The Bird Bath

It’s spring in Florida. Temps are mild. Sun-dappled, bright green leaves on trees and shrubbery rustle a few yards from me.

I’m on our lanai, where I love to study or write on cool days. I can easily pretend we live on some expansive nature preserve instead of just a few miles from Disney World. Insulated by green and nature sounds, it’s just me and the critters back here.

There is a problem though. I get distracted. Take today. As I wrote notes and stuffed and stamped letters, birds arrived in a seeming parade at our newly installed bird bath. Apparently, birds love bathing. The birds visiting the new bird bath in our back yard act just like cartoon birds, bouncing and fluffing and flipping water droplets high and wide. They are lovely and funny and free.

From my perch on our lanai (yes, where I fractured my wrist–see previous post), I’m just 20 feet from our bird station, a fancy name for an unpainted vertical rail tie with a plastic tray nailed to the top. Every couple weeks, I put a sprinkling of nyjer seed into the tray and seems to last forever. (Tip: nyjer seed seems expensive but the squirrels don’t eat it, so a sprinkling lasts many weeks).

I did not intend to get a bird bath. A few weeks ago, two friends and I browsed a small old Orlando nursery (Palmer’s). That’s where I spotted this bird bath seemingly designed for our backyard. Not too big, that’s it in the picture above, with the mushroom design on the base and a pair of brown thrashers taking turns bathing. Actually, the male is doing the splashing, his mate (I assume) waiting her turn. I wonder, is she patient or murmuring through her beak? Might she be using her bird brain (couldn’t resist) to send him messages like, maybe, could you please hurry. When will it be my turn? Silly stuff like that.

In just a few minutes, I’ve seen a blue jay pair, blackbirds, and painted buntings (male: bright tangerine throat/chest, royal blue cap, green belly; female, yellow-green all over), all at this free public bath. Word gets around. As if at a Bus Stop, palm warblers sit on tree branches, waiting their turn. Earlier today, as I ate my lunch, I watched a male red-bellied woodpecker catch a lizard, carry it to a fork in the jacaranda tree and proceed to bash and shred it, munching as he went along. It sounds ghastly and it was, a little. I felt like I was watching one of those nature shows on TV, only live.

It’s a privilege to get to see what I see here. It’s also a blessed relief. My work week often includes sitting with grieving clients or persons who’ve made choices with significant, destructive, outcomes. I find nature a nice break from real life.

Sit still. Look around. Let me know what you see.

Sonic Booms, Wrist Sprains and the Dark of Night

I last wrote last from our lanai (Floridian for screened porch) on November 26th. What a treat, to ponder books and mess with words while sitting facing into the deep greenbelt behind our house. The sun went down and my zone became marvelously cool, quiet. When I finally posted the book piece, it was quite dark.

That’s when I got up, computer in my hands, and launched myself up the step from the lanai into our living room. More accurately, that’s what I intended.

What actually occurred translated to my mate, inside the house, as very like a “sonic boom or bomb.” His report: the house shook as I crashed into the tall double-paned slider that was NOT open.

The door did not break. (Thank you, Lord.) My computer crashed to the floor. As did I, eventually landing on my rear, right wrist aching terribly. I experienced those stars usually drawn over the heads of cartoon crashes along with a distinct nausea. Bob found me, held me from behind while I tried to take stock of my circumstances.  Apparently, my right hand had been flexed up when I hit that glass wall.

We eventually got me into the house where I elevated that arm and used the other to google wrist sprains. There was fierce pain and swelling but I reasoned a trip to the ER on a Saturday night would have result in me sitting many hours, in pain, triaged to wait at the end of the line behind others with far worse injuries.

The pain remained fierce but ice, elevating and lots of ibuprofen seemed to be working. We went to church the next morning, me with a light brace Bob found at Walgreens.

Time for Disclaimer: Bob wanted to go to the ER from the beginning. I’m a tad willful, which I chalk up to the genes of my mother, a hardy woman from northern Maine, and well, it was my arm that was hurting.

After a week, the swelling was down by 90% and the pain less sharp. However, after two weeks those things remain about the same. Since I want full use of my right hand again, hopefully soon, I saw my doctor today.

She sent me for X-rays and though we won’t get an official reading until Monday morning, it appears I have a compression fracture at the head of the radius, near where that long bone curves up to seat the hand bones on the inside of my arm. No wonder I’m still hurting.

I’ve been able to type all along. It’s pronating the wrist that hurts like___     (insert dire word of your choose).

Monday, I’ll see the doctor I’ve been avoiding for two weeks. My hope is that he’ll be satisfied to simply immobilize the wrist, leaving me my working fingers.

The Moral of this Story: Either turn on the light or look up when stepping through a doorway. Reducing speed might also be a good idea.

Books Worth Chasing Down

News Flash: I’m not very organized or regimented. Apart from tooth-brushing and book notating, there’s little I do the same way twice.

I’m a rabid reader of all sorts of books on various topics from war to nature exploration to living with a psychotic mother, surviving all sorts of loss and more. Don’t believe me? I have proof. I’ve kept careful records of books read, including titles, authors, and publication dates, since June of 1990.

Sounds crazy, but the 2 small notebooks I’ve filled are ones I revisit when I want make a book recommendation or reference. I can actually find the title instead of making some woozy outline of a story or biography I recall poorly.

My earliest entries in my two small record books of books read are simply titles and authors. Beginning in 1992, entries include a brief story synopsis and that’s how I’ve continued.

So, here are some of All-Time Favorite Reads, beginning with the one I very reluctantly finished today. Novels are notated as fiction. Everything else is non.

• The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (Fiction: Japanese workers in CA, 1900)
• What Women Tell Me by Anita Lustrea (reflections of a Christian talk show host)
• Into the Tunnel: the brief life of Marion Samuel (Jewish child survivor of WWII camps, sponsored to U.S. by Ft. Wayne, IN, theater owner)
• Letters from the Land of Cancer by Walter Wangerin, Jr. (Lutheran pastor/winner of National Book Award, refutes the “battle” in favor of “living with”)
• Gardens of Water by Alan Drew (Fiction: encounter of American Christian aid workers and Turkish Muslim refugees)
• Evidence by Mary Oliver (poetry re: nature)
• Lights on a Ground of Darkness by Ted Kooser (poet, nature reporter–his writings inspire me to look more carefully

If you actually read any of these or want to share your own favorites list, I’d love to hear from you.

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Auer Family Focus

Awhile back, my man and I determined we just had to see more of our sons’ families. Specifically, with six grandchildren clumped near one another in the Southwest, we wanted to try temporarily living in their zone. We envisioned tele-commuting during the day and hosting members of these two families evenings and weekends in our own place nearer theirs.

Particularly, the vision of grandkids at our dinner table was like dangling a huge lollipop 3 inches from the face of a toddler or placing a boiled lobster on my plate! Our hands were not tied. We could make this dream happen for us and for 6 of our 8 grandchildren by moving ourselves for a few weeks.

We wanted a more leisurely, less pressured kind of being together than Christmas holiday or a week-long July stop-over. So we dreamed and schemed a plan to pitch to our bosses. Since we’ve worked in our departments far longer than most co-workers and since most of them are far younger than 60 (we’ve passed that number), we pitched our idea.  We asked to try tele-commuting for a month, this month.

Since most of our clients are overseas, we primarily serve them by phone or email. The others we serve are at headquarters and much of what we do for them also happens electronically. Hence, we have now passed the two-week mark  of daily tele-commuting, evening and weekend grand-parenting.

It’s early Sunday morning and, upstairs, 3 girls sleep twisted around one another, across a queen bed, sideways. One son’s (and his wife’s, of course) progeny, these three are the cat’s meow to their grampy and grammy. To have them under our (rented) roof is a wish come true, a blessing of the first order. Add meals prepared by us, eaten at our table, 30 miles from their parents (a mile would work fine) and you have the makings of grandparent fantasy land. At home, we live near Disney World where families come to spend time together. For us, this version beats, easily, both price and delights of a week at Mickey’s land.

Two nights ago, another son’s progeny: another three fantastic grands slept here. At breakfast, we celebrated a 14th birthday with our older grand. Ah, yes, this is a grand (there’s that word again) experiment. It’s also a cooperative effort. If we lived here, we might not schedule such frequent visits or drive as  often to fetch and return kids. But we’re here a month, so we do and it’s all good.

This smaller space is actually perfect for what we’re doing. Bedrooms (less) and baths (more) are sufficient and living space is ideal. Still, my guy and I are sharing it just about every minute of each day: work week and weekends. Morning and night. We coordinate  car and space schedules often.

Is this how it is for retirees? It’s good we like one another. Still, one’s an extravert and the other, an introvert and there’s a lot of togetherness in this arrangement.

Waking to piles of small shoes and swimsuits near the door, heaps of games and toys on the big work table is all frosting on a cake we are serving up to ourselves and these 6 grandkids and their parents. We’re celebrating 4 birthdays, an anniversary and Halloween in 30 days.

We’ve another good son, daughter-in-law and two young’uns in another city. How to make this happen in their zone is a puzzle we’re working on.  Ah, bliss and blessing.

 

Born to stay put or keep moving?

It’s confusing. I love being right here at home, surrounded by family photos, good art, books, desks, coffee makers and unmatched mugs. But I seem to be on the go, far and often, and there are parts of that I like a lot, also.

I grew up in rural Indiana, the first daughter of a Hoosier and a northern Maine-iac (my quirky Maine relatives–you know who you are–seem to wear this colloquial title proudly, as do I by association). Our family’s summer car trips to visit my mother’s people way up north were the best part of nearly every growing-up year for me.

When my Indiana father married my Maine Girl mother they set up house as Indiana Hoosiers. In return, he promised to get her to Maine annually. The oldest of 3 girls, I have mostly happy memories of those 28-hour, straight through, car trips.

I especially loved when it was my turn to sit between my parents in the middle of the broad front bench seat. I’d flick open my freshly purchased Top Hits tune-zine and sing along with Chuck Berry (Rock and Roll Music, 1957) or The Clovers (Love Potion, 1959) crooning on the radio as we rolled up the miles. In those days, travel seemed high adventure.

These days, I would gladly trade some travel and adventure for more being at home. My distract-ability factor is high. We travel for work a LOT, sometimes stateside, sometimes not. Whichever, by the time I’ve unpacked our bags and processed the laundry and mail, I feel like I’ve just begun to re-engage with my “normal life (home, church, and office) when we find ourselves repacking and flying/driving off to some next destination.

My parents were both from the country. I was brought up in the Indiana countryside which always seemed wonderful to me. I couldn’t imagine myself in a town. I love space, tall trees, sky and quiet. The two homes I recall growing up in were each perched along rural roads a few miles from the same small town.

There were always books and newspapers in those homes. My mother and dad talked about local news and watched the evening national news on the TV. We stayed abreast of some of what was happening in the rest of the world, especially big things like the Vietnam War which claimed the lives or long-term psychic health of many of my husband’s and my school mates.

Decades later, I’m a country girl who left home and now gets great lift from spotting Hairy Woodpeckers and Blackburnian Warblers in our backyard (both seen one day, a week ago, just beyond the window near my writing desk). I don’t mind being a part-time world-traveler who comes home to work and rest in a small central Florida subdivision surrounded by cattle ranches.

I love it all: our large library, friends who drink coffee with me all over the globe, and my writing desk facing onto a broad-topped jacaranda tree and the wild woods beyond.

Had I independently chosen a place to live and work, I doubt I would have wandered from rural Indiana. I might have been just as happy there. But, in spite of mild moans about suitcases and the lack of a more settled life, I feel quite blessed at living and working as we do.

I feel as if I’ve lived bits of several lives: the globe traveling one and the delving deep in one favored territory one, the mother and grandmother one and the professional counselor one. And, since my late teens, the married to an adventurous man one.

As my friends say, It’s All Good.

Florida gardening excitement

I tried to beat the heat last Saturday. My plan was to weed early and get back into air conditioning. I’d been ignoring our jungle. Since it’s buggy and sometimes beastie here, I donned my ice cream vendor outfit: white long sleeved t-shirt, loose white trousers, wellington (high-top black rubber) boots and a ball cap. My hands sheathed in disposable rubber gloves, I finished suiting up by pulling on heavy rubberized overgloves. FYI, I do not dress this way for the fun of it.

I’m avoiding ugly, uncomfortable, arm and leg scratches. Plus, I sometimes encounter creatures. We are, after all, in the sub-tropics here in this Central Florida subdivision. Our lot opens onto a broad 2-acre greenbelt, Florida-ese for “Leave it Natural, Honey!”

Across this swampy green barrier, tall trees host herons, ibises, storks and more. A broad lawn separates our home and the greenbelt/nature zone which gives the impression of a larger property. If you drive up to Auer Haus and enter by the front door, your first sight will be this broad green swath through tall sliding glass doors at the back of Auer Haus. It’s a calming view if untamed green soothes you.

It wasn’t so recently. After some general clipping and clean-up, I pulled a couple large dead leaves from the mouth of a grey-green bromeliad (plants often used as shopping mall and airport decor). There, in that deep natural cup was a coiled juvenile Cottonmouth snake! At least, that’s what I thought it was.

I quickly banged on the locked front door til Bob answered. I asked him for my camera. Then, dashed out to snapped our slithery intruder.

He (she?) appeared alert and comfortable, head resting on multiple coils. I got his picture, then went inside to phone a friend!

Since I’d seen a couple snakes, similar to this one, in the greenbelt, I was pretty sure this was a Cottonmouth. But, I didn’t know what to do about it.

So I called my professional Biologist friends. M&M work in the field and are far more knowledgeable and relaxed about these things than I am (though my mate said he was proud when I referred to our intruder as “a cute baby”).

My phone-a-friend Biologist said things like, “Biologists walk in snake-infested areas all the time when they’re doing field work. If these snakes were aggressive, we couldn’t do that.” Right. Then he said, “These (Cottonmouths) are polite snakes who just want to get away from you.”

Yes, he used the word polite.

I pictured snakes asking permission to bite or, at least, to live in my plants. I wondered how long that politeness might persist before they lunged. Did they mumble some snake version of please before striking? I hoped my friend meant snakes didn’t like humans, that they’d rather move away than toward.

M. advised me to get a nice long stick, to lift the snake from his home near mine and help him get on his way, elsewhere. Well, I’d rather not, I thought, but I’ll just check to see if he’s still out there. Then I’ll get my Man to find a stick and…well, you get it.

Lucky for me (and the Man), when I got off the phone, our serpent had slithered away.

I breathed a deep sigh and got back to weeding, realizing M. had, basically, talked me down with his comments about the snake’s politeness and my option to move him by wielding a stick in a helpful (not hurtful) way. Even his comments about field biologists facing this threat routinely, with hardly any ill effects, at all, ever, almost never, even those comments provided space and time for me to think.

That sounded like what I often do in my crisis counselor role. I bring calm experience to worried, frightened individuals. That experience helps me to honestly say calming things like “when I’ve been in this kind of situation before, this is what we did.” Or, “this circumstance might require bravery, even prayers, but you’ve already faced hard things. I think you’ll find a way forward in this situation, too.” Then we might pray and figure it out together like M. helped me calm down and think clearly.

I’m still glad I avoided the stick rescue and I was glad I’d suited up properly. It would have been more risky if my feet were in sandals, arms and hands uncovered. Preparation and tapping into “at hand” and “by phone” resources kept me (and him) safe. Thanks, M. 

Why old people look (feel) old

Over the past three weeks, I did the following:

• routine work at home and at the office (lots of email exchange with folks all over the globe, bill-paying, meal preparing, vacuuming–ok, not so much of this)
• had coffee with a friend, on a Friday morning late in May, at a little Italian bakery near my house
• 5 minutes later, while pumping gas into my car, received the phone call saying my father was in crisis in Indiana
• made/received many more calls including a brief, tender, one with my dad
• 2 1/2 hours after the first call, learned from Daddy’s nurse that he died peacefully after eating lunch and specially-requested ice cream
• flew to Indiana the next day, 5 nights in motel
• helped make decisions for/witnessed his burial (full military honors, Daddy was a WWII wounded vet)
• flew home, 6 nights
• wrote dozens of thank you notes
• dug into my dad’s post-death administrative affairs
• helped decorate the reception hall/attended the wedding of a dear friend’s daughter
• flew to Chicago for grandson’s 7th birthday celebrations, 5 nights
• flew home, two days ago.

Which adds up to 4 significant relocations and 3 contrasting life-marker ceremonies, the loss of a beloved parent and heaps of admin duties.

I’m also the eldest child, paternal grandmother for the birthday boy, and the wife of a guy who’s an amazing help-mate and who’s been coughing too much, but that’s another story.

As a person who thrives on focus and routine, I’m a little desperate for a dose of one or the other or, imagine, both.  Some days, I can barely recall what focus or routine means. Today, I’m going to try to get a little of one or the other or both.

All to say, I strongly suspect this life phase I’m living doesn’t just reveal natural wrinkles. I’m pretty sure it causes them. The bouncing around and losses of life just might be a partial explanation for why, in my early 60′s, I sometimes look or feel particularly weary, worn, even wrinkled..which, to some younger folk, probably translates as old.

Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I think I’ll go take a nap.

May Beauty Sleep be more than a phrase.

Life Changes

My father died this week. He lived 91 years. Until three days ago, my being past 60 didn’t feel important. I may feel different about this after tomorrow, when I will receive the flag used on my dad’s casket following a full military ceremony at the tiny rural cemetery where he will be interred.

My father was a regular guy. He worked hard, played tricks on his grown brothers and threw a mean horseshoe. Mostly, he worked…assembling small motors at a GE plant for 40 years while driving a morning bread route and, later, selling water softners at night. He and my mother took us faithfully to a tiny red brick country church most Sunday mornings.

Generally speaking, Daddy didn’t. He usually had little to say unless he had something to sell or, in the case of his daughters, something to correct. He wasn’t especially gentle except with young children, for whom he routinely showed his tenderest self. Most of his offspring know the dead baby bird lullaby he favored to sing cuddling tiny babies. We all shivered at the words but took comfort in knowing his primary listeners resonated to his tenor tune-carrying instead of the words. I sang the same lullabies to our babes, mumbling the phrases I didn’t like.

Though my parents eventually divorced, they had partnered for nearly three decades, produced three hard-working offspring and a solid middle-class lifestyle. This from a man whose father had chosen his secretary over his wife and ten children. My dad was one of the oldest and he certainly had a well-developed work ethic as proven by his decades of factory work concurrent with 1 or 2 other jobs most of his life.

I grew up on a country road which allowed me great liberty to move around without worry of being harmed or even threatened. My dad and mother never seemed fearful and I’m not either. Being alone outside, as I was this morning…trudging the rural roads near the motel I”m staying in during this funeral week…is pure pleasure. A bunny high-tailed it, literally, into high weeds as I passed. Bright green spring weeds stand tall and proud, crowned by white blossoms and some of those wondrous purple clover blooms of which I consumed the tender white petal roots as morning salad while I walked. Life continues and much of it is marvelous.

Even my father’s death seems reasonable. I will truly miss him. He was so much more loveable as an old man than as a young one. No longer testosterone poisoned, he was much nicer to be with. And there were things I could do for him that he needed and wanted. Pushing his wheelchair around the pond near his nursing unit was a favorite outing for both of us. Unless the weather was absolutely pelting or subzero, we made that trek once or twice daily during my visits.

I will miss him. I miss him now. But I am prouder of him, perhaps, than I have ever been. As a wounded WWII veteran who later married the woman who would become my mother who, together with him, produced and raised 3 very competent girls, he lived an honorable life. Our mother was the widow of Daddy’s best Army buddy who was killed in WWII (scroll down to read “WWII Letters”). My parents’ wasn’t the best marriage but it worked well enough to produce a line of good women who produced offspring who have, in turn, produced 6 more who have produced another 10 more, still children.

I am so grateful for my heritage, for the Sundays I spent in church next to my parents, looking up at Jesus the Good Shepherd, singing The Old Rugged Cross (to be sung at my father’s funeral tomorrow by a great baritone car dealer) and reading Psalm 23. I am proud to be my father’s daughter.

Thank you, Daddy.

Unmentionables: True Mothering Moments I’m (mostly) Not Proud Of

This list of a few of my very own most unforgettable but rarely-reported events is not chronological and, of course, far from exhaustive.

1. The time my three-year-old son fell into the drainage ditch at the bottom of the big hill we lived on. His father pulled him out looking like an old timey silent screen actor in black face, eyes wide with fright. I remember the awful smell and realizing he might have drowned in sludge.

2. A few years later, on the same property, another son, also 3 (how many kids with decent but distracted parents don’t get past this age?) managed to wreck 3 automobiles at the top of our steep drive by getting into the station wagon in the garage and putting it into reverse or neutral. It rolled slowly (thank you, God), son inside, across the top of the drive and halted against our two other cars (we were rich in cars just then as my husband, sent to buy horseradish for a New Year’s Eve party, had bought a third car instead). Had those two cars not been parked right there, together, this son would likely have rolled off the top of the steep ridge in the newly acquired station wagon onto the neighbor’s house below.

3. Then there was the time I used my this is MY child voice to tell a pediatric neurosurgeon in a big California hospital to stop asking me when I was going to let him do a second, far more invasive, operation on my 4-year-old son’s (yet another son) head. This young hot shot Dr. might just as well have worn his scalpel in a hip holster for all the caring concern he failed to exude. Our boy must have seemed this doc’s best hope for sharpening his craft that particular week. He came by every morning to push for the Bigger Deal Surgery (my term). This doctor had already drilled a hole in my boy’s skull and cleared out the infectious gunk, a task for which we had graciously expressed real thanks to the young doctor. But, every day after, he proceeded to flush that surgical site with some sort of iodine concoction, my boy wide awake and screaming. I did not thank the highly trained doctor for this. I was simply stunned and aghast that such things were done in major hospitals to non-anesthetized sick children, let alone my own dear boy. I know, I know, medicine often hurts. And anesthesia isn’t always medically allowable. Still, isn’t this torture by another name?

The reason mothers might not talk about this stuff is because it hurts too much to realize just how impotent we are to rescue our kids. To the hot shot neurosurgeon, I think I said, “If Dr. S. (the surgeon’s boss) hasn’t said this boy needs more surgery, I’m certainly not going to.” What I ached to say: “I’m going to pray for another head for you to operate on so you will finally go away and leave us alone.” I don’t think I said this because I wanted to sound (be) less nasty and desperate than I actually felt. Plus, I didn’t really want any other kid to have to suffer this way. I just wanted the doctor to leave us alone. Whatever I said, the doc stopped coming and we avoided that bigger (and far more risky) surgery. Doctors should be very wary of the mothers of sick children.

4. On the much lighter side, there were a couple of times when I felt real proud of my multi-tasking mother-self. Like the Southern California summer afternoon when I, Super Woman, managed to simultaneously tend my bigger boys and baby, can some tomatoes, and talk with a friend on the phone…until the line went dead, the coiled phone cord caught under the canning pot against the blue flame of our gas range.

Isn’t it amazing so many kids make it to adulthood? Isn’t it also a wonder most mothers keep their sanity…most days?

Friendship and Hawks

I’ve  just returned from a five day training in the Colorado mountains. Seeing Pike’s Peak blanketed with thick white snow brightened each day. Trudging through the woods before and after meetings, I snapped photos of papery pale blue Pasque wildflowers poking through icy ground and a vibrant blue bird, settled on a snowy pine branch, on two different days. Perhaps one was his cousin.

The training was designed to help Christian workers tell our stories and listen well to the stories of others which may sound easy but isn’t. Though, now and then, I felt awed by the intensity, overall it was an absolutely awesome experience. My soul feels full.

Before the training, my guy and I stayed with friends in Denver whose home we had never been in. In fact, our husbands had not met. After introductions at their front door, we stepped inside and gazed across their living room through tall cathedral panes onto a sweep of rolling terrain rimmed by other homes. Just beyond this wall of windows facing into our friends’ backyard was a thick-trunked tree with twisting barely-budding branches.  A large tubular feeder hung from a low branch, filled with seed. As we watched, small birds took their turns nibbling.

Their turn ended abruptly with the arrival of a large hawk who settled onto a large branch of that tree, facing toward us inside.  If he could see us, he didn’t seem bothered. We were. We darted from one room to another, trying to  get the clearest closest view. We shot photos while animatedly discussing what type of hawk he might be. Maybe a Northern Harrier? He flew between the back fence and tree branch repeatedly as we watched him for more than half an hour. Wow.

When the hawk arrived, the little birds scattered, as did a big brown very furry rabbit who’d been nibbling grass from the spring green lawn. This large bounder somehow squished his large body under the low wooden patio nearby.

I wonder, is a hawk’s life lonely? Beautiful and regal, he didn’t dive for anything while we watched but anything that might be prey fled fast.

We didn’t feel threatened, of course. Not by the hawk or by the unknowns of the coming week. We would be with people we hadn’t met before, engaging in intense activities we didn’t yet get. But, for this day, we had achieved safe harbor here in the home of my friend and her husband. Thanks to their generous hospitality, we had refuge complete with a large window on  God’s creation.

Thanks, Friends, for generously giving us harbor. Thanks, God, for hawks and rabbits, mountains and snow and, especially, new friends.