“Take time to stop and smell the roses,” to me means to pay attention to and enjoy the little, everyday things of life. So here are a few of those that have happened in the past weeks, for you to enjoy, and for our family to remember.
One day in April, Ted brought a dead bird in for me to see. It was an indigo bunting, not yet in its brilliant breeding plumage. Even so, it was a lovely sight — the blue so iridescent. I see live ones often now, for they seem to like the crumbling bits of our avenue! I frequently frighten a male when I’m driving in or out. Even far away, their blue plumage is unmistakable. I wonder if this is the way we look to God — all blotchy with only a faint resemblance to the brilliant covering of Holiness He has in mind for us. It’s a sobering thought.
While we’re on the subject of birds, here’s one that’s very much alive and will soon be having more! This wren took a fancy to the box of fatwood sticks on our front porch that Ted uses when he fires up the grill. No firing up of the grill had occurred yet this year, so the wren thought she would be quite secret and undisturbed. I discovered the nest, sans mom, when I was cleaning up and blowing off the front porch in preparation for guests. Since then, we’ve tried not to disturb her/them, but are hoping to see the youngsters when they hatch.
This next one’s a strange rose, indeed. It was in a container of mushrooms. A regular old container of mushrooms from Kroger. But it was anything but regular. Not very interesting, perhaps, but Ted suggested I take a picture of it, so here it is….
And finally, for the record, let me say that it is cicada summer around here just now. I hear that this is a 17-year batch, last around in 1991 to disturb the Derby celebrations. With our cool spring, they missed the Derby this year, but are out in force by the end of May. When I sit outside to eat my lunch, the sound comes in waves like the sea, only with a very sharp, crisp edge to it. It is a much more brittle sound than that of waves, but every bit as pervasive. Though we are not inundated in our yard, there are quite a few. Last Friday, Ted and I went to a graduation party in Frankfort. It was a mostly outside party. The cicadas were there, too, no doubt without invitations. There was one particular maple tree where cicada molted shells (and dead cicadas), covered the ground in a foot-wide ring all around the trunk. If you sat anywhere near that tree, you soon had a cicada or two crawling up your leg! Do you girls remember the trip back from North Carolina many years ago (but surely not 17), when I kept hearing a strange sound over the air conditioning and through the closed windows? When I stopped after getting off the Graefenburg exit, ready to turn left on Rt. 60 for home, I rolled down a window and turned off the a.c. The sound was the cicadas! We had seen them all over in Asheville, when at a park with the Sullivans. They are that loud or even more so this year. Everybody around here, however, doesn’t think they are a nuisance. The chickens are in heaven!! Any cicada that gets within reach is immediately gobbled up.