A Journal to impart knowledge and facts |
July 22, 2015 I'm going to start today to record on a daily basis whatever happens to strike my fancy. So, it is a very cool breezy day. I just posted 5 short book reviews to The Monthly Reading Challenge. I'm suppose to put away some winter wood today from the woodpile outside but I'm playing hookey from work to write so starting this blog will get done. I'm having a daily fight with a flock of English Sparrows that are trying to take over my barn. They are making a terrible mess so they have to go. I have destroyed several nests so far they don't leave but they get out of the barn when I am around. I'm just starting the fight so I guess I don't know how far I have to go to discourage them. I'm trying not to spread myself to thin on WDC because I find so many things that are interesting here and I am trying to work on a new story. I really enjoy sitting at my desk with a cup of tea and reading blogs on WDC. |
Just an update because I am not getting on line very often this month and a lot happened in June. I lost my old horse. He went to stay with the riders in the sky. It was a surprise since he gained weight in the winter and was doing well in the first part of spring. One day, he went down in the paddock and just could not get back up. It was the end of his earthly journey. The month was better toward the end. Two of my granddaughters graduated from high school. Both received awards to continue their education. We had to drive to New York for one of the graduations and had a flat tire in a pouring down rain storm. We started out early enough so we just made the ceremony on time before it started. Of course, the weather continues to be somewhat erratic: warm and dry until about the middle of the month and now wet. The rain is good maybe the corn will be knee high by the 4th of July. I was babysitter for a grand dog. The family who owns an elderly dog left her with me, while they went on vacation. Our own dogs welcomed her into the family we all had a good time taking walks and playing retriever games. This pretty much brings me up to date on the month of June. I'm reading and posting lots of books on Goodreads for 2018. It's giving me the urge to write something worthwhile. WRITE ON! |
A red squirrel scurrying up a tree runs out onto the tiny tip of a limb where it pauses for an instant. The pause is long enough to notice how the tiny limb seems too small to hold the red squirrel's weight, as the small branch shudders back and forth in the light breeze. Then, the instantaneous pause is over. The red squirrel launches itself into the air. Where it picked up the momentum to do this I can't figure out. A pointed landing in a different tree is accomplished. An unbelievable expression of acrobatics by a miniature performer in a natural setting. Every day, there are personal mindfulness moments, when your mind pauses, to observe something other than the job at hand. We are taught to move forward, use every moment to accomplish something. These little observations are resting your mind from over work and teaching something at the same time. These are the steps our minds take watching nature work its everyday value into our lives. As you look across a large patch of newly mown lawn you notice how even and smooth it appears. Then, a trek across that same patch of grass shows you the dips and dives that actually exist in that grassy area. If you look down as you walk along you can see the way different types of grasses clump together. Different types of grasses have different sized green blades. Even some little blue flowers are blooming close to the the ground, within the mown evenness of the lawn. As a field of hay is growing tall, the wind sweeps across it blowing the stalks in a wave that looks a lot like an ocean wave sliding toward the shore. One day this week a busy road crew on a nearby highway closed the highway for 24 hours to fix a sluice pipe. So our quiet dirt road became a throughway for heavy traffic. The speed of each automobile hurrying to negotiate the detour, driving to what ever appointment, was astonishing and noisy. For the drivers it was probably a disturbing nuisance. For the residents of the dirt road it was interesting to watch different types of automobiles swish by like a city street had occurred suddenly out front of our residences. Each new observation in a days time is a new step as the day is progressing from morning to noon to evening to over. Stop and notice the little things. |