Ode to a Winter Morning

Parker and I wander down the steep driveway

on a quiet, still, cold morn.

A house wren announces our arrival;

Titmice twitter among the dogwoods.

The sun's rays filter through bare trees

creating a shadow forest in the pasture.

Parker sniffs the usual spots with

the waxing gibbous moon hanging

serenely in the clear blue sky.

I stop and marvel at the peacefulness!

     No cars.

     No lawn mowers.

     No leaf blowers.

     No barking dogs.

We head back up the hill.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alice Ball, American Chemist

 Alice Ball, 1892-1916, was an African American chemist who helped solve the problem of preparing an oil for injection into a human. A little background first. Kalaupapa, a small area on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, had become a holding area for people with leprosy. If you are familiar with biblical references, leprosy was an issue then. It ravages the skin, attacks mucus membranes, and attacks peripheral nerves of the brain and spinal cord. It is contagious, which is why people were isolated. For hundreds of years, the only medication was an oil from the chaulmoogra tree. Because it's an oil, it doesn't mix with water, so injecting it was useless. It also tasted terrible, nauseating. Apparently, rubbing it on skin didn't do much good. Dr. Harry T. Hollmann worked with leprosy patients, and knew he needed a chemist to help find a way to make the oil into a usable form. Alice Ball, who grew up in Hawaii as a child, returned there to be the first woman and first African Am...
Read more

White Ibis

Image
Today, Dan and I visited Clam Bayou Nature Preserve in St. Petersburg, FL. We walked along the many trails in the park, built specifically to help preserve waterways and protect the natural water filtering of mangroves and grasses. We saw quite a few birds such as egrets, osprey, ducks, and cormorants; but the white ibis ( Eudocimus albus) was fun to watch. This group was eating something (grass?) along the edge of a waterway.  I enjoyed seeing their curved, orange beaks, pink backward bending legs, and the way they eyed us as we walked by.   
Read more

Bird of the Day

Image
 Sea gulls are ubiquitous to beaches. Today, at St. Pete Beach, there were so many gulls with many different markings. I am not an expert in bird identification. This picture was quite a grouping from this morning.  Even though the picture isn't great, you can still see variations, not only in different species, but within the species. In additions, there were so many calls and behaviors, and I enjoyed watching the antics of pairs and small groups. There were many instances of scary "The Birds" movie scenes, especially when people had food on the beach! The young man next to us left a food box on his lounge when he went for a walk, and it wasn't long before a gull found it and started poking at it! Luckily, it was empty and someone threw it away.  When I get home, I'll pull out the bird ID book and get to work!
Read more