This morning when Katie-girl woke me at 4 a.m. to go outside I turned on the news to get the latest on hurricane Ida. I have a few friends in the path of the storm.
I watched a few minutes of roofs being torn off buildings and downed trees, utility poles snapped in half, blinding rain. My heart broke. Then the anchor turned to Afghanistan and the thirteen soldiers whose families are beginning their new normal and my heart broke again. And after that were images of the fires in the west. And then Corona virus hospitalization numbers.
After our storm last night.
I turned the television off.
Katie and I went back to bed. She fell asleep instantly, not burdened by worry. I lay there for awhile trying not to get sucked into despair.
But this morning, as I was fixing Katie’s breakfast (boiled chicken, white rice, Royal Canin kibble, green beans and pumpkin) I noted that the air felt fresher, the temperatures cooler than we’ve had in a very long time.
As she ate I went out to fill the birdfeeders.
Early morning of a fresh new day.
A little chickadee flitted around my head, waiting for his favorite feeder to be rehung. A hummingbird checked us both out, reminding me I needed to put fresh sugar water out too.
There was cool morning dew on the roses.
Ripe tomatoes were ready to be picked in the garden.
The sun was coming up and a kingfisher clattered through a beam of light, headed for the pond.
Yes, there are terrible, terrible things going on here at home and across the world. Yes today is a sad day, yesterday was a sad day, all of last week was terrible for so many people. Tomorrow might not be better.
But I am so lucky that when I take the time to look there is usually something good to find, even in the midst of just too much.
Katie here. HEY! Did you know it’s NATIONAL DOG DAY? It’s been on the news and everything!
Hey! It’s another opportunity to celebrate ME!
Honestly, here at my house every day is National Dog Day, but don’t tell anyone how spoiled I am. Oh. You’re fully aware of that? ALL of you are fully aware? Hmmmm….I think mama discloses too much information. A review of the nondisclosure clause in her contract with me might be in order.
But I digress.
This is my garden. Mama should make a boquet to decorate the house in celebration, don’t you think?
So as soon as I woke mama up this morning I told her we needed to do something special to celebrate. But so far, nothing.
OK, maybe she wasn’t in the planning mode at 3:30 in the morning when we went outside to explore the yard, umm, pee. But surely when she was making my breakfast #1 she should have been thinking about what we could do that was fun.
Or when she made my breakfast #2 a couple hours later.
I’m waiting, mother.
But no. Mama says she’s going to book us for a camping trip but I haven’t heard anything about where or when yet. She keeps saying it’s too hot for shelties to camp.
One of my favorite things to do is sleep in my tent.
She might have a point about that. I’m thinking early November would be the perfect time to sleep out in a tent. Don’t you agree?
I thought so. Mama is a wuss. She even bought an electric blanket to use when we camp later in the season. I think she should book that November campsite right away! Oh- you say the campgrounds up here aren’t open in November? Well, that’s just silly.
I’m sure if mama was motivated to make me happy she’d find somewhere to camp. I’ll add it to her ‘to-do’ list.
You weren’t doing anything anyway, right mama?
Anyway, if all you doggies out there haven’t gotten anything for National Dog Day yet either, we should band up and form a doggie union. Sometimes the only way to make change is to make some noise.
And you all know Sheltie’s can make some noise!
I usually get what I want when I really put my all into asking.
I hope you all have a wonderful National Dog Day! Even if you’re not lucky enough to be a dog.
I got a couple of tips (thanks DailyMusing!) about how to maneuver through WordPress’ blockhead editing system, particularly with images.
So here goes….I should be able to delete a photo. Guess I should insert a photo first:
Then I’ll see if I can remove it….one moment please…
OH!!!!! That worked!
But wait….now there’s nothing there, and you can’t see the image…because…I REMOVED IT! 🙂 🙂 🙂
So here it is again…
It’s just a barn taken on my trip home from the night sky camping trip I took a week or more ago. In fact I have a few other barn images from that drive home. It was prime farm country, after all.
She gave me a tip on how to do a gallery too, let’s see if I can do that:
More barns!
Well, THAT was interesting! I don’t know if there’s a way to decide what goes where, but at least it’s a gallery!
The trick now will be for me to remember what I did.
Always something.
Edit: I just figured out you can click on any of the pictures in the gallery and see them bigger. They’re really better bigger.
Katie and I are sitting on the deck. I’m indulging her, letting her nap in a puddle of sun before the day gets so hot neither of us can sit out here.
I think the sun makes her old joints feel better.
I’ve filled the bird feeders and now listen intently as the sound of wings begins to overshadow the sound of a far away lawn mower.
The birds are used to us sitting out here, and they take the calculated risk of coming in for a bit of seed, even though it’s only a few feet from the dog and me.
My two nuthatches are the first to arrive. I hear their soft whining before I find them high up in the trees. Each ventures, headfirst, down a trunk, scurrying in a race to reach the seed first.
Under the deck a chipmunk causes a ruckus running into the roof gutter drain. I guess he’s not as brave as the little birds.
The chickadees have shown up, a whole flock of them this year. As youngsters they were shy, but now they’re old hands at stealing a seed and whirring up into the tree to eat it. There are so many I can’t keep track.
A cardinal has risked landing on the flat feeder, several feet away. If we sit still he will sit there and eat until something bothers him. He has the flat feeder all to himself for the moment, just the way he likes it.
The titmouse is late this morning. Usually she’s the first to come in when they hear the seed can being opened. She flies so fast, through the limbs of the honeysuckle to grab her share.
And there’s a little downy woodpecker, hanging upside down on the tube feeder. I haven’t seen him in awhile, it’s nice to see him here this morning.
Katie gets anxious, wanting a treat for herself, but I can’t leave yet — the hairy woodpecker has arrived. And now the hummingbirds, the male and female ruby throated, are chasing each other among the pink leaves of the beach tree.
But she’s barking now. A princess isn’t required to be patient.
So we go in and let the birds have their breakfast buffet in peace.
As most of you know, Trent hosts a weekly blog that gathers posts from all sorts of people who are talking about smiling. These days we can all use a smile or two or ten.
Flowers always make me smile.
I don’t always get a smiley post done every week, but I sure appreciate the work he does to remind us all to look for smiles even when we don’t feel like it.
There’s been lots of bad news lately, but I’ve still had plenty to smile about. For example, a neighbor stopped by with his new puppy and we did a little photo shoot, mostly with his camera.
Meet Oliver, the neighbor’s new puppy!
I got this image of little Oliver on my camera. He’s only about 3 months old, but he’s as big as Katie and strong like a bull. In this shot he reminds me a bit of Winston Churchill. I think it’s the stick he’s chewing like a cigar, and his eyes.
But mostly, this week, it’s Katie-girl that makes me smile.
Mama! There’s yogurt on my nose, you can’t post this!
We made it out to her park one evening, though most days it’s just too hot. Even that day she sat under the picnic table and we didn’t even attempt to walk around the pond.
It’s hot out here, mama!
Tonight we went out back and smelled the roses, just one more thing to smile about.
If this doesn’t make you all smile, I don’t know what will!
I hope you all had plenty of things to smile about this week, and that next week is even better for us all!
These smell good mama! I hope everyone out there can smell them too!
This post is going to try to figure out how to insert other types of pictures. The old WordPress let you do collages, and small images, and place them to the left or right. The new blockhead WordPress, so far, hasn’t let me do any of that.
So here goes.
Nope that didn’t work….but I can make headings….
And I can add a picture and words in the same block…
And I found a sort of collage, see above on the right. I don’t know why it ended up there…or why it’s all crunched together when I preview it, it’s not that way in the edit mode…but that’s the way of WordPress’s blockhead new program. I wonder if I can find other things.
And you know what else? I can’t figure out how to eliinate an image I insert. Once something is there I can replace it with something else…but not eliminate it totally. Well. That’s odd. And annoying.
Forest.
Even a child knows how valuable the forest is. The fresh, breathtaking smell of trees. Echoing birds flying above that dense magnitude. A stable climate, a sustainable diverse life and a source of culture. Yet, forests and other ecosystems hang in the balance, threatened to become croplands, pasture, and plantations.
I can add an image inside an image, but I didn’t choose the forest, it got chosen for me.
I don’t know….all I’ve figured out is that there’s a lot more to find if I take the time. But not everything works the way I think it should.
I guess I need to keep digging.
The randomness is intentional, because that’s the way I feel about the “new” WordPress.
Change Is Hard 