I guess comments are broken.
DJ Strong- Watching a Momma Barn Owl raising two owlets. They talk to each other and cox each other and the babies have gone from 2 fluffs of feathers into 12" in owls who stay together. Amazing.
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Once as a child I dropped a jar of caught lightning bugs and of course cut my fingers. For the longest time I thought the fireflies had bitten me!
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At fourteen, I was in boarding school in Vermont and every morning I had a breakfast job which meant I had to roll out of bed and walk down âthe hillâ and across the frozen soccer field to serve or clean up the morning meal made by Ula and her apron clad cohorts. All students had a meal job and a maintenance job every day.
The magic is the winter dawn, snow crunching underfoot, mist rising from the frozen stream as you cross the foot bridge to the dining hall, which is in a renovated horse barn. The classes are held in former stalls.
You are welcomed into the warm kitchen with the aroma of coffee. Bread is being toasted and eggs scrambled.Soon the dining hall fills with your friends and teachers, their voices accompanied by the clatter of silverware and the stacking of trays. You are a server, or a dishwasher loader or a mopper: it doesnât matter. You are a part of this community. You belong here.
As a kid from a seriously disfunctional home - this- all of it, was magic.
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Oh my gosh, that picture is amazing!
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A tale of wonder! How to choose? Well, one momentous, wonderful point in my life was when I realized just how easy it actually is to knit with more than one color, and to do it using my right AND left hands. It indeed changed my life. It made me a very happy person. And my knitting has never been the same since.
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Muir woods, standing among those huge trees and realizing how long theyâve been around is crazy.
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My tale of wonder.
My home has been dog-less for almost a year now. Since then, the neighborhood wildlife (of the winged and 4-legged variety) has begun visiting me with greater frequency to fill the vacuum. My garden has taken a real beating since then. The only things still growing are onions, horseradish and coneflowers. The other night I caught a glimpse of a single doe wandering into my back yard. I was about to shoo her into the woods, when two wobbly legged fawns tumbled out after her. They were so funny and playful and teeny-tiny. I found that I just didnât have the heart to startle them. (Besides, I still have onions.)
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High in the Cascade mountains of Oregon, there is a river that disappears into some rocks, and then shoots out of the side of the mountain a hundred feet down the trail. It is unfathomably awesome.
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I remember driving through Oregon the first time and being in awe- the gorge- the mountains- high desert- the ocean- everything was so beautiful in its own way
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Niagara Falls fills me with spiritual joy!
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In response to DG Strong on 6/20.
The other evening, I was in the garden at dusk, watering. I bent down to attach one garden hose to another, and a ROBIN landed on my back, claws trying to gain purchase. I yelped. We were both startled. He flew up to a nearby branch, and we both stood there looking at one another. This was new for both of us.
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In the Louisiana bayou on a warm summer night, an old mason jar with holes in the lid would be transformed in to a nightlight when filled with fireflies by a small Cajun girl.
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Beet Book Entry: Beet salad with Gorgonzola and candied nuts over frisee. Great match
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Tale of Wonder entry: The return of the hummingbirds summer after summer.
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Tale of Wonder: for over and hour, watching the Aurora Borealis dancing in a northern Michigan sky.
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So I guess that I need to repeat my comment on fireflies hereânot sure I can reiterate what I originally wrote but here goes. Some of the inspiring events I love in nature would be the nightly scream of the screech owlets in my backyard and watching them when they first come out of the box to learn to fly. Like little drunken sailors wobbling on the branches or first peaking out of the box and looking at the ground and you can just see the idea in their head about how far down it looks! Or the hummingbird wars over the feeders and watching them dive bomb each other to protect âtheirâ food!
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Many years ago I was camping in the woods. When I woke up in the morning it looked like angels had breathed over the trees. The wild dogwoods had bloomed overnight.
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Moment of wonder: Brood X cicadas! Seventeen years underground, munching on tree roots, the nymphs wait for an unknown signal that itâs time to emerge en masse! You spot the nickel-sized holes in the ground first, and if you look at nearby trees, you can see the exoskeletons left behind. There were just a few at first in my DC-area home, but soon their numbers increased, and then the singing started. Itâs an other-worldly sound, as if Martians had landed. Itâs the males calling to the females that itâs time to par-tay! After the orgy, the females lay their eggs in thin tree branches, which break off and fall to the ground. The nymphs crawl down into the ground, to wait for 17 more years. (I am closely connected to Brood Xâthe first time I experienced them, I was 17).
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A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter â who was a child at the time â asked me, âDaddy, why are you writing so fast?â And I replied, âBecause I want to see how the story turns out!â -Louis LâAmour, novelist (1908-1988)
MY FRIENDâS RESPONSE:
My mother-in-law was an avid knitter and one day I saw her knitting away as fast as she could. When I asked her why, she responded: âIâm short on this yarn and I want to finish this sweater before the yarn runs out.â
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Comments are broken. DJ Strongâs post reminded me of a visit to friends home in Southern Illinois one summer. We sat on their balcony and watched a symphony of fireflies. Reminded me of rock concerts where at the end everyone lit up lighters.
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