweet time of discovery of new ways to reach out. I hope others can be quick to understand the positives rather than to focus on the negatives. Are people asking what does God want us to learn and take forward from this not only in how to be safer from germs in the church building, but how should we be changing what we were doing to make us even better disciples for God’s purposes?

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  56. There is certainly a realization of opportunity; our pastor said live streaming the services (which we continue to do, virus or no virus) has resulted in people reaching out to him from other states and even other countries.

    But gathering (in person) for worship on the Lord’s Day as a body is central to the faith, so in that sense it’s been a significant loss to not have that personal connection for so long now. Nevertheless, there are unforeseen circumstances, as we’ve seen, that can and will disrupt that for a season.

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  58. 57 reserved for me? And it’s been ~20 minutes since 56.

    We had a rude awakening with a heavy rainstorm and a lot of water coming in again. We called the emergency clean up crew. So our living room has several fans and a huge dehumidifier going.

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  60. And foreseen circumstances. A missionary going to an unreached people will be deprived of fellowship for long periods of time. Then there are those who are shut in, like my mother, unable to go to church due to physical limitations. The tiny church, all those months she has been unable to attend, before all this happened, never had her receive any kind of ministry visit. I was the only one who provided anything of that kind, by listening to a sermon series with when I came home from church on the weeks I was not working. Now she can watch sermons online with the rest of us. There are many different reasons why Christians may not be able to meet with other believers regularly, and they are often forgotten by those who can attend regularly.

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  62. We watched the sermon on YouTube this morning. Our pastor finished up our study in John. This afternoon our small group leader posed the question to us whether we felt it to be a good thing to meet in person once again as we had done last week. We have the 90yr old couple in our group along with a younger(40’s) fellow who has just finished up chemo for cancer. Then there is the Dad of our leader’s wife who does not attend our group yet is cared for by her. I believe the sentiment was in order to show love and respect for our neighbor we should continue to zoom and not meet in person. As to when we will meet again as a church body…that is no where close to being decided.

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  63. For about three days now, my husband has told me a time or two during the day that we have a “window” if I want to go out for a walk, because rain is going to start soon, and so far all we’ve managed is a few drops.

    Well, this afternoon I went out for less than 90 minutes, and I’ll tell you, anyone who loved nature and went with me would have felt like we live in something equivalent to a rain forest. First off, I’m trying to photograph as many insect species and as many wildflower species as I can, and that might bore some people. But some new wildflowers have just started to bloom, including the very pretty and delicate blue-eyed grass. I also found three of the most fascinating insects we have locally (all of them species I rarely see): a native ladybug, a weevil (a bug with a long nose), and a scorpionfly. I also got a couple of really good photos of a metallic green bee I love. Oh, and in photographing the “spit” of the spittlebug, I happened to find one that had just molted into its new adult skin, with its juvenile skin sitting beside it. And I found an eastern tailed blue butterfly laying eggs on clover.

    Michelle wouldn’t have liked it, and I didn’t get any photos, but six or seven deer crossed the trail at one point, and a chipmunk was playing hide and seek with me (no photos of him, either).

    The birds would have been of interest to many of you. I caught a blue jay in flight (which I’ve been trying for years, with limited success). And of course the cardinal was flying around everywhere, but I see him so often I don’t always even bother to take photos–which seems pretty amazing to me, but it’s true. A pileated woodpecker was on the ground making lots of noise, so I looked and saw him through the trees. A red-winged blackbird posed on a stump and sang, with nice green trees behind him for a good photo. I also photographed a goldfinch and an eastern kingbird. A female oriole flew to a fence where some rope was hanging and tried to claim strands of it for her nest. Knowing where a chickadee nest is, I went close to it and saw (and photographed) four feedings, and saw the babies’ heads for the first time. On the way home, a bluebird fledgling was in the grass, and it demanded food when its father flew down to it, but its father was more concerned that it get up off the grass and into safety in a tree (which it did)–but I got photos of two species of baby birds with open beaks begging for food in the same day! Also, the green heron is now coming to a secluded spot close to the front of the pond, and hidden from the road by a few stalks of last year’s grass. One has to do some work to photograph the heron between those stalks of grass without scaring the heron, but I’ve gotten good shots several times in the last week–and today I got the closest shots I’ve ever gotten of the species.

    I don’t know if I wrote about it here when it happened, but two days ago I was standing next to the pond when a muskrat came out of the pond and gathered plants for its supper from about five feet away from my feet, and then it swam back into the pond and ate them while I watched and took more photos. (I couldn’t get good photos of its gathering food at my feet, since I couldn’t see its head, but it was a thrilling moment anyway.) I’ve also seen a mother wood duck with her ducklings (four one day, three the next) a couple of times, and up to five or six softshell turtles sunning on the bank.

    All within a mile of my home.

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